Borgia

I was reading some random passages from the Prince yesterday; mostly just passages I had marked when I read it a few years ago. In Chapter III (Composite Principalities), Machiavelli noted something the Romans did in the lands they conquered:

"The Romans, in the countries they seized, did watch these matters carefully. They established settlements, supported the weaker powers without increasing their strength, crushed the powerful, and did not allow any powerful foreigner to gain prestige."

The line that stands out to me is "supported weaker powers without increasing their strength." As with much of Machiavelli's treatise, many principles can be applied to many facets of politics, policy, and power.

I have often said to myself that reading the Prince should be a requirement before getting into politics. It appears that some politicians have indeed read it and apply the tactic in the quoted passage to something else instead of management of conquered foreign lands. I'll leave it to you, the reader, to guess which party and which group of people (voters) I am referring to.

One more thing: since graduation time is around the corner and the MSM will surely publish a sob story about students somewhere who won't be graduating because they could not pass an exit exam on five attempts. Maybe we can heed the smattering of calls to scrap the exam. Give those students who can't pass in five tries a copy of the Prince. Have them read it and do a presentation on it. Not a book report - take a principle from it, discuss it, defend or refute how it can be or has been applied (or misapplied) by someone in history; something that proves a comprehensive understanding of the text.