Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared to acknowledge that the Pentagon has developed plans to take over Greenland and Panama by force if necessary but refused to answer repeated questions during a hotly combative congressional hearing Thursday about his use of Signal chats to discuss military operations.
Democratic members of the House Armed Services Committee repeatedly got into heated exchanges with Hegseth, with some of the toughest lines of questioning coming from military veterans as many demanded yes or no answers and he tried to avoid direct responses about his actions as Pentagon chief.
In one back-and-forth, Hegseth did provide an eyebrow-raising answer. Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., asked whether the Pentagon has plans to take Greenland or Panama by force if necessary.
Machiavelli had some useful points.
like the whole, “if you rule through fear to keep people in line, they’ll take your head off the moment you’re weak” observation.
deleted by creator
oh. he was a total asshole. But even he respected the need for representation and to constrain the elites from doing shit. At least, he was later on. (See Discourse on Livy)
I’m just saying, assholes like trump being all Machiavellian seem to forget the whole “we know how behead” aspect of being an assholish monarch.
Was he an asshole? Or was he writing a commission with malicious compliance? For a historically verified asshole?
One interpretation is that he was commissioned to write a bland moral guide for a young prince, but got all satirical and close to the bone.
Machiavelli wanted a Republic, another inyerpretation is he put in a bunch of bad advice in the hopes of them taking it and being overthrown.