often they elevate the villains and vilify the good ones. from that poem alone it's clear machiavellianism was propaganda against machiavelli.

lulu remembered the flag stick we left hanging from a tree, but she remembered it in the tree of the day before yesterday, i think because we moved it to the new tree at the tail end of the walk and didn't play capture the flagstick. now we left it on the ground by the broken snow fortress let's see if she remembers. 

i like machiavelli. his starting point is the same as a critical thinker's would be today: power corrupts. absolutely. in fact power depends on corruption.