12/19/10
At Several Sources
H. L. Mencken Predicted Obama in 1920
| Henry Louis Mencken (12 September 1880 – 29
January 1956), better known as H. L. Mencken, was a
twentieth-century journalist, satirist, social critic, cynic, and
freethinker, known as the "Sage of Baltimore" and the "American
Nietzsche". He is often regarded as one of the most influential
American writers of the early 20th century.
All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the
superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple
him. If it be aristocratic in organization, then it seeks to
protect the man who is superior only in law against the man who is
superior in fact; if it be democratic, then it seeks to protect the
man who is inferior in every way against both. One of its primary
functions is to regiment men by force, to make them as much alike as
possible and as dependent upon one another as possible, to search
out and combat originality among them. All it can see in an original
idea is potential change, and hence an invasion of its prerogatives.
The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able
to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing
superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the
conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane
and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it.
And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread
discontent among those who are.
When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does
not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief
distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of
weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental
— men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose
dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So
confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be
lost... All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most
devious and mediocre — the man who can most 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.
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit upon his
hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
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