Mencken wrote mountains of material and all of it is stunningly good. It was a wonderful day when Murray Rothbard recommended that I read anything by his favorite author, Mencken. And although it is hard to pick a favorite book of his, for me, Notes on Democracy is his best, perhaps because there is no bigger sacred cow than democracy. FULL ARTICLE
Source link: http://blog.mises.org/9508/forbidden-thoughts-from-mencken/
Forbidden Thoughts from Mencken
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I enjoyed this article! It really shed a bright light to playing the futures markets. When the herd of common investors enter a market, they do so because they are comfortable coming in with feeling everybody else is doing so and the market leaders are telling them it is right. The leaders then pull out, taking all the money from all those common people. To make my point, just watch Jim Crammer for a couple weeks!
I guess the same can be said about politicians playing the role of the leaders and they suck the money from all those common folk.
The trouble is no one can change human nature and all of us that can see this, will always second guess our position. Which makes us all fit into the masses. But we always seem to survive.
Adding this one to my reading list!
The more they are deceived, the more gullible they become.
After the sheer stupidity and arrogance of G.W. Bush, who sent thousands of fine Americans to die in a God-forsaken land, “in the name of liberty”; now we have Mr. Obama further squandering what’s left of the Americans’ wealth in the name of “economic recovery”. Both times, a major portion of the population actually believe the words of these glorified snake oil sellers.
I couldn’t have agreed more with this article. I remember as a boy the words of Grymyko to Stephenson. He said that no shots would be fired or bombs dropped on America. “We will crush you like an overripe fruit from within.” The socialist agenda whether it be Willson [national facism] or FDR [a great admirer of Lenin] has been escalating in the Americas since the turn of the century. All socialists feel entitled, whether it be a job for life, special privilleges or to be judged by standards not applied to everyone else. How egalitarian of them. Hence, irregardless of partisanship each political party shares the same socialist agenda, which is why Obummer appears as Busholini revisited. Although the implementation procedures appear different, the upper political echelons share the same dream: a centralized governement [preferably world wide], and a centralized banking system wherein large intrusive government controls the majority of facets in our lives. Whatever extemperaneous entities such as religion that can be used to control the masses will be employed until they have served their purpose, at which time they will find themselves greatly distraught at having been deceived and, if they don’t like it, too bad! Any dissenting person or entity will be dealt with [no, I'm not religous either]. I would like to see many things, such as smaller, more efficient government that is controlled by the individual states who have the pulse of their constituents because they actually live there rather than a nefarious ogre sitting in some Washington think tank. I would like to see the dissolution of the 16th and 17th ammendments. I would like to see the fat cat Wall Street investors paying a flat 35% on all revenue gleaned from the hedge funds they manage. How about the dissolution of the Fed and the SEC. The Fed is nothing but the greatest counterfeiting scheme going, and the SEC is a self serving pariah. It would be nice to see the FBI going after all these shmoes. How about dissolving the welfare state that began with FDR, and culminated in LBJ’s time? I could could continue but I won’t since I think you get my drift. Salute.
Get me off the island!
Mr. Kirkby,
“Irregardless” is not a word. Your point would be better served to acknowledge this.
I’m sorry, but I could not continue past that sentence.
Greg,
“I’m” is a contraction and has no place in formal writing. Your point would be better served to acknowledge this.
I am sorry, but I could not continue past that sentence.
First of all, Mencken’s type of thinking resonates astonishingly with Frank Herbert’s Dune series … the especially enlightening one being “The God Emperor of Dune” (but, being in the dreaded Science Fiction theme, I doubt you ever read it … or would I be mistaken ?)
Why weed out Eisenhower of the recent “democratic dictators”, given the FULL EXTENT of his farewell speech address ?
Of course, RECENT OFFICIAL history only has records of “really amusing form of government” that is called Democracy (I for one prefer the term “staged beauty contest”) …
However, on the “amusing” part, I strongly urge you to consider linking together the YouTube video named “Mind-blowing numbers video about technology and humanity” and the text for Fatboy Slim’s lyrics used for this video (“Right here, right now”, through he authored other ones …) … and re-consider its implications on the so-called “incompetence” of bankers …
Finally, one may wish to examine VERY CLOSELY the Islam’s Al-Dajjal prophecy, along with CCTV’s creeping growth under the “security” pretense … (Dajjal’s reputed for being one-eyed, through blindness in his Right Eye).
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Are you TRULY living up with the “Do not give in to evil” motto, in the light of Abraham Lincoln’s “As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.” ? ? ?
I have admired the work of Mencken for a number of years. Mr. French rightly identifies the MSM’s juvenile infatuation with Mr. Obama. Not unlike members of Menken’s mob, the main stream press are “…misled by mountebanks and swindled by scoundrels…only because…” their “credulity and imbecility cover a wider area than…” their “simple desires.”
Mencken’s artful critique of the mob under democracy opened a whole new vista to me regarding the propaganda machine (MSM) that is the hand maiden of the corporate oligarchy. Mix in a little socialist totalitarianism by the hands of the jesters of the court (aka U. S. Congress) and one feels Spencer, Nock, Mencken and other classical liberal minds definitely got it right. The true tragedy of our time is that the Menckens, Nocks and Spencers are muzzled in the shadows by the tyranny of the mob man. I for one anticipate their emergence in short order.
Interesting focus for a few of the posts above. Are you guys really serious? I had a sixth grade grammar teacher who could never get beyond form…she’d say, “I don’t care that you have something to say…first you must comply with the rules!” A truly autocratic mind :>)…really frickin’ spooky. I suggest parsing the content of posts first, then maybe add something constructive.
Mencken is my favorite essayist as well. BTW, Ayn Rand was a big fan of his in the ‘thirties.
“A Mencken Chrestomathy” is one of my favorite books of all time. His writing is unparalleled today.
Lester — please tell me where you came by the information that Rand was a big Mencken fan. I have read a lot of her stuff and some about her, but am not a big fan and had not read that. Thanks.
So Mencken despises Democracy because he see it ruled by the ‘mob’ – the average worker is a dolt and is there to be ruled not to be the rulers. The apparent solution is to privatise landownership to those who will be able to properly rule over their plot and the system will, through competition, determine who the ‘natural’ just rulers are.
Good article – good to know about an author named Mencken, apparently a maverick, and his relevant views and criticism on Democracy as a form of governance…
I generally agree that the Democracy, which means in Greek “rule by the people” is essentially a synonym for Socialism…
But here is the question to the libertarians and other staunch supporters of the Republic as the best form of governance:
Republic is essentially any geo-political entity that is governed strictly by the Law – previously pre-determined by its constituents, and generally stated in the Constitution of teh land. The main premise of the Republic is that everyone is equal in front of the Law, and majority or minority cannot override eachother’s will, since they have to abide by predetermined set of rules…
But here is what I don’t understand:
In libertarian view how would the governing bodies be elected? Who would execute the Law? How would constituents of the Republic choose those of its members to be responsible for upholding the Law and Constitution in general, if not by general election where majority determines the outcome?
I am kind of confused on all the criticism of the Democracy – wouldn’t the Republic as well require the same elements of governance such as election, leaders, ministries, other governing bodies and departments?! If not, how would then the Republic be organized in practice? I don’t see it…
I’m surprised at the support for Mencken’s views on democracy. If he threw in a shout for Cambridge, one could mistake him for Keynes.
Aaron — what in the world could your remark about Keynes and Mencken possibly mean?
ggm- Keynes believed Cambridge alumni were best suited to run the world. Mencken hung with a different crowd, but both shared contempt for the abilities of anyone-well, anyone not them- to best decide the course of their own lives.
Alex — I think that is much to flip.
Mencken often wrote to rattle the
cages and he did not have a very
high opinion of the American voter,
but it does not follow that he wanted
to tell other people what to do and
he certainly did not want to be told
what to do himself. Have you read any
of what Rothbard has written about him?
Or any of the vast ocean of Mencken’s
writings other than the book under
discussion? And the energy in his
writing!
ggm-I agree, Mencken is a superb and entertaining writer, and I have read quite a bit of his work.
In fact, his ability as a writer makes his apparent support for a de facto aristocracy all the more disturbing. Well, at least to me. If he and Keynes were regarded as buffoons, there would be less support for their positions.
I haven’t read anything by Rothbard on Mencken, and I don’t expect I will anytime soon.
The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.
The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
H. L. Mencken on elections
Baltimore Evening Sun, 26 July 1920
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