McCain's policies are two faces looking in opposite directions

And this is different from other politicians?

Doesn't anybody besides the policians read Machiavelli anymore?

It is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always to observe them is injurious, but that to appear to have them is useful. Be and appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, and upright, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you can change to the opposite.


Cheers

You are aware that Machiavelli purposely gave "the prince" bad advice because he hated the guy. Read "The Discourses" for a more balanced view.

You are aware that Machiavelli purposely gave "the prince" bad advice because he hated the guy. Read "The Discourses" for a more balanced view.

That he despised Lorenzo de Medici does not mean that Il Principe was filled with "bad advice" and that Machiavelli thought so. The Medicis were many things, but they were not fools to take "bad advice" from Machiavelli. It is realpolitik.

Nor does it mean that politicians since Machiavelli's time have not read and sadly benefited from taking that advice--which was my point.

The function and point of the Discorsi are not negations of "The Prince." Dedicated to Pope Clement VII, it sets out to do something different--provide the principle ideas behind a republic--not the advice to an individual politician.

Cheers

I visited the church of Santa Croce in Florence a few years back to shop at the leather school.

www.leatherschool.com

On the way in you pass Galileo, Michaelangelo and Machiavelli. It was cool even if they are dead.

I visited the church of Santa Croce in Florence a few years back to shop at the leather school.

www.leatherschool.com

On the way in you pass Galileo, Michaelangelo and Machiavelli. It was cool even if they are dead.

I am envious of the experience.


Cheers

"sets out to do something different--provide the principle ideas behind a republic"

Exactly. Which was his point.