Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.
modern · american-journalism
H. L. Mencken
Henry Louis Mencken · 1880–1956 · American
Baltimore editor who treated democracy as a spectator sport. Hobgoblins, the urge to rule, and the man who thinks for himself.
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos.
The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel, grasping, and unintelligent.
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, most of them imaginary.
The average man doesn't want to be free. He simply wants to be safe.
Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.
All zoos actually offer to the public is a form of idle and witless amusement, compared to which a visit to a penitentiary, or even to a State legislature in session, is informing, stimulating and ennobling.