Quote of the day—Henry Mencken

Every government is a scoundrel.

Henry Mencken
[Of course. What do you expect when people exercise the power to collect money at the point of a gun instead of earning it? Who but a scoundrel is attracted to a job like that?

Government is a necessary evil and as Jefferson (perhaps mistakenly—note 1), Thoreau, and Baker have said that government is best which governs less.—Joe]

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3 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Henry Mencken

  1. Necessary, eh? Tell ya what. Let’s go down the list of Federal departments and you persuade me which ones are “necessary.” I’ll even spot you Defense, State, Justice, and Treasury.

    M

  2. Shite. This Alger fella got here first. And best.

    But if I were to comment anyway, I’d say I’m up for the experiment that would prove whether government is a “necessary” evil.

  3. I’m not sure I would go beyond the ones enumerated.

    Do there exist any examples of moderately large (say greater than 10K people) successful societies that don’t have an organization that incorporates something one could reasonably describe as a government? I can think of some experimental societies that might be worth trying on a large scale but nothing that has actually “made it out of the lab”.

    If not then I’m not ready concede any ground on the claim at this time.

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