dance varmint
March 13, 2005, 02:30 PM
A great newspaper column I found recently relates well to the Social Security debate and a lot of serious current issues. It's by a columnist with a local paper out East. The attribution is at the end.
The Suicide of Democracy
[Government] only too plainly, is extending democracy to very remote
places of decimals. Reaching out constantly for fresh fields and
pastures new, it gradually takes over the entire business of living,
including birth and death. It undertakes not only to carry on the
customary enterprises of government, with constant embellishment; it
also horns into such highly non-political matters as the planting and
harvesting of crops, the pulling of teeth, and the propagation of the
species. In particular, it undertakes to succor every one who feels
that he is suffering from injustice, whether at the hands of his
fellowmen or of his own chromosomes. If there is something you want
but can't get, it will get that something for you. And, contrariwise,
if there is something you want and have got, it will take it away.
...The rejoicing of the beneficiaries is so loud that the groans of
those who are mulcted can hardly be heard...
It is the natural and bounden duty of democracy, we are told, to take
care of its customers in all situations, at all times, and
everywhere. If one of them lacks a job, then democracy must find it
for him, and if the yield thereof is less than satisfactory to him,
then democracy must adjust it to his desires. If he goes into
business--say, farming--and makes a botch of it, his losses must be
made good. If he craves a house beyond his means, then money to pay
for it must be provided. If he has too many children, the supremaries
must be lifted off his hands, and his energies released for the
generation of more. ...The shrill gloats and exultations of A, who
has got something for nothing, drown out the repining of B, who has
lost something that he earned. B, in fact, becomes officially
disreputable, and the more he complains, the more he is denounced and
detested. ...He actually believes that his property is his own, to
remain in his keeping until he chooses to part with it. He is told at
once that his information on the point is inaccurate, and his morals
more than dubious. ...
The Fathers of the Republic...apparently foresaw that the theory of
democracy might develop along such lines, and they went to some
trouble to prevent it. Their chief device to that end was the scheme
of limited powers. Rejecting the old concept of government as a kind
of primal entity...they tried to make it a mere creature of the
people. ...It could do what it was specifically authorized to do, but
nothing else. The Fathers, taught by their own long debates, knew
that efforts would be made, from time to time, to change the
Constitution as they had framed it, so they made the process as
difficult as possible, and hoped that they had prevented frequent
resort to it. Unhappily, they did not foresee the possibility of
making changes, not by formal act, but by mere political
intimidation--not by recasting its terms, but by distorting their
meaning. ...at this moment it is completely at the mercy of a gang of
demagogues consecrated to reading into it governmental powers that are
not only wholly foreign to its spirit, but categorically repugnant to
its terms.
...Suffrage, in theory the palladium of our liberties, becomes the
assurance of our slavery. And that slavery, will grow more and more
abject and ignoble as the differential birth rate, the deliberate
encouragement of mendicancy and the failure of popular education
produce a larger and larger mass of prehensile half-wits, and so make
the demagogues more and more secure.
The alternatives look unpleasant enough, God knows....Democracy may
not actually be dying here, as it only too plainly is in Europe, but
it is certainly very sick.
H. L. Mencken
Baltimore Evening Sun
May 12, 1940
The Suicide of Democracy
[Government] only too plainly, is extending democracy to very remote
places of decimals. Reaching out constantly for fresh fields and
pastures new, it gradually takes over the entire business of living,
including birth and death. It undertakes not only to carry on the
customary enterprises of government, with constant embellishment; it
also horns into such highly non-political matters as the planting and
harvesting of crops, the pulling of teeth, and the propagation of the
species. In particular, it undertakes to succor every one who feels
that he is suffering from injustice, whether at the hands of his
fellowmen or of his own chromosomes. If there is something you want
but can't get, it will get that something for you. And, contrariwise,
if there is something you want and have got, it will take it away.
...The rejoicing of the beneficiaries is so loud that the groans of
those who are mulcted can hardly be heard...
It is the natural and bounden duty of democracy, we are told, to take
care of its customers in all situations, at all times, and
everywhere. If one of them lacks a job, then democracy must find it
for him, and if the yield thereof is less than satisfactory to him,
then democracy must adjust it to his desires. If he goes into
business--say, farming--and makes a botch of it, his losses must be
made good. If he craves a house beyond his means, then money to pay
for it must be provided. If he has too many children, the supremaries
must be lifted off his hands, and his energies released for the
generation of more. ...The shrill gloats and exultations of A, who
has got something for nothing, drown out the repining of B, who has
lost something that he earned. B, in fact, becomes officially
disreputable, and the more he complains, the more he is denounced and
detested. ...He actually believes that his property is his own, to
remain in his keeping until he chooses to part with it. He is told at
once that his information on the point is inaccurate, and his morals
more than dubious. ...
The Fathers of the Republic...apparently foresaw that the theory of
democracy might develop along such lines, and they went to some
trouble to prevent it. Their chief device to that end was the scheme
of limited powers. Rejecting the old concept of government as a kind
of primal entity...they tried to make it a mere creature of the
people. ...It could do what it was specifically authorized to do, but
nothing else. The Fathers, taught by their own long debates, knew
that efforts would be made, from time to time, to change the
Constitution as they had framed it, so they made the process as
difficult as possible, and hoped that they had prevented frequent
resort to it. Unhappily, they did not foresee the possibility of
making changes, not by formal act, but by mere political
intimidation--not by recasting its terms, but by distorting their
meaning. ...at this moment it is completely at the mercy of a gang of
demagogues consecrated to reading into it governmental powers that are
not only wholly foreign to its spirit, but categorically repugnant to
its terms.
...Suffrage, in theory the palladium of our liberties, becomes the
assurance of our slavery. And that slavery, will grow more and more
abject and ignoble as the differential birth rate, the deliberate
encouragement of mendicancy and the failure of popular education
produce a larger and larger mass of prehensile half-wits, and so make
the demagogues more and more secure.
The alternatives look unpleasant enough, God knows....Democracy may
not actually be dying here, as it only too plainly is in Europe, but
it is certainly very sick.
H. L. Mencken
Baltimore Evening Sun
May 12, 1940