Happy Birthday, you s.o.b.!

Today is Machiavelli's birthday; perhaps the exemplification of political cunning. Maybe one of the better examples of poetic justice. He was a fairly powerful politician in Florence during the Renaissance. Thrown in prison by the Medicis when they took control of political power in Florence, he tried to curry favor to them by writing a realistic book on the proper use of politics and power. Unfortunately, after the book was published as The Prince, the Medicis' didn't release him from prison as he expected. Then, when a new republic was established in Italy, no one wanted to give him employment because of the philosophy exemplified by his book. He struggled to survive thereafter, the victim of his own politics.

I guess the lesson here is that the truth may not set you free. Not very theological, but in the case of Machiavelli, quite true.

I guess you could also say that he was hoisted on his own petard. Now I wonder what a petard is.

I looked it up: Petard: (pi tard') n. [Fr. L. pedere, break wind] an explosive device formerly used to break down gates, walls, etc. - hoist with (or by) one's own petard destroyed by the very thing with which one meant to destroy others - Webster's New World Dictionary

When one considers politics and power one might fall prey to the pragmatic allure of Machiavelli and assume that there is no honor among thieves. But in this country, we base our government on the consent of the governed. That being so, we always have the option to vote the bastards out of office, if we don't like what we see them doing. However, this becomes a much more difficult question as the electorate and the elected develop. It is not so simple as getting everybody in the room together to vote like they do in little towns in Vermont. Perhaps its not even that simple in Vermont.

For instance, you might find yourself in Louisiana, where its not always the best person for the job. Its more like the thief you know, rather than the one you don't. Or the lesser of two evils.

And then there is the concept of pork barrel politics. Everyone wants things from their government, but we cry out when someone else gets some project funded when we don't get ours and that doesn't seem fair to us. And the governmental gift-giving goes across party boundaries. Senator Stephens in Alaska, a Republican, is the biggest porker in the bunch. I think they finally stopped the boondoggle of the Stephens Memorial Bridge from the airport in Ketchikan across the inner passage to the city of Ketchikan. What a potential waste. You don't have to have been there to see it, but it helps. Everybody uses that passage, including a lot of cruise liners. And the water itself is one the biggest runways for all those pontoon planes that fly in and out of both sides of the channel. The ferries work fine moving people and cars across from the island where the airport is located to the mainland. Its relatively inexpensive and gets you back and forth without much hassle. But Senator Stephens wanted a bridge from one to the other, which would have been unbelievably expensive, extremely complicated from an engineering perspective and would have forever changed the area on both sides of the channel. But at least Senator Stephens would have a bridge in Alaska with his name on it. Poor Senator Stevens.

Cindy and I are going to Lexington, Virginia in September to a seminar on Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men at Washington and Lee. The seminar will deal with political corruption and the way we deal with it, both legally and politically. I guess I'm subconsciously getting ready for the seminar. I am looking forward to it.

Which reminds me: Happy Birthday, Virginia! Four hundred years and counting! Now, do we have to use this birthday celebration as an opportunity to discuss the evil the English settlers brought to the Native Americans? Thanks National Geographic. How you've changed. In my boyhood, you would have had photographers and artists covering the celebration of the birthday of one of our first states. Instead, you remind us of the bad things the English did to the Native Americans.

Which of course did happen. History is not a one-sided affair. And that is something you need to remember too. We can't all be hardy religious pilgrims aiming for Virginia and landing in Massachusetts, to break bread in tenuous peace and friendship with Squanto and his brothers and sisters. No, sometimes we have to hit our mark and tame the wilderness we aimed for in the first place. Personally, I'd rather cavort with Pocahontas than eat eels with Squanto.

And then sometimes our ancestors get tried in the dock in London for not paying homage to some Dutch or German king who can't speak English. And then they find themselves placed on ships to Charles Town to serve a prison sentence. And then they find that they like the place after they get there.

And so to King William and Queen Mary: thanks for the free transportation for my ancestor. All things considered, I'm glad I'm an American. Sorry about Yorktown and the Revolution.

No, I'm not! And I don't see the other side of the story in that one. Glad we could kick Lord Cornwallis and his redcoat bullies and Hessian mercenaries back to the other side of the pond, where they belonged.