All Posts Tagged With: "H. L. Mencken"
Yesterday’s and Today’s Attacks on Government Censorship
Recently many popular websites went black to fight the proposed SOPA and PIPA bills. Fighting censorship, however, is nothing new. Today’s document is a short story in Newsweek from August 5, 1948, that tells of the role Newsweek book editor Karl Schriftgiesser played in H. L. Mencken’s 1926 arrest for selling a banned issue of [...]
8Feb2012 | Nicholas Snow | 1 comment | ContinuedFear-Mongering and Servitude
In his 1776 essay, “Thoughts on Government,” John Adams observed, “Fear is the foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men in whose breasts it predominates so stupid and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to approve of any political institution which is founded on it.” The [...]
22Jun2011 | James Bovard | 33 comments | ContinuedNPR and Other Smart Stuff
As an avid (and only sometimes apologetic) NPR listener, I feel it’s worth citing the Overton’s Arrow blog post, which mentions both this week’s episode of This American Life and NPR’s economy blog, Planet Money, in a positive light. One particularly good recent Planet Money post quotes H.L. Mencken’s essay, “What Is Going on In the World” [...]
2Feb2009 | Margaret Morgan | 0 comments | ContinuedStealing for Union Bosses
Charles Baird is a professor of economics emeritus at California State University at East Bay. H. L. Mencken opined that “Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.” The November 2006 congressional elections are an excellent example of Mencken’s proposition. The attempts by the 110th Congress to steal property and other [...]
1Mar2008 | Charles W. Baird | 1 comment | ContinuedMencken’s Wisdom
Donald Boudreaux (dboudrea@gmu.edu) is chairman of the economics department at George Mason University. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the death of H. L. Mencken (1880–1956). I wish that this Bard of Baltimore had lived far longer—past the age of Methuselah—so that those of us born after World War II could have enjoyed his [...]
1Jun2006 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 2 comments | ContinuedThe Golden Calf of Democracy
“Democracy,” H. L. Mencken once said, “is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” He also famously defined an election as “an advance auction sale of stolen goods.” Mencken was not opposed to democracy. He simply possessed a more sobering view of its limitations [...]
1Dec2004 | Lawrence W. Reed | 0 comments | ContinuedBook Reviews – June 2003
Dependent on D.C.: The Rise of Federal Control Over the Lives of Ordinary Americans by Charlotte Twight St. Martin’s Press/Palgrave • 2002 • 512 pages • $26.95 hardcover; $17.95 paperback Reviewed by James Bovard Charlotte Twight has written an excellent book to help Americans understand how the federal government is insidiously seizing control of their lives, year by year, edict [...]
1Jun2003 | FEE Admin | 0 comments | ContinuedBarefoot in the Park
Ted Roberts is a freelance writer in Huntsville, Alabama, who often writes on public-policy issues. There’s an old story about two young brothers who loved to play in the woods around their house. In their games the clearings became the buffalo prairies of the west and the trees, on windy days, were galleons that sailed [...]
1Jan2002 | Ted Roberts | 1 comment | ContinuedThe Uplifters Try It Again
H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) was the most influential newspaperman of his era and a prolific author of iconoclastic books and essays. This is reprinted from The Evening Sun of Baltimore, November 30, 1925. Copyright 1925 by The Evening Sun. Republication without credit not permitted. I The eminent Nation announces with relish “the organization of a national [...]
1Oct2000 | H. L. Mencken | 1 comment | ContinuedCapital Letters
Why Y2K? To the Editor: “Bill O. Reitz” overcomplicates the Y2K situation (“Why Y2K?;” December 1999). I spent over 20 years in the information-processing business from the late ‘60s until the early ‘90s, so I have some knowledge of the genesis and continuation of the so-called Y2K problem. I worked with “magnetic drum” and “core” [...]
1Mar2000 | FEE Admin | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Bathtub, Mencken, and War
Not a plumber fired a salute or hung out a flag. Not a governor proclaimed a day of prayer,” wrote H. L. Mencken on December 28, 1917, in the New York Evening Mail. The occasion for the iconoclastic journalist’s lament was “A Neglected Anniversary,” so titled because, as Mencken declared, America had neglected to celebrate [...]
1Sep1999 | Wendy McElroy | 0 comments | Continued-
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