H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) was arguably the greatest American polemicist of the 20th century. He was a newspaperman, a magazine editor, critic, satirist, “extreme libertarian,” “Tory anarchist,” scourge of the booboisie, and amateur linguist. He could wield the English language like a goedendag or a stiletto. When current events get to be too much, a shot of Mencken helps clear the head and soothe the anxious soul. So in order to ease some of the heartburn many of us have experienced in the final days of the Supreme Court’s 2014–15 term, here is a bit of the Sage of Baltimore to put things in perspective:
The theory that there is something sacred about law is always propagated very diligently by gentlemen thirsty for power, and it has never been propagated so diligently as it is by such persons in the United States today. They erect upon it a cult that takes on a passionate and even mystical character. The thing that we must grovel to, so they teach, is not this law or that law, but law in general, all law. But it takes no great acuity to see that what they are really arguing for, whatever their pretensions otherwise, is some law that they are especially interested in. They care nothing, in truth, for law in general.
(American Mercury, December 1929)
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