H. L. Mencken's New Deal Constitution

lewrockwell.com | June, 1937 | H. L. Mencken

[BluesDuke]

Thanks for this thread---used to read Mencken a gazillion years ago....gee the guy had foresight!!!!!

I still read him at least once a week, if not more frequently. Today, alas, he'd be considered anything from a far right wingnut (by the left) to a venal lunatic and unrealistic obstructionist bent on throwing it all to the left by default (by today's alleged right).

Mencken In Print:

A Mencken Chrestomathy (Vintage Books)
A Second Mencken Chrestomathy (Vintage Books)
Smart Set Criticism (Johns Hopkins)
Prejudices: A Selection (Johns Hopkins)
Vintage Mencken (Vintage Books)
The Impossible H.L. Mencken (McGraw-Hill)
A Choice of Days (Vintage or Johns Hopkins)

[genefromjersey]

Boy ! Bill Clinton must have borrowed heavily from this one !

[breakem]

must have done at least one scholl paper on it

[LarryLied]

The Democratic Party Platform of 1932 is good for a laugh too:

We favor maintenance of the national credit by a federal budget annually balanced on the basis of accurate executive estimates within revenues, raised by a system of taxation levied on the principle of ability to pay.

We advocate a sound currency to be preserved at all hazards and an international monetary conference called on the invitation of our government to consider the rehabilitation of silver and related questions.

We advocate unemployment and old-age insurance under state laws.

(We Advocate) The removal of government from all fields of private enterprise except where necessary to develop public works and natural resources in the common interest.

We condemn the open and covert resistance of administrative officials to every effort made by Congressional Committees to curtail the extravagant expenditures of the Government and to revoke improvident subsidies granted to favorite interests

[BluesDuke]

It's good for a laugh like Figaro's, that we might not weep. Except that, by the time Roosevelt and company got finished, the 1932 Democratic Party platform looked in comparison like a manifesto from Robert Taft. (Gee...if only today's Republicans could hear the word "Taft" and think of someone other than a one-time President who became Chief Justice when he, er, grew up...)

[dead culture watch]

Thanks for the ping, so apropo, I guess for all times. Here comes the new boss, same as the old boss.

If any body thinks thats a dig at bush, yur right.

[Rule of Law]

This is a recent quote from USSC Justice Scalia - the same guy that routinely finds a "drug exemption" to the bill of rights.

Mr. Justice Scalia is the best justice on the Supreme Court. Which tells you what a sorry shape the Court is in.

Mr. Justice Scalia is perfectly willing to ignore the Constitution when it suits him. He is always ready to find a "traditional" deviation from the meaning of the Constitution when he wants to get around the fact that the Constitution does not allow the government to do whatever it is he wants it to do.

The "traditional" exception idea is particulary disgusting. It goes like this. The Constitution says X but for the last 75 years we've done Y. So it would be wrong to change. So two wrongs make a right.

We can apply that sort of dunderheaded logic to just about anything. Slavery is wrong, but we've traditionally had slavery, so it would be wrong to change that. Taxation without representation is wrong, but traditionally, that's the way we've done things, so we can't change it.

This is what passes for logic on the Supreme Court.

But there is one good thing about Mr. Justice Scalia. In just about every one of his opinions, he takes the time to say that Madame Justess O'Conner is an idiot. And there, he's right on the money.

[LoneGreenEyeshade]

adjectives now out of favor.

But great for playing Scrabble!!!!

[tacticalogic]

The Constitution says X but for the last 75 years we've done Y. So it would be wrong to change. So two wrongs make a right.

That kind of logic gets particularly galling when you realize that we did just fine doing X for 150 years, until someone (mostly FDR and his New Deal congress and court) decided we should do Y. The didn't have any problem changing after 150 years, what's so hard about doing it after 75?

[LoneGreenEyeshade]

to curtail the extravagant expenditures of the Government and to revoke improvident subsidies granted to favorite interests

Gee, that would almost wipe out most of our federal budget and just think of all the unemployment for all of those bureaucrats! (Maybe they could go to work at airport security instead!)

[Rule of Law]

That kind of logic gets particularly galling when you realize that we did just fine doing X for 150 years, until someone (mostly FDR and his New Deal congress and court) decided we should do Y. The didn't have any problem changing after 150 years, what's so hard about doing it after 75?

Because of what we'd be changing back to -- a limited government where Washington wasn't all that important. They don't want that.

[Squantos]

Did ya find a little-gator for that property /2nd case ?

[tet68]

I like the one about democracy, I think it goes,

"A democracy is where the people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."
or something like that.

[Scholastic]

Clarence B Carson has it writtian in his set "Basic History of the United States". Thanks for posting it! Its too bad that he, like many conservatives of his era, held to the enlightenment view of religion (the man hated Christians worse than Ayn Rand), the man was a censored beacon of Old Right truth in regards to the Roosevelt Revolution. This is as funny now as it was yesterday, and you laugh to keep from crying.

[breakem]

We will hear more attacks on Mencken. Right onw on C-Span 2 Charles Fecher, author of The Diary of H. L. Mencken, mentioned that the National Press Club is considering removing his name from their library because of anti-semitic comments in his diary. One day, we will have no history if we keep destroying those who made it.

[patton]

No, not yet. Been a busy couple of days.

[LarryLied]

lol....

Listening to liberals I just noticed that "democracy" is a code word for "communism". When did this start?

[breakem]

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[breakem]

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[Countyline]

All your freedoms
All your liberties
Are belong to us.