Iconoclasts are always misunderstood. Truth telling has become un-patriotic. Were he alive and writing today, Mencken would be assailed for telling the truth. But Mencken had the verbal ammunition to take them on. As Mencken himself said, "One horse-laugh is worth ten-thousand syllogisms." Mencken would dispatch Bill Frist with a single phrase: "Puritanism --The haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy."
But what did Mencken himself believe? He left us a list from which I have chosen my favorites:
But what did Mencken himself believe? He left us a list from which I have chosen my favorites:
I believe that no discovery of fact, however trivial, can be wholly useless to the race, and that no trumpeting of falsehood, however virtuous in intent, can be anything but vicious . I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war upon liberty...I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech...I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie . I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant.In other words, Mencken believed in everything Bush and the present day GOP hates. Mencken is timeless if not prescient:
Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.Mencken could well have written that in November, 2000 rather than some 50 years earlier.
""H.L. Mencken
"It is the fundamental theory of all the more recent American law...that the average citizen is half-witted, and hence not to be trusted to either his own devices or his own thoughts."A summation of modern politics?
Democracy is the theory that holds that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.As a ruthless social critic, Mencken summed up the American justice system in three sentences:""H.L. Mencken
Courtroom --A place where Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot would be equals, with the betting odds favoring Judas.Mencken was a most prolific writer about the American language. His six volumes of essays and critiques he called Prejudices and, in them, he sneered at 19th-century nationalism and characterized Americans as "the most sniveling, poltroonish, ignominious mob of serfs and goose-steppers ever gathered under one flag."
Lawyer--One who protects us from robbers by taking away the temptation.
Jury--A group of 12 people who, having lied to the judge about their health, hearing, and business engagements, have failed to fool him.
Life may not be exactly pleasant, but it is at least not dull. Heave yourself into Hell today, and you may miss, tomorrow or next day, another Scopes trial, or another War to End War, or perchance a rich and buxom widow with all her first husband's clothes. There are always more Hardings hatching. I advocate hanging on as long as possible.To bring him up to date, one need only substitute the name "Bush" for "Harding".
Mencken lives!
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