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The full Mencken quote is superb: "The state—or, to make the matter more concrete, the government—consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have,
by sjcsjc 11y ago
The full Mencken quote is superb:
"The state—or, to make the matter more concrete, the government—consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can’t get, and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time it is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods."
- jmcqk6 11y ago>The state—or, to make the matter more concrete, the government—consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. This quote starts out really good, but runs off the rails very quickly. Replace government with 'corporation' and everything is still true. Basically you're describing humanity, and this type of criticism of government isn't very useful in todays world. You have two choices today: your life is controlled by the government or it's controlled by corporations. Or, I suppose, you move out to the woods somewhere extremely remote (then you're still going to be affected by everyone else due to pollution and global warming, which know no boundaries). So sure, you can rail against government all you want, but when it comes right down to it, I would prefer a government I can at least participate in through the democratic process than a corporation where my only influence is whether or not I buy things from them.