"The legislature, like the executive, has ceased..." - Quote by H L Mencken
The legislature, like the executive, has ceased to be even the creature of the people: it is the creature of pressure groups, and most of them, it must be manifest, are of dubious wisdom and even more dubious honesty. Laws are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion; they are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation, and they are executed in the same manner. The typical lawmaker of today is a man wholly devoid of principle...
More by H L Mencken
“The theatre, when all is said and done, is not life in miniature, but life enormously magnified, life hideously exaggerated.”
“What fetched me instantly (and thousands of other newcomers with me) was the subtle but unmistakable sense of escape from the United States.”
“Man makes love by braggadocio, and woman makes love by listening.”
More on Government
“The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.”
“Whether it is in the United States or in mainland Europe, written constitutions have one great weakness. That is that they contain the potential to have judges take decisions which should properly be made by democratically elected politicians.”
“If we do not halt this steady process of building commissions and regulatory bodies and the special legislation like huge inverted pyramids over every one of the simple constitutional provisions, we shall soon be spending many billions of dollars more.”
More on Politics
“I think that the important thing to know is, which is great about this country [the USA], when it comes to domestic issues, we all battle it out and fight it between the parties and all those kind of things to get things done, but when it comes to foreign issues, overseas kind of things, then we all speak with one voice.”
“I asked Tom if countries always apologized when they had done wrong, and he says - "Yes; the little ones does".”
“It will be proper to take a review of the several sources from which governments have arisen, and on which they have been founded.”