# Star Wars: Was there ever a real Senator Palpatine? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 16, 2007, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-was-there-ever-a-real-senator-palpatine/419393 "2007-09-16T15:39:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2007, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-was-there-ever-a-real-senator-palpatine/419393/61 "2007-09-19T14:38:49Z")
What the hell are posts 56 and 57 talking about? ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2007, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-was-there-ever-a-real-senator-palpatine/419393/62 "2007-09-19T14:44:50Z")
[QUOTE=smiling bandit] Even barring that, it’s not a stretch to assume that a wise, force-empowered, utterly sadistic amoral Sith Lord could have kidnapped a padawan and broken him - and 30 years later, who’d remember? Or Palpatine might have been tapped for the young Senatorials program (note that Naboo apparently likes having well-educated but inexperienced idealists nominally lead its government). A Sith Lord could easily prey on such a boy’s confusion and loss of place in the halls of power, taking the boy “under his wing,” and pushing him to ever-more-unsavory acts under the pretense of “teaching him how the Senate works.” Thus simultaneously playing on a young man’s sense of outrage over the way business gets conducted to build up his anger and frustration while schooling him in manipulation… [/QUOTE] I forget, are we still talking about Star Wars or is this a [real-lfe political thread](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Foley)? Sailboat ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2007, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-was-there-ever-a-real-senator-palpatine/419393/63 "2007-09-19T14:52:22Z")
[QUOTE=KneadToKnow] What the hell are posts 56 and 57 talking about? [/QUOTE] The political situation in Florence when Machiavelli wrote “The Prince”. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2007, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-was-there-ever-a-real-senator-palpatine/419393/64 "2007-09-19T14:54:21Z")
[QUOTE=KneadToKnow] What the hell are posts 56 and 57 talking about? [/QUOTE] Posts #39 & #50. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2007, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-was-there-ever-a-real-senator-palpatine/419393/65 "2007-09-19T15:26:37Z")
Gotcha ya! ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2007, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-was-there-ever-a-real-senator-palpatine/419393/66 "2007-09-19T20:07:57Z")
Bane was never a Jedi. He was originally a force user who was picked up by the Sith and trained. He might have not become a monster had he not fallen into their laps, but c’est la vie. Secondly, it’s not clear that Machiavelli was actually the “manipulative evil genius” we think of today. His principles can be summed as “do what you must to get what you _need_.” This was not bad advice to the Borgias, who tended to a little toward cruelty, selfishness, and wantonness in their affairs (sometimes literally 😉 ). He wasn’t advocating absolute immorality, only doing neccessary limited actions to preserve yourself in a sane manner against unscrupulous men; he recognized that outright evil was self-defeating and tended to create more problems than it solved. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-was-there-ever-a-real-senator-palpatine/419393.md?page=3)