An emailer from Ocean City, MD reminded me of the following sage advice by the late, great H.L Mencken that fits the current regime like a glove:
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
Unfortunately, today the state has an entire industry of “think tanks” working diligently to help it manufacture these hobgoblins. Even Reason and IHS have recently joined the hobgoblin manufacturing bandwagon by making arguments that, while there was never any evidence of WMDs and bin Laden links, Hussein could possibly, conceivably, maybe, perhaps, who knows?, in the future, somehow, some way, in theory, posed a threat to the U.S; therefore, any and all preemptive wars are ok with them. All in thename of “being led to safety” of course. And Mencken thought only the “unwashed” were so easily fooled.
8:58 am on September 12, 2004
