The urge to save humanity is almost always a false face for the urge to rule it.
– H.L. Mencken
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Oh so true.
How about a development development of the quote?
The urge to help others is almost always a false face for the urge to control others.
Reminds me of the aliens in the old SF story with their book, “How to Serve Man”.
almost always?
— or lightly basted with a side of veg….
— or lightly basted with a side of veg….
Mencken detested Franklin Roosevelt, whom he called ‘Roosevelt Minor’ with allusion to Theodore. He never stopped attacking the New Deal or FDR’s warmongering tendencies in the Far East, which eventually provoked the Japanese to bomb Pearl Harbor.
There is an obvious analogy with the two Bushes and the passel of falsehoods which hoodwinked the American people into a crass, costly, unwinnable war in the Mideast.
With Bush II, true, the New Deal came after the phoney crusade, to keep domestic critics quiet: the endless delving into the pork barrel, the rocketing cost of Medicare (which the GOP had pledged to trim), the Social Security and No Child Left Behind programs, the failure to control borders and the abridgment of historic liberties which FDR also sneaked through– but at least he was fighting a real war against a real enemy.
When FDR died, Mencken told his diary that he had ”every quality that morons esteem in their heroes.” Bush II seems to have lost the esteem of many, even many morons, well before quitting the White House.
H.L. Mencken died a miserable and lonesome death. He had many quotable quotes. The morons will be decided after George is gone.
Millard–Mencken was a witty and incisive writer. You are not.
How about the flip side?
The urge to rule humanity is almost always a false face for the urge to save it.
Hmmm…
veryretired- Thanks for pointing that out, old friend.
The “no-child-left-behind” absurdity and the pledge to extend Medicare came long before the various wars.
Indeed George Walker Bush attacked the Republicans in Congress long before he became President – they were engaged in a half hearted effort to control government spending (indeed they had some success with some of the welfare programs) and he attacked them for lack of “compassion” towards the poor.
President Bush may be a very nice man, but the facts are simple. Government spending, even excluding military spending, has gone up more on his watch than under any other President since Richard Nixon.
However, I do not think he is finished politically yet.
Culturally President Bush has tapped in to the affections of the people in the United States who are actually breeding (the Bible belt people) – their poltical strength (both by natural increase and by conversion) waxes by the day.
To win back support all President Bush needs to do is to catch (or display the dead bodies) of a few enemy leaders – Mullah Omar of the Taliban, or O.B.L. and his deputy, or even Z. in Iraq.
President Bush has seven months to “pull a rabbit out of the hat” before the midterm elections, and it would be foolish to count him out yet.
Remember the Democrats are a waste of space – so only way for the Republicans to lose the elections (in spite of the media, academia and all the rest of the elite) is if they (yet again) fail.
Like many people here I do not have much faith in government – but, given the vast resources at their disposal, even government should be able to catch or kill the main enemy leaders (the ones the voters want to see captured or killed – not “people who are really important, although you have never heard of them”).
How the government has failed in this task since September 11th 2001 is very hard to understand. So I do not count them out yet.
Of course if the government still has not captured or killed the enemy leaders by Novermber President Bush deserves to have a Democrat Senate and House – and, hopefully. they will find something to impeach him about.