H.L. Mencken on the ‘God’ of Democracy
November 1, 2010
“There’s really no point to voting. If it made any difference, it would probably be illegal.”
“Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.”
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.”
“Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule — and both commonly succeed, and are right.”
Democracy has an “ineradicable tendency to abandon its whole philosophy at the first sign of strain. . .When the national safety is menaced. . .all the great tribunes of democracy. . .convert themselves, by a process as simple as taking a deep breath, into despots of an almost fabulous ferocity.”
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace in a continual state of alarm (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing them with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. . . On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” (Thanks to MJ for that one).
GOP and Principles