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This is an excellent pick for being a featured article - everyone who's worked on this - RJJenson especially- awesome job.--<small>[[User:Iduan|<span style="color: #FFCCCC; background: #660000">I]][[User_talk:Iduan|<span style="color:#CCCCFF; background:#000033">Duan]]</span></span></small> 22:39, 2 May 2009 (EDT)
This is an excellent pick for being a featured article - everyone who's worked on this - RJJenson especially- awesome job.--<small>[[User:Iduan|<span style="color: #FFCCCC; background: #660000">I]][[User_talk:Iduan|<span style="color:#CCCCFF; background:#000033">Duan]]</span></span></small> 22:39, 2 May 2009 (EDT)
==Introduction==
The introduction contains some biased language and comments and I created an account specifically because it does not appear to be objective. I acknowledge this site has a conservative viewpoint but comments like "the best prose writer" are completely unnecessary and could easily be changed into "considered one of the best prose writers of his time in Italy, Mr/Ms. X writes "abc Machiavelli's magnificent prose style xyz." Furthermore, as a student who has studied Machiavelli, I found some comments to be incorrect. For example, "which showed how a self-serving ruler will follow the policy that the "end justifies the means," whereby a ruler can gain power (the "means") in any deceitful or unjust manner possible in order to achieve his often undisclosed goals (the "end")" is very poorly done. A) according to Machiavelli a just Prince would be morally justified in taking power because the betterment of citizen's lives justified the Prince's sordid means. Furthermore, a true Machiavellian Prince would not need to "disclose" it's goals as role, and goals, of a true Prince were already outlined by Machiavelli. Other statements such as "For that matter, no tyrant has ever needed the book to get ideas how to oppress people" and "Machiavelli, most scholars believe, was dedicated to republicanism as the best form of government and opposed tyranny. The Prince was a warning that it could happen like this if citizens let down their guard" and non-cited statements of speculation. Lastly, the statement "major positive influence of" is unclear as it does not illustrate what a "positive" influence is and is thus vacuous.