Free Republic

At intervals in the history of the world, the people of some country or other, or, more accurately, a relatively enlightened and resolute faction of them, become unhappily aware of the nature of the government they live under, and undertake measures to improve it.Rebellion of the BaronsSometimes those measures take the form of assassinating its principle dignitaries, or of driving them into exile, but more often the thing is done more gently. For example, maybe a famous builder of skyscrapers and golf resorts gets so fed up that he runs for President. Or a tycoon who builds rockets and cars...

"Most people want security in this world, not liberty." "Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods." "Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under." "The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence." "A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers." "I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone." "A national political campaign is better than the...

H.L. Mencken, a contrarian polemicist and the consummate critic, who wrote prolifically and prodigiously from 1899 until 1948, may no longer seem relevant, but the fault would not be his. Mencken was a well-read bon vivant with a taste for Teutonic philosophy and a fidelity to immutable truth. He was also a brilliant satirist and a writer whose facility with the English idiom and grasp of intellectual history are unsurpassed. How can a phenom like Mencken appeal in our age, The Age of the Idiot? He can’t: He should, but he can’t. Henry Louis Mencken cannot appeal to the bumper...

  At last week's Republican convention, Trump proclaimed to the working people of America: "I am your voice".  It was an admission of something Trump supporters have known all along: Trump is the champion of WE THE PEOPLE. Yet thirteen months and 10,000 media stories later, the journalist class is still in denial about what Trump is about.  Plus he's been called "vulgar" and "not Presidential" by elite pundits like Bill Kristol, George Will, and countless others. Well, as usual, my good FRiend HarleyLady27 clears away smoke in order, as she explain in a recent comment: The man can...

When I hear Beethoven's 9th Symphony, I just love it. Trouble is, I can't begin to tell you exactly why his music inspires me so much. And no doubt, that's because music lies outside the sphere of rational thought. What I can tell is that the triumphant parts of Beethoven's 9th symphony thrill my heart. When I hear it, I feel the power of victory and freedom.  It's as if my body could fly across the room! Now H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956) was not your run-of-the-mill music critic: he was simply the finest American newspaper pundit and...

On election day eve, remembering the wisdom of the great H.L. Mencken "Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods." -- H. L. Mencken

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. 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.”

H.L. Mencken Club Distinguished Speaker Series: Srdja Trifkovic on Western Postmodernia vs. "Real Socialism"Part 1Part 2

This satirical piece first appeared in The American Mercury,, 41 (June 1937), 129-36, and was reprinted in condensed form by The Reader's Digest, 31 (July 1937), 27-29. In order to indicate what reached the widest audience, the condensed version appears here. The principal cause of the uproar in Washington is a conflict between the swift- moving idealism of the New Deal and the unyielding hunkerousness of the Constitution of 1788. What is needed, obviously, is a wholly new Constitution, drawn up with enough boldness and imagination to cover the whole program of the More Abundant Life, now and hereafter. That...

http://boortz.com/nuze/index.html I think that we should give this election a theme. Now I know that the politicians are all using the "change" word. That word was tested in front of focus groups around the country and really rang the bells. Hillary, Barack ... change, change, change. How pathetically stupid. If someone tells you they're going to "change" something, wouldn't you be just the least bit curious as to what in the hell they are going to change from and to? But wait .. that would take a sense of inquisitiveness, wouldn't it? So .. we need another theme. May I...

A Bum's Christmas By H.L. Mencken Despite all the snorting against them in works of divinity, it has always been my experience that infidels--or freethinkers, as they usually prefer to call themselves--are a generally estimable class of men, with strong overtones of the benevolent and even of the sentimental. This was certainly true, for example, of Leopold Bortsch, Totsaufer [customers' man] for the Scharnhorst Brewery, in Baltimore, forty-five years ago. . . . He was a sincere friend to the orphans, the aged, all blind and one-legged men, ruined girls, opium fiends, Chinamen, oyster dredgers, ex-convicts, the more respectable sort...

After drinking two mild Gibson cocktails and enjoying a crackling fire and the lively conversation, Mencken again complained of not feeling well, and before going upstairs to his third-floor back bedroom, again spoke to Cheslock. "Louis, this is the last time you'll see me," he said to his old friend, Rodgers wrote. At 9:15 p.m., Cheslock left the Hollins Street residence and drove home through a gathering sleet storm. Mencken climbed into bed, turned on the radio, and fell asleep listening to a Mozart concert. Early Sunday morning, when Rancho Brown, a Johns Hopkins Hospital orderly, arrived to help get...

Henry Louis (H.L.) Mencken was perhaps America's most outspoken defender of liberty in the first half of the 20th Century. And a major theme of his writings was that "Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under." It is worth remembering some of the reasons he gave for that shame, since, by the same standards, the government is even more shameful today than when Mencken wrote. The basis justifying shame in our government lies in the appropriate role of government: "The ideal government of all reflective men, from Aristotle onward, is one which lets the individual alone-one...

Henry Louis (H.L.) Mencken was perhaps America's most outspoken defender of liberty in the first half of the 20th Century. And a major theme of his writings was that "Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under." It is worth remembering some of the reasons he gave for that shame, since, by the same standards, the government is even more shameful today than when Mencken wrote. The basis justifying shame in our government lies in the appropriate role of government: "The ideal government of all reflective men, from Aristotle onward, is one which lets the individual alone-one...

Henry Louis (H.L.) Mencken was perhaps America's most outspoken defender of liberty in the first half of the 20th Century. And a major theme of his writings was that "Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under." It is worth remembering some of the reasons he gave for that shame, since, by the same standards, the government is even more shameful today than when Mencken wrote. The basis justifying shame in our government lies in the appropriate role of government: "The ideal government of all reflective men, from Aristotle onward, is one which lets the individual alone-one...

Read the whole article here: http://www.theopinion.com/engine/article.asp?id=1311 Oh, and by the way, the author hangs out there, and you can comment about it on a bulletin board. Some choice excerpts: "H.L.Mencken was a conservative. But he was no bigot--and for that reason he would be vilified today as a 'liberal.' Translation: To be conservative is to be a bigot. "'Liberal' once meant 'free' but that predates Joseph McCarthy, Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, and the current occupant of the Oval Office who have attacked our language as surely as they have attacked and distorted the very notion of...