Ninety-nine years ago, H.L. Mencken - the "Sage of Baltimore" - released his book, "Notes on Democracy," which I really need to go read again. Mencken was no fan of big government, even by the standards of the 1920s; in fact, you could argue that he was no fan of government at all. What's interesting about his work is his prescience.

Granted, society and politics run in cycles. The Strauss-Howe Generational Theory is one attempt at defining these cycles. So is the old saw that goes, "Tough times make tough people; tough people make good times; good times make weak people; weak people make tough times." //

Mencken. He wasn't an optimist. But when you read his work, you wonder if he didn't have some kind of premonition as to what's going on in the United States today. Back then, in the Roaring Twenties, Mencken made this observation:

The ideal government of all reflective men, from Aristotle onward, is one which lets the individual alone – one which barely escapes being no government at all.

Good government is that which delivers the citizen from being done out of his life and property too arbitrarily and violently – one that relieves him sufficiently from the barbaric business of guarding them to enable him to engage in gentler, more dignified, and more agreeable undertakings.

In other words, the only legitimate role of government is to protect the citizens' liberty and property. //

The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself … Almost inevitably, he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable.

All government … is against liberty.

I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone. //

Sarcastic Frog
2 hours ago
"The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself …"

This was true in ancient times; it was true in 1926; and its true today.

Unlike almost every other country, the US was founded on rebellion- people thinking for themselves and resisting the pressure to obey the government for the sole reason of "because we tell you to."

There are those who hate this quality and actively push against it with their NewSpeak and pronouns and "canceling".

I hope we will always have the rebels, who think for themselves and resist the conformity.

anon-t75 Sarcastic Frog
2 hours ago
"A well informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny." ~ Thomas Jefferson. //

anon-t75
2 hours ago
"I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first." ~ Thomas Jefferson. //

idalily
2 hours ago
My favorite Mencken quote: "Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." Not sure quite why I love it. I just do.