Mencken's timeless insights
12/26/08 - PittsburghLive by Donald J. Boudreaux
An excerpt from a great article.
[edited] If I could bring one person back to life for an evening of good food, stiff drink and sterling conversation, that person would be H.L. Mencken (1880-1956).
Mencken thought the typical politician is a "merchant of delusions," a "pumper-up of popular fears and rages. The politician is never to be trusted.
"What is a political campaign save a concerted effort to turn out a set of politicians who are admittedly bad and put in a set who are thought to be better?"
"If experience teaches us anything at all, it teaches us this: that a good politician, under democracy, is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar. His very existence, indeed, is a standing subversion of the public good in every rational sense. He is not one who serves the common weal; he is simply one who preys upon the commonwealth."
"It is to the interest of all the rest of us to hold down his powers to an irreducible minimum and to reduce his compensation to nothing; it is to his interest to augment his powers at all hazards, and to make his compensation all the traffic will bear."
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The Political Manual: Adequate Compensation
As a politician, get paid what you are worth.
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