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The Republican Wisdom of Machiavelli

Posted on 02/18/2015 3:14:56 AM PST by Jacquerie

The accepted dogma among many conservatives is that the way to save what remains of our republic is to vote conservative, constitutionalist, virtuous men and women into office. History shows that to be a blind alley, a dead end that occupies many minds, all the while evil men get away with high crimes.

It’s a pity that electoral history going back decades have failed to disprove their belief. Most of the conservative candidates we send to congress go wobbly, rino or worse. Meanwhile, no congressional rats ever turn conservative.

Clearly, there is something outside the power of personal character and public virtue that has soured the world’s sweetest experiment in liberty.

The Framers weren’t the first to figure out that the key to liberty was division of power. By 1787, that concept, which is largely forgotten today, was actually old hat.

In 1513, a far lesser known influence on our framing generation began a review of the Roman Republic. Drawing chiefly from Livy’s Histories, Niccolo’ Machiavelli took a fresh look at old models. What he drew as Roman lessons for his contemporary republic of Florence, the maxims therein were well known to our Framers and certainly apply today.

From his Discourses on Livy, of fundamental importance to any republic is a government that “establishes in it to take for granted that all men are evil and that they will always act according to the wickedness of their nature whenever they have the opportunity.”

He drew from the experience of early Romans, whom he credited with regularly improving their republic. In general, it was the key to its longevity. In particular, the constant tension between the few and the many was finely tuned over the centuries. Plebs and nobles had their distinct powers, and when one overstepped its bounds, the other was ready to defend its political turf. Through regular improvements to their republic, Machiavelli described early republican Romans as being on the straight path which could lead them to perfection.

From his perspective, republican Rome’s four hundred year life was a successful quest in the achievement of government perfection.

When challenges arose, Rome didn’t revert to the ages old cycle of monarchy/despotism, followed by aristocracy/oligarchy, and finally republicanism blowing up into anarchy.

Consider similarities with the life-cycle of the American Republic. Like the Romans, we started off under monarchs. Upon independence, we established distinct democratic republics. Soon thereafter, a loose governing structure in the form of a state dominated, (federal) confederation proved strong enough to cast off the British yoke. When that structure proved insufficient to secure peacetime public happiness, the people accepted a new design of government in the form of our Constitution, in which the states thoroughly participated, yet they shared power with representatives of the people. As when Rome established Tribunes of the people, America also followed a straight path toward perfection when it included a House of Representatives in its legislative body.

Further improvements in the form of fine adjustments to the republic followed. These include:

1791. Ten Amendments which acknowledged some God-given and societal rights.
1865. An amendment that eliminated the British imposed institution of slavery.
1868. The 14th Amendment that reinforced personal and societal rights guaranteed in the Declaration and Bill of Rights.

Until 1913, Americans remained on the straight path which could lead them to perfection.

Instead of strengthening the republic in the face of societal and economic change, Americans betrayed themselves. Overnight they weakened the freedom enhancing structure of their government. With the 17th Amendment they tossed confederal government and embraced a democratic republic, which history has shown to be precursor to anarchy, followed by tyranny.

They cut and pasted an inferior popular form over a finely tuned freedom enhancing federal form. Without adjusting enumerated powers which were designed with the assumption that the states would forever participate in congress, America substituted freedom with democracy as it’s central tenet.

There isn’t much time to step back on the straight path to republican perfection. Obama is gathering despotic powers as quickly as he can. Little stands in his way.

Yet, we can avoid the historic cycle of despots, oligarchy, democracy, anarchy. Article V of the Constitution is there, it is within our grasp. We must take it, restore federalism, or join history’s long list of failed republics.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; FReeper Editorial; Government; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: articlev; constitution; conventionofstates; machiavelli
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To: Impy; fatman6502002; BillyBoy; fieldmarshaldj

at the time of the Founding, the most important differences between the House and the Senate were:

1. House seats apportioned by state population, while each state got two Senate seats.

2. House members were elected to two-year terms, so turnover could be frequent, while Senate terms lasted six years (three times as long).

3. House members represented individual districts, while Senators represented the entire state.

The fourth difference—that Representatives were elected directly by voters while Senators were elected by the state legislatures—was far less important. Eventually, the purported benefit to state interests of having state legislatures elect Senators was outweighed by the propensity for corruption and back-scratching by state legislators in electing Senators. That election of Senators by state legislatures was deemed inferior to the direct election of Senators was not merely the opinion of the Progressives or the goo-goos (neither of whom I hold in high esteem), but of over 2/3 of the members of each house of Congress (including over 2/3 of Senators *that had been elected by state legislatures*) and of majorities of each house of the state legislature of 3/4 of the states (each of which preferred to abdicate their power in favor of having the voters elect Senators directly).

The direct election of Senators has not contributed one whit to the enlargement of the federal government at the expense of the states. If you’re looking for the main culprit for federal tyranny and the abrogation of state sovereignty, try another constitutional amendment, also ratified in 1913: the 16th Amendment, which empowers the federal government to impose an income tax. The federal income tax, combined with the power later asserted by Congress (and upheld by the Supreme Court) of conditioning federal grants to the state on the implementation of certain policies by the states that could not have been imposed directly by the federal government (because they went beyond the enumerated and implied powers of Congress), gutted the Framers’ concept of federalism, as the federal government could levy income taxes on citizens of a state and, after thus removing a huge chunk of the state’s wealth, offered to return it to the state only if the state danced to the federal government’s tune. The enumerated and implied powers of Congress—which had been envisioned by the Framers as the main bulwark against federal tyranny—had been made irrelevant, given that Congress could get around it by taxing the bejeezus out of a state’s citizens and then forcing states to do its bidding in order to get back part of their money.

If there’s one constitutional amendment that should be repealed, it’s the 16th Amendment. Not only is railing against the 17th Amendment a distraction, but it would leave us far worse off were the campaign to return to state-legislature election of Senators be successful. I want the people of Texas, not its state legislators—electing their Senators; and thank God that’s the case, since it’s the sole reason why Ted Cruz, not RINO David Dewhurst, represents Texas in the U.S. Senate.


61 posted on 02/18/2015 12:07:24 PM PST by AuH2ORepublican (If a politician won't protect innocent babies, what makes you think that he'll defend your rights?)
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To: AuH2ORepublican

What kind of federal tax structure would you favor?


62 posted on 02/18/2015 12:15:40 PM PST by Impy (They pull a knife, you pull a gun. That's the CHICAGO WAY, and that's how you beat the rats!)
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To: Jacquerie

Jacquerie, it’s nice to see someone here who seems to get that it’s not so much about electing the “hero-politician”. Your emphasis is on repealing the 17A to get stronger state representation while mine is focused state nullification, the Constitution, and the people. I think we’re pulling in the same direction and you’re one of a few on FR that doesn’t seem to get caught up in the “hero-politician” frenzy that is once again heating up for 2016.


63 posted on 02/18/2015 12:20:08 PM PST by PapaNew (The grace of God & freedom always win the debate in the forum of ideas over unjust law & government)
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To: BillyBoy
If the anti-17thers REALLY wanted to "restore our Republic to how the founders envisioned it"

Right there in your second sentence you undermine your own ad hominem.

The 12th amendment was proposed by Congress in 1803 and ratified in 1804, by the same Framers of the Constitution ratified just 15 years earlier. They were fixing procedural problems that arose in the 1796 and 1800 elections.

Given that the 12th amendment was proposed by the same people, it is how the Framers envisioned it.

The 17th amendment was proposed by Congress in 1912, over a hundred years after the passing of the Framers.

A stupid, pointless attack.

-PJ

64 posted on 02/18/2015 12:29:20 PM PST by Political Junkie Too (If you are the Posterity of We the People, then you are a Natural Born Citizen.)
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To: Impy

National sales tax, substantially similar to the FairTax proposal that’s been in Congress for around 15 years now (first introduced by John Linder). It could be made non-regressive (which normally is a problem for sales taxes) by sending a check to every family for the amount of sales tax that would be paid by a family of such size that spends money at what the Commerce Department declares to be “poverty-level spending.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairTax

For example, if the national sales tax were 30% (which is 23% tax-inclusive, which is the way that income taxes are computed; it would be $23 on top of every $77 spent, for a $100 total), and the Commerce Department deemed poverty-level spending on the goods and services to which the sales tax applied to be $10,000 (tax exclusive) a year for a family of four, then every family of four would receive a refund of $3,000 a year (which could be a monthly check of $250). If a family of four only buys necessities, and thus spends only $10,000 (tax exclusive) a year on items to which the sales tax applies, then such families’ effective tax rate on purchases subject to the tax would be 0% (given that it would have paid $3,000 in taxes and received a refund for the same amount). However, if a family of four spends $300,000 (tax exclusive) a year on items subject to the sales tax (as would be the case for many wealthy families), such families’ effective tax rate on purchases subject to the tax would be 29% (given that it would have paid $90,000 in taxes and received a refund for $3,000). So the national sales tax would not be regressive, and each family basically can give itself a tax cut by *spending less money*. And a sales tax would not penalize work or capital creation, as is the case of income and capital-gain taxes (where success is a taxable event).

And to ensure that the federal government doesn’t use the national sales tax to continue the subjugation of the states, the amendment that repeals the 16th Amendment should have a separate section that sets forth that Congress cannot condition grants to the state on such states implementing policies that Congress does not have the power to implement itself.


65 posted on 02/18/2015 12:44:15 PM PST by AuH2ORepublican (If a politician won't protect innocent babies, what makes you think that he'll defend your rights?)
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To: cotton1706
Yes, Machiavelli's Chapter Two was my source. Like John Adams, both thought mixed government had proved the best.

I haven't read Algernon Sidney yet, but certainly intend to. 17th Century England was a wild time in which Whig views dovetailed in the 18th Century with America's long experience in self-government.

Its a shame the language of the Enlightenment in 21st century America is unintelligible to so many.

66 posted on 02/18/2015 1:00:50 PM PST by Jacquerie (Article V. If not now, when?)
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To: Political Junkie Too; Impy; fieldmarshaldj
>> The 12th amendment was proposed by Congress in 1803 and ratified in 1804, by the same Framers of the Constitution ratified just 15 years earlier. <<

Really? So by that logic, the Congress in 2013 that applauded the Supreme Court striking down DOMA was "the same" as the one that originally passed it 19 years earlier in 1996, and they were just "adjusting" procedural problems that arose with it. After all, numerous people who were in Congress back in 1996 were still there in 2013.

Sorry, my friend, there may have been some overlap in membership of both bodies, but the Congress in 1804 certainly was NOT identical to the constitutional convention that convinced in 1787 to draft and ratify the U.S. Constitution. Much had changed in 17 years since those two events. The people who met in 1787 discussed the possibility of having the Vice President being selected by the President, and explicitly shot it down and rejected the idea. The Congress in 1804 disagreed with the decision from two decades earlier, and decided the method that had been originally rejected was a better idea.

Likewise, some of the framers felt that the U.S. Senate should have been elected back in 1787. James Wilson was "a founding father", a signer of the Declaration of Independence, AND a member of the Constitutional Convention who SUPPORTED having an elected U.S. Senate (obviously, he must hate America and wanted to "destroy our Republic") He proposed the idea at the time. It was discussed and rejected at the time, and just like the 12th amendment. Both were reintroduced years later when the original method failed to work as the framers intended.

>> The 17th amendment was proposed by Congress in 1912, over a hundred years after the passing of the Framers. <<

Indeed. And the 16th amendment (remember, 16 comes BEFORE 17) was proposed and passed a 100% state legislature appointed U.S. Senate from 1910-1913. Not a single Senator who voted for it was elected by the people. That very fact kills your argument that a state legislature appointed U.S. Senate would represent "state interests" and NEVER engage in massive sweeping federal laws.

67 posted on 02/18/2015 1:13:48 PM PST by BillyBoy (Impeach Obama? Yes We Can!)
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To: BillyBoy

Post 17th amendment — The Senate is the club for the rich and those of the aristocratic and nobility temperament.

You’re just like the author described, one of those that don’t realize you can’t have a corrupt free government.

Your notion about the 17th is typical brain washed two party system believer.


68 posted on 02/18/2015 1:22:35 PM PST by Usagi_yo
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To: PapaNew
Yeah, I gave up Waiting for Superman long ago. Most Pubbies can't wait for a secular savior.

If we don't restore federalism soon, I fear we'll lurch the other way.

By that, I mean the average American is tired of being stomped on, of being told his country and heritage and Christianity stinks. He's tired of the disappearance of middle class jobs and the rise of the wealthy government employee class. He wants illegal aliens and muzzies gone.

We are ripe for the rise of a demagogue, a mirror image of Obama who promises to restore republicanism through a short period of authoritarianism. We might get a George Washington, but I fear our lot will more resemble a Napoleon or worse.

69 posted on 02/18/2015 1:23:23 PM PST by Jacquerie (Article V. If not now, when?)
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To: DiogenesLamp

A balanced budget amendment would have to be coupled to a repealing the income tax amendment or else they would just balance the budget by taxing us harder which doesn’t sound better IMO.


70 posted on 02/18/2015 1:34:13 PM PST by RC one (Militarized law enforcement is just a politically correct way of saying martial law enforcement.)
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To: Political Junkie Too; BillyBoy; Impy; fieldmarshaldj

“The 12th amendment was proposed by Congress in 1803 and ratified in 1804, by the same Framers of the Constitution ratified just 15 years earlier.”


How many members of Congress in December 1803 (when the 12th Amendment was approved by 2/3 of each house of Congress) participated in the Constitutional Convention during that long, hot summer of 1787 in Philadelphia? (Remember, only Delegates to the Constitutional Convention may be deemed to be “Framers” of the Constitution, since not a word or comma of the original Constitution was changed after the Delegates signed it and it was ratified by the states.) I’ll answer the question for you: only three—Senators Abraham Baldwin of GA, Jonathan Dayton of NJ and Pierce Butler of SC. If you wish to see for yourself, here are the members of the 8th Congress: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8th_United_States_Congress.
And here are the Delegates to the Constitutional Convention: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_Convention_(United_States).

So out of 34 Senators and 142 Representatives in Congress when it approved the 12th Amendment in December 1803, only 3 of them were Delegates to the Constitutional Convention. That’s 1.7%, which is not much higher than the 0% that were in Congress when the 17th Amendment was approved.

And do you know what else? Two of the Framers that were in the Senate in December 1803 (Dayton and Butler) voted *against* the approval of the 12th Amendment. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llac&fileName=013/llac013.db&recNum=102 So only one Delegate to the Constitutional Convention voted in favor of the approval of the 12th Amendment when it was approved by Congress in December 1803: Senator Abraham Baldwin of Georgia. One guy! And on the strength of a single Delegate to the Constitutional Convention having voted for the 12th Amendment when it was approved by Congress you base your assertion that the 12th Amendment was adopted by “the same Framers of the Constitution.” Suffice it to say, it appears that your comment is inapposite.

You characterized BillyBoy’s riff that 17th Amendment opponents likewise should seek to repeal the 12th Amendment as “stupid” and “pointless.” Given that only one Framer of the Constitution voted to approve the 12th Amendment in Congress, what words should we use to characterize your false assertion that “[g]iven that the 12th [A]mendment was proposed by the same people, it is how the Framers envisioned it”?


71 posted on 02/18/2015 1:37:34 PM PST by AuH2ORepublican (If a politician won't protect innocent babies, what makes you think that he'll defend your rights?)
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To: RC one
A balanced budget amendment would have to be coupled to a repealing the income tax amendment or else they would just balance the budget by taxing us harder which doesn’t sound better IMO.

I did mention not permitting any increases in revenue.

Yes, it is axiomatic that the current crowd in Washington will simply raise taxes, and they need to be completely barred from increasing revenue in any way shape or form.

They must be FORCED to live within the budget they currently receive, and forbidden from getting any more money.

And then we need to start cutting the budget year after year.

72 posted on 02/18/2015 1:44:02 PM PST by DiogenesLamp
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To: Impy

The reason why we have a bicameral legislature and that Senators were appointed by the state legislatures and each state was equally represented in the Senate vs the House of Reps which were apportioned by population and directly elected by the people in their individual districts, was to represent the distinct interests that the founders wanted represented in each house of the Legislature. I.e., Senators represented the various states interests and Reps in the House represented their districts interests, that is why the House of Representatives is referred to as the Peoples House. That distinction; the different interests represented by the tow houses of Congress is what made the US a Federal Republic. The fact is you have no idea of which you speak and it is you who sounds very stupid. One other note, you have no idea what the politics of any of the various Senators would be, i.e., whether we would have a Senate full of Rino’s or of Ted Cruz’s. In fact if you take the time to add it all up the R’s would have somewhere in the neighborhood of 67 Senators if not for the 17th Amendment and since most of the states that are wholly governed by the R’s are down south and out west there is a very good chance that a relatively large number of those R Senators would be quite conservative. There would also be much less party interference without the 17th as states would seek to protect themselves from the abuses of the Feds and of course there is the issue of campaign contributions, or to be accurate legalized bribes from big money interests that now dominate the Senate and give us a leader like McConnell that is bound and determined to give the Chamber of Commerce amnesty, were he beholden to the Kentucky state legislature that would likely not be the case. Protecting the individual states from federal abuses and executive overreach was the whole idea of having a Senate where each state was equally represented by Senators beholden to the individual state legislatures. Thank you for the history lesson but it is obvious you do not know what you’re lecturing about. The 17th Amendment is the reason why our Federal Government has so easily overstepped it’s bounds and now dominates absolutely the business of the states; it is why we have such huge debt and why DC is so dysfunctional. We need it repealed so we can return the US to being a Republic. Only those who are progressives at heart like the 17th Amendment it is what has allowed them to take over the government bureaucracy over the last 100 years, I do not expect you to understand that but it is true never-the-less. Remember who it was that pushed for ratification of the 17th, it was the progressives of early 20th century, Woodrow Wilson for one. Think about this, why would progressives want the 17th Amendment ratified? Just look to where the country has come since 1913 and the answer is clear to anyone who cares to see it.


73 posted on 02/18/2015 1:59:49 PM PST by fatman6502002 ((The Team The Team The Team - Bo Schembechler circa 1969))
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To: Jacquerie

The underlying, fundamental cause of our malaise is a spiritual issue that took root in America around the beginning of the 20th Century: a world-wide turn from faith in and reliance on God to the devices, schemes, and reliance on man. There is no political solution to that problem.

A lot of what we see on the Right and on the Left is symptomatic of trusting in man. What you fear is a very real possibility, even probability. I mean, you go far enough to the Left and it meets up with the (true) far Right of dictatorship.

Nevertheless, those of us with faith in the Lord can influence those without and can influence enlightened solutions. I advance what I believe are good alternatives to our downward progress, but I also trust the Lord that He will bless and take care of his own, regardless of what the world does.


74 posted on 02/18/2015 2:02:06 PM PST by PapaNew (The grace of God & freedom always win the debate in the forum of ideas over unjust law & government)
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To: AuH2ORepublican

“The direct election of Senators has not contributed one whit to the enlargement of the federal government at the expense of the states.”

Yes it did, in fact it is almost 100% responsible for the growth in the power and spending of the federal Government of the last 100 years, it is why the states are nearly extinct vis-a-vis having political power to reign in the Federal Government or a runaway Executive precisely because Senators are no longer beholden to their state legislature. And because since the ratification Senators are beholden to the people who are very susceptible to the freebies that politicians promise them to buy their vote, which is why we had two legislative houses, one to be beholden to the people directly and one to be beholden to the state legislature and both combining to make law through compromise of those competing interests. The problem of runaway overly powerful federal government, i.e., an imbalance in the needed balance of power tilted towards federal power, has only gotten worse since then. It is also why so many of the people look to the Federal Government to solve their problems with one size fits all remedies, rather than looking to their state and local governments for unique problem resolution that fits their parochial needs. There is no mystery as to why the growth of the federal government, and it’s spending with less and less constraint, which was supposed to be provided by the Senate representing state interests, has exploded since the 17th was ratified. It is only a mystery to those who refuse to acknowledge the facts.


75 posted on 02/18/2015 2:16:08 PM PST by fatman6502002 ((The Team The Team The Team - Bo Schembechler circa 1969))
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To: AuH2ORepublican
They weren't the only ones involved, even if only a few where in Congress at the time.

Adams and Jefferson when't Framers because they were in France at the time, but they were Founders and the 1796 and 1800 elections at the center of it all were theirs. Jefferson was president at the time, and Madison was in Jefferson's Cabinet. Alexander Hamilton was playing spoiler and King-maker. John Jay also ran in the elections in question.

So yes, the Framers were very much interested players in this. I can't imagine that they remained silent given that this amendment arose from their peers as a result of their own elections.

PJ

76 posted on 02/18/2015 2:21:10 PM PST by Political Junkie Too (If you are the Posterity of We the People, then you are a Natural Born Citizen.)
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To: PapaNew

Faith can move mountains but it cannot stop out of control politicians or a runaway federal government composed of out of control politicians. I respect your faith but at some time you have to come back to reality and realize that praying is not going to affect politicians who simply seek more power. Only getting back to the proper balance of power, which was instilled to prevent a reliance upon man, and was thrown out of wack and so far off by the ratification of the 17th can do it in reality. It was the ratification of the 17th that has allowed for the Godless politicians to take over as they have, but this is not a problem of faith per se, although I agree there is a faith problem in the country, but that is not the cause of the imbalance of power between the states and the feds, that is a Constitutional problem that can only be solved by repealing the 17th.


77 posted on 02/18/2015 2:24:18 PM PST by fatman6502002 ((The Team The Team The Team - Bo Schembechler circa 1969))
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To: BillyBoy
So by that logic, the Congress in 2013 that applauded the Supreme Court striking down DOMA was "the same" as the one that originally passed it 19 years earlier in 1996s

Did I miss where DOMA was in the Constitution in the first place? Maybe the Congress that passed the 21st might be a better example.

-PJ

78 posted on 02/18/2015 2:32:09 PM PST by Political Junkie Too (If you are the Posterity of We the People, then you are a Natural Born Citizen.)
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To: fatman6502002

“Yes it did, in fact it is almost 100% responsible for the growth in the power and spending of the federal Government of the last 100 years, it is why the states are nearly extinct vis-a-vis having political power to reign in the Federal Government or a runaway Executive precisely because Senators are no longer beholden to their state legislature.”


Is this why the 16th (Income Tax) Amendment was approved by 2/3 of the Senate *prior* to the 17th Amendment being ratified? It was Senators appointed by state legislatures that approved the federal income tax and destroyed traditional federalism. I guess those directly elected Senators got on their time machine and adopted the 16th Amendment, and then adopted the 17th Amendment, and the Senators elected by state legislatures had nothing to do with it. It’s a good thing for you 17h Amendment opponents that you discovered the Directly Elected Senators Time Machine, since it solves all of your problems.


79 posted on 02/18/2015 2:45:06 PM PST by AuH2ORepublican (If a politician won't protect innocent babies, what makes you think that he'll defend your rights?)
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To: Jacquerie
...a government that “establishes in it to take for granted that all men are evil and that they will always act according to the wickedness of their nature whenever they have the opportunity.”

Nick wasn't wrong. The Medici ended up enhancing his stature a bit courtesy of a nice racking. I can think of a few American politicians who would benefit from similar treatment.

80 posted on 02/18/2015 2:47:53 PM PST by Billthedrill
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