Posted on 05/08/2019 9:37:39 AM PDT by Perseverando
I’ll check it out, thanks for posting it.
Good article...but one thing to keep in mind about Machiavelli...he was not espousing the things he wrote...he was acting as an observer to the political scene at the time.
Most people tend to think Machiavelli both thought of and supported what he wrote of, the reality is, he was simply describing how he interpreted actions in the corridors of power in his time.
“...some one who sets a fire at the back of your house and then knocks on the door offereing to sell you a fire extinguisher...”
Certainly there are no people who would do this in today’s world!
Machiavelli explained how people actually want to believe lies from their leaders:
“Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions.”
“Men are so simple and yield so readily to the desires of the moment that he who will trick will always find another who will suffer to be tricked.”
“One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.”
“Franklin D. Roosevelt gave Hoover the task of investigating foreign espionage and left-wing socialist and communist activists infiltrating the country.”
That means Hoover should have started within the Roosevelt administration itself.
The FBI use to go after Communists. Now.....it is run by Communists.
Good observation. Machiavelli was a dedicated Florentine civil servant, who wound up betrayed by the city-state he served well. He had every reason to be bitter.
Good gosh, the reality and truth of those three quotes are the foundation of so much misery today and in the past.
That’s why I call the followers (not the leadership) of the demoKKKrat party, the easily scammed.
J.Edgar was a simple man with simple needs.Just throw him an 8 year old boy from time to time and he was happy.
Who do you think gave "Tail-gunner Joe", Nixon and the "House UnAmerican Activities Committee" their information? All of which was proven to be true when the Soviet Union fell and the KGB files were thrown open.
Evidence???
First-hand experience???
I have read Machiavelli several times over the years.
I found his tactics very useful when my employer, an aerospace giant, was in serious competition with our equally ruthless adversary.
A few times I succeeded such as the time that I got the incumbent contractor disqualified from bidding on his own contract. We won.
You would not believe the things that companies do to win multi billion dollar contracts.
The tactics that worked in Europe hundreds of years ago will not work against a free people with good information and arms.
Above all, we need INTEL about our opponents and the will to destroy them when we go to battle with them.
Ref another classical author, Sun Tzu, said, “When you invade the enemy’s country, pillage and lay waste to it so that you become stronger while he becomes weaker”.
My advice to DJT would be to “asset strip” those in the coup and his lethal enemies. E.g., if the IRS investigated the Clinton Foundation, they could seize the assets for the use of the American people. Or, we could actually rebuild the economy of Haiti which the Clintons did not even attempt.
Yes. His two books, written after he had been exiled from Florence, were an extended entreaty to the new Florentine masters, trying to show he knew how to “play the game” in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to get back into the civil service.
McCarty and the Birchers were right.
Oh, please, what Machiavelli wrote was that the “ends justify the means SOMETIMES” when there is a national emergency that threatens the survival of the nation (war, corruption, waves of immigration, rebellions, etc.). In all other situations Machiavelli wrote that conventional (Christian) morality should prevail. Machiavelli even wrote a Christian sermon — “On Penitence” — on why leaders of nations who have do to use evil means (like Truman dropping A-bombs on Japan) to protect their nation need to be penitent afterward.
He should be remembered for Discourses on Livy, which was among the works that influenced our Framers.
What was the “Oh, please” for?
I was making the point that he didn’t subscribe to many of the “Machavellian” (evil) things he observed...he was simply relaying what he saw and explaining them with respect to human nature.
I don’t disagree that he might find that the ends will occasionally justify the means.
Perhaps I misunderstood the nature of your post. It seemed snippy where I didn’t feel that tone was justified.
People on the right are too eager to take the Kabuki Theater at face value, which the UniParty wants. They should heed Machiavelli.
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