WWWBoard/LT

Renaissance Forum   Humanities & Classics 1002

[ HOME] [ POST ] [ SEARCH ] [ HELP ]

After reading the Prince by Machiavelli I had a few questions that came to mind. If you (personally) could pick one person from today's society that would best fit his description of a perfect leader, who would you choose?

From what I understand of Machiavelli, I think the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, comes to mind as fitting this image. He has his country folk fearing him, yet he still takes care of them. He causes war to stop war.

Maybe I should explain myself. Saddam Hussein does, no matter what we hear from the media, take care of his people, maybe not as best he could, but he still feeds them and keeps jobs open. Yes, he is a cruel leader, but that is only so he can keep control. He knows how much the people of Iraq have suffered, and he has somehow managed to keep their suffering to a minimum/medium.

When war breaks out he uses the people to his benefit, but I think he instigates the fights so that he can continue to stay in power. Every time he has stopped allowing people from the UN to go in and check his weapons, we start to prepare for war, and then he agrees to let them back in. It is a game of cat and mouse, and in this case, I think the US is losing. He knows how the game is played, and he is in control.

I do have to say that I don't agree with the whole Iraqi war situation. I think the US started it and it is now a big mess. I also don't like Saddam, but that isn't the point of this post. I truly think that Machiavelli would be interested in seeing what the type of person he has created in one book would be like in real life.

What does this have to do with the Renaissance time period? I guess I think that if we hadn't lived through the Renaissance time, and people had not begun to think about the freedoms and the knowledge that they then learned about, then we wouldn't have to worry about one country, but about all of the countries. Iraq is one problem, but it is being run by a leader who is following the rule book.

These are my thoughts, I would like to know what country or leader, or person you think would fit well in the rules of Machiavelli.

-Hillary

Follow Ups:

• I have to disagree Matt Baldwin 15:16:25 1/20/99 (0)

POST FOLLOWUP

NAME:
E-MAIL:
SUBJECT:

RESPONSE:
: After reading the Prince by Machiavelli I had a few questions that came to mind. If you (personally) could pick one person from today's society that would best fit his description of a perfect leader, who would you choose? : From what I understand of Machiavelli, I think the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, comes to mind as fitting this image. He has his country folk fearing him, yet he still takes care of them. He causes war to stop war. : Maybe I should explain myself. Saddam Hussein does, no matter what we hear from the media, take care of his people, maybe not as best he could, but he still feeds them and keeps jobs open. Yes, he is a cruel leader, but that is only so he can keep control. He knows how much the people of Iraq have suffered, and he has somehow managed to keep their suffering to a minimum/medium. : When war breaks out he uses the people to his benefit, but I think he instigates the fights so that he can continue to stay in power. Every time he has stopped allowing people from the UN to go in and check his weapons, we start to prepare for war, and then he agrees to let them back in. It is a game of cat and mouse, and in this case, I think the US is losing. He knows how the game is played, and he is in control. : I do have to say that I don't agree with the whole Iraqi war situation. I think the US started it and it is now a big mess. I also don't like Saddam, but that isn't the point of this post. I truly think that Machiavelli would be interested in seeing what the type of person he has created in one book would be like in real life. : What does this have to do with the Renaissance time period? I guess I think that if we hadn't lived through the Renaissance time, and people had not begun to think about the freedoms and the knowledge that they then learned about, then we wouldn't have to worry about one country, but about all of the countries. Iraq is one problem, but it is being run by a leader who is following the rule book. : These are my thoughts, I would like to know what country or leader, or person you think would fit well in the rules of Machiavelli. : -Hillary

LINK URL:
LINK TITLE:
IMAGE URL:

---

[ HOME] [ POST ] [ SEARCH ] [ HELP ]

---

[ FOLLOW UPS ] [ POST FOLLOWUP ]

---

 

v 1.1 is made possbile by:

Original WWWBoard design and code by Matt Wright.  See the original at Matt's Script Acrhive. WWWBoard v2.0a © 1998 Matt Wright. WWWBoard/LT Upgrade by Lion Templin of Leonine Computational Resources.  © 1998 Lion Templin. Tom Bacig, University of Minnesota, Duluth.  © 1998 Tom Bacig.