A classic piece I thought you all might enjoy. :)


The Constitution, Baltimore Evening Sun, August 19, 1935
by HL Mencken

All government, in its essence, is organized exploitation, and in virtually all of its existing forms it is the implacable enemy of every industrious and well-disposed man. In theory, it invades his liberty and collars his money only in order to protect him, but in actuality it always makes a stiff profit on the exchange. That profit represents the income of the professional politicians, nine-tenths of whom are simply professional rogues. They employ a great many technicians to carry on the ostensible functions of government, and some of those technicians are honorable and competent men, but the politicians themselves are seldom either. Their only object in life is to do as little honest work as they can for the most profit, whether in money, power or in mere glory. The typical politician is not only a rascal but also a jackass, so he greatly values the puerile notoriety and adulation that sensible men try to avoid.

The Prevailing view seems to be that the lower orders of the governmental camorra are the most parasitical and anti-social, but this is not really the case. The minor jobholders that everyone disdains are actually much better fellows than the political bigwigs that most people find it so hared not to venerate. Consider, for example, the Postoffice. Its rank and file is made up of poor men who work hard for every nickel they get, and are so closely watched that the slightest aberration means disaster to them. In return for the relative security of their jobs they have to show a constant competence, and to submit, more often than not, to brutal overloading. But as one goes up the line one finds less and less diligence and less and less capacity for the work in hand, until at the top one commonly encounters a professional politician of the most crass and shameless sort, bent only upon serving his party machine.

It is the same in the City Hall. People who go there on business for the first time are usually greatly surprised to find so many polite, industrious and expert men behind the desks. They expect a gang of lazy, impudent ward heelers, but what they discover is a body of functionaries at least as well qualified as those they are used to meeting in stores and banks. But the higher offices are seldom so decently manned, and in the highest of all, that of the Mayor, it is so rare to find reasonable real and genuine competence that when they happened to be encountered, as in the case say, of the Hon. Mr. Jackson, it seems almost a miracle. When the Governor of an American State turns out to be a man of ability and honesty it is a miracle indeed, and of a very rare sort, for most American Governors are shabby and scurvy politicians, and some of them are obvious knaves.



II


The one aim of all such persons is to butter their own parsnips. They have no concept of the public good that can be differentiated from their concept of their own good. They get into office by making all sorts of fantastic promises, few of which they ever try to keep, and they maintain themselves there by fooling the people further. They are supported in their business by the factitious importance which goes with high public position. The great majority of folk are far too stupid to see through a politician's tinsel. Because he is talked of in the newspapers all the time, and applauded when he appears in public, the mistake him for a really eminent man. But he is seldom anything of the sort, and when he loses his office his eminence usually vanishes instantly.

But while it lasts it is very useful to him, and he is well aware of it. One of the favorite devices of politicians whose stupidity or roguery gets them into trouble is to call upon all good citizens to sustain them as a patriotic matter. This is done not only by Presidents of the United States, but also by all sorts of lesser functionaries, down to the members of the school boards and county road boards. It commonly works pretty well, for most people are flattered when anyone who seems to be distinguished asks for their aid. So they go on whooping up their own creature until in the end his unfitness for his job can be concealed no longer, and then they turn him out in anger, and put in some one still worse.

Here the public gullibility is reinforced by the common notion that government is a kind of separate and autonomous entity, standing apart from all other institutions. People constantly speak of "the government" doing this or that, as they might speak of God doing it. But the government is really nothing but a group of men, and usually they are very inferior men. They may have some better man working for them, but they themselves are seldom worthy of any respect. Not many of them have ever been able to make their marks at any reputable trade, and not many of them know anything worth of knowing, or ever have a thought that is worth having.



III


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. Sometimes those measures take the form of assassinating its principal dignitaries, or of driving them into exile, but more often the thing is done more gently. There was a good example, known to every schoolboy, in England in the year 1215, when the barons of the realm, tiring of the tyrannous exactions of King John, corralled him at Runnymede, and forced him to grant them a long series of liberties, some of which remain the common liberties of every Englishman to this day. John kept his throne, but only at the cost of surrendering most of his old prerogatives.

At such times, not unnaturally, the concessions wrung from the tyrant brought to bay are commonly reduced to writing, if only that the parties of both parts may remember them clearly. A writing of that sort is variously known as a charter, a constitution, or a bill of rights. in a few countries, notably England, some of the principal articles in the existing Constitution are not written down at all, but only generally understood. But whether they are written down or not, they have a kind of force that is greatly superior to that of all ordinary law, and changing their terms is looked on as a very grave matter, to be undertaken only on long consideration, and after getting the consent of all the persons, or at least of a majority of them, whose rights it is proposed to modify.

In brief, a constitution is a standing limitation upon the power of the government. So far you may go, but no farther. No matter what the excuse or provocation, you may not invade certain rights, or pass certain kinds of laws. The lives and property of the people are at you disposition, but only up to a plainly indicated point. If you go beyond it, you become a public criminal, and may be proceeded against, at least in theory, like any other criminal. The government thus ceases to be sovereign, and becomes a creature of sharply defined and delimited powers. There are things it may not do.



IV


This device is probably the greatest invention that man has made since the dawn of civilization. it lies at the bottom of most of his progress. It was responsible for the rise of free government in the Greek city states, and it has been responsible for the growth of nearly all the great nations of modern times. Wherever it has passed out of use there has been decay and retrogression. Every right that anyone has today is based on the doctrine that government is a creature of limited powers, and that the men constituting it become criminals if they venture to exceed those powers.

Naturally enough, this makes life uncomfortable for politicians, and especially for the more impudent and unconscionable variety of them. Once they get into office they like to exercise their power, for power and its ketchup, glory, are the victuals they feed and fatten upon. Thus it always annoys them when they collide with a constitutional prohibition. It not only interferes with their practice of the nefarious trade--to wit the trade of hoodwinking and exploiting the people: it is also a gross affront to the high mightiness. Am I not Diego Valdez, Lord Admiral of Spain? Why, then, should I be bound by rules and regulations? Why should I be said nay when I am bursting with altruism, and have in mind only the safety and felicity of all you poor fish, my vassals and retainers?

But when politicians talk thus, or act thus without talking, it is precisely the time to watch them most carefully. Their usual plan is to invade the constitution stealthily, and then wait to see what happens. If nothing happens they go on more boldly; if there is a protest they reply hotly that the constitution is wornout and absurd, and that progress is impossible under the dead hand. This is the time to watch them especially. They are up to no good to anyone save themselves. They are trying to whittle away the common rights of the rest of us. Their one and only object, now and always, is to get more power into their hands that it may be used freely for their advantage, and to the damage of everyone else. Beware of all politicians at all times, but beware of them most sharply when they talk of reforming and improving the constitution.

a good read!

mencken was a classic in american literature/humor.