Remember: how rulers rule

As we move into high gear in the election season of 2008, as we listen to the moving life stories, the lilting oratory, the accumulating promises, let us all remember Machiavelli's observation from Discourses on Livy, Book II, Chapter 13: "All rulers rule by force or fraud, more often fraud." He goes on to explain why ruling by fraud is actually better than by force; because fraud kills fewer people.