re: Liberty is “A Very Dangerous Thought” to the USSA’s Pols

Becky, in answer to your rhetorical query: “Do you suppose a century from now, politicians will still exploit 9/11?”

I say, “Remember the Maine, and to Hell with Spain!

Sadly, I think H.L. Mencken was right, when he wrote in Notes on Democracy:

The whole history of the country has been a history of melodramatic pursuits of horrendous monsters, most of them imaginary : the red-coats, the Hessians, the monocrats, again the red-coats, the Bank, the Catholics, Simon Legree, the Slave Power, Jeff Davis, Mormonism, Wall Street, the rum demon, John Bull, the hell-hounds of plutocracy, the trusts, General Weyler, Pancho Villa, German spies, hyphenates, the Kaiser, Bolshevism. The list might be lengthened indefinitely; a complete chronicle of the Republic could be written in terms of it, and without omitting a single important episode.

We could add – Hitler, Tojo, Bolshevism again, Mao Zedong, Alger Hiss, Ho Chi Minh, godless communism, Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein, Sudanese Warlords, the Serbs, the Serbs (again) and Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam again, radical Islam. Apologies for the dozen bogey-men I have inadvertently omitted.

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5:14 pm on July 26, 2013