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Is the US Government Machiavellian enough to orchestrate the recent brouhaha over the so-called website WikiLeaks, is this a real embarrassment, or will it indeed be damaging as some U.S. diplomats claim? I am not one to support conspiracy theories but when you stop to analyze the content of the information that was leaked it seem that two things emerge: first, the content of the cables were not so earth shattering as to damage national security, or harm Washington’s relations with other countries. Second, upon further analysis, it would appear that the information revealed instead sends a strong message to...

IT may seem rather unkind to express some serious doubts about US President Barack Obama just now. He is wowing the UN with talk of nuclear disarmament. He is mesmerising the Group of 20 with talk of global recovery. He is leading a policy review that talks of winning in Afghanistan and he will not send more troops in response to the request of the US military commander in Afghanistan... He has stirred hearts in the Middle East with talk of peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. And from October 1 he will be talking directly with the Iranians...

Book Review: Leslie H. Gelb, Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy, Harper-Collins Publishers, 2009. by Wayne Lusvardi The 15th century ambassador of the city-state of Florence, Italy, Niccolo Machiavelli wrote: “There are three kinds of intelligence: one kind understands things for itself, the other appreciates what others can understand, the third understands neither for itself nor through others. This first kind is excellent, the second good, and the third kind useless.” Whether Leslie H. Gelb's book Power Rules falls into the first or the second of Machiavelli's three types of intelligence is the question to be...

Some five hundred years ago Niccolo Machiavelli discussed liberalism: “And there is nothing wastes so rapidly as liberality, for even whilst you exercise it you lose the power to do so, and so become either poor or despised, or else, in avoiding poverty, rapacious and hated. And a prince should guard himself, above all things, against being despised and hated; and liberality leads you to both. Therefore it is wiser to have a reputation for meanness which brings reproach without hatred, than to be compelled through seeking a reputation for liberality to incur a name for rapacity which begets reproach...

Quotes: Machiavelli – CONCERNING LIBERALITY AND MEANNESSNote the distinction between the terms; either you are liberal or you are mean. This is according to the view of the citizen; either you give to them, or you do not.Some politicians have gone to great lengths to portray the rich as another type of citizen, almost an enemy of the people. In doing so, they now have the masses believing that taking from the rich is a noble cause; especially if they are to receiveservices from this legal plunder. START EXCERPT COMMENCING then with the first of the above-named characteristics, I say...

It was a daring political move that the exiled Niccolo Machiavelli, his career in ruin, made in 1512 from his family farm south of Florence. He had sent a short treatise, "The Prince" (Il Principe), as an offering of counsel to the most powerful man in Florence, Lorenzo (called "the Magnificent") de Medici, the man who himself had ordered Machiavelli's dismissal and exile. The cover letter is as masterly as the treatise. "Take this little gift," Machiavelli wrote, "in the spirit I send it, and if you read it diligently you will discover in it my urgent wish that you...

In the patois of punditry, “charismatic” has come to mean little more than “like a rock star.” But the striking thing about the charismatic leader is the extent to which his followers regard him as a healer of wounds, an alleviator of pain. In this sense, surely, Senator Barack Obama is charismatic. The carefully knotted ties and the dark, conservatively tailored suits only accentuate the exoticness of his shamanism; he has entered the American psyche not as a hero but as a healer. The country, or much of it, has longed for such a figure, a man from the once-oppressed...

It was nearly 10 p.m. on New Year's Eve, 1982. Two officers on New York Police Department's elite bomb squad rushed to headquarters at One Police Plaza, where minutes earlier an explosion had destroyed the entrance to the building. Lying amid the carnage was Police Officer Rocco Pascarella, his lower leg blasted off. "He was ripped up like someone took a box cutter and shredded his face," remembered Detective Anthony Senft, one of the bomb-squad officers who answered the call 25 years ago. "We really didn't even know that he was a uniformed man until we found his weapon, that's...

"European bankers and the dollar holocaust" OK, this article isn't finished yet, but I was thinking like "why not publish what I've written so far beforehand, the topic is a highly important one and people here on Free Republic aren't whiners, sure they'll forgive me for saving this draft for later forum abuse and instead I could go treat my sore European intellect to some Absolut and b-movies". I'm on holiday, actually. The unfinished article (please comment!!): "Personally, I'm not born of banking stock. My forebears here in Sweden (yes, I am, again, trying to write an article in English...

by Richard Lawrence Poe Friday, February 29, 2008 ArchivesPermanent Link I ADDRESS this column to that new breed of conservative, the Hillarycon. These are conservatives who support Hillary Clinton. Below I describe the three types of Hillarycon and explain why each is wrong. TYPE 1: The Innocent Hillarycon The first type is the most well-meaning, but possibly the most deluded. Innocent Hillarycons view Hillary as a weaker candidate than Obama, and thus seek to help Hillary win the nomination. They are wrong. Hillary's weakness is an illusion. She is playing rope-a-dope with Obama. By hanging on the ropes, and...

This column is another in a series of articles I have written on the duplicity of human nature. Other pieces I've written in this genre include: "Sen. Barbara Boxer and Secretary of State Condolezza Rice ("What is Plantation Liberalism?"); Ira Einhorn and Al Gore (The cult of Celebrity"); Oprah and Barak Obama ("Queen Oprah and her anointed squire"); Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe vs. Truth ("A letter to professor Laurence Tribe on Veritas"), among others. Here, I would like to explore some of the more seductive similarities between Hillary and Machiavelli. Who was Machiavelli? He was an Italian Renaissance...

Politics have no relation to morals. The end justifies the means. – Machiavelli I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president! – Hillary Rodham Clinton (as first lady) This column is another in a series of articles I have written on the duplicity of human nature. Other pieces I've written in this genre include: "Sen. Barbara Boxer and Secretary of State Condolezza Rice ("What is Plantation Liberalism?"); Ira Einhorn and Al Gore (The cult of Celebrity"); Oprah and Barak Obama ("Queen Oprah and her anointed squire"); Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe vs. Truth...

Matos McGreevey once stood shellshocked next to her ex-husband, then-New Jersey Gov. James E. McGreevey, as he announced before TV cameras that he was "a gay American" and would resign."I was watching his wife the other day standing next to him, and I thought, 'Oh my gosh, that was me three years ago. Now here we go again,'" Matos McGreevey said in an interview at her home Friday evening. "She's a victim of the choices he's made."James McGreevey, the nation's first openly gay governor, later said he stepped down rather than succumb to a $50 million blackmail threat from...

Everyone who has seriously studied the works of Machiavelli agrees that he believed in the superiority of a Republican form of government, defined as a mixed constitution with elements of monarchy (President), aristocracy (Senate, Congress plus others), and notably democracy for the common man. After purchasing this program to study I have a better understanding of what is working right and what is going wrong in our country. Some of the major points are that any successful Republics must control taxes as people who are over taxed are not easy to control. A well-governed people pay little in the way...

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, July 20, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - World famous opponent of South African apartheid, Nelson Mandela, celebrated his 89th birthday last Wednesday by announcing the formation of a Global council of elders, known simply as "The Elders."So far The Elders includes Kofi Annan, Desmond Tutu, Gro Harlem Brundtland, Mary Robinson, Jimmy Carter, Li Zhaoxing, Muhammad Yunus, Ela Bhatt, Graca Machel, and, of course, Nelson Mandela.  The group of high-profile international leaders is intended to be an independent body of "wise" men and women that will use their combined experience to solve any of the host of problems currently...

NOTE: I RECEIVED THIS SECRET EMAIL TONIGHT FROM A SECRET SOURCE DEEP WITHIN THE WHITEHOUSE POLITICAL OPERATIONS GROUP. I CANNOT REVEAL THE SOURCE OF THIS CONFIDENTIAL INFO. THIS IS AN EXCERPT... (please pass this info along to your frineds, and ask them to also pass it along....also ask them to send a small donation to my Internet Service provider, a Mr Smith who is located in Nigeria.) "You guys just don't get it!!! (:0( In your hyperbolic hysterical zeal to wallow in your whiny Bush Derangement Syndrome...you all have neglected the obvious...this Comprehensive Immigration Wealth Redistribution Bill was designed by...

May 25, 2007, 0:00 a.m. Double Agent KarlMachiavelli takes a look at the immigration bill. By John O'Sullivan From the desk of Nick Machiavelli, Senior Partner, Machiavelli, O’Blarney, Iago, Alcibiades, and Morris, Political Consultants To: Karl Rove, The Smoke-Filled Room, Air Force One, Somewhere in North America My Dear Karl, When Lilith picked up your call on the answering service, I told her firmly that we must not say “I told you so.” And we won’t, really. But since you ask, I don’t think this thing is going to work. Take a look, first, at the coalition you have...

5-year term for investigator in forgery case - "I believe that the death penalty is illegal...It is barbaric and an atrocity...Any acts I committed are out of a firm belief against the state killing these people." Mark Martin, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau Tuesday, May 1, 2007 (05-01) 04:00 PDT Sacramento -- A former criminal defense investigator accused of forging statements from jurors, witnesses and others in death penalty cases pleaded guilty to four charges Monday and accepted a five-year prison sentence. Kathleen Culhane, 40, said outside a Sacramento courtroom that she filed incorrect documents on behalf of five condemned inmates because...

On How to Treat the Populace of Iraq After Their Insurgency Niccolo Machiavelli - Paraphrased (The Pasadena Pundit - April 10, 2007) (Appearing before the Congress, Gen. David Patraeus spoke of) what should be done with the territories and cities of Iraq. These are the words he used, and the decision that the Congress reached, more or less verbatim, as (the resurrected ancient Roman historian) Livy reports them: "Congressmen! What needed to be done in Iraq with armies and wars has, by grace of god and the skill of our soldiers, been done. Slaughtered are the enemy armies of the...

...Machiavelli again cites the example of Borgia in taking up the question of "whether it is better to be loved than feared." Not unsurprisingly, Machiavelli writes that, if one had to choose, it is better to be feared than loved: "Cesare Borgia was considered cruel; nonetheless, that cruelty united Romagna and brought it peace and stability. On careful reflection, he was more merciful than the Florentines, who, in order to avoid being seen as cruel, allowed Pistoia to be destroyed." Machiavelli (like Borgia himself) has been accused, unfairly, of glorifying cruelty and treachery. This is not the case. Machiavelli wrote...