tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post8407953853479024565..comments2024-03-28T17:58:56.707+11:00Comments on The Social Pathologist: The Conservative Noble Savage.The Social Pathologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12927698533626086780noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post-90183205379563169112012-08-10T08:50:26.843+10:002012-08-10T08:50:26.843+10:00@Black Death
It's a shame that Mencken isn...@Black Death<br /><br />It's a shame that Mencken isn't taken more seriously, especially by conservative commentators. As a Journalist, he was frequently in the thick of things and saw the actual operation of democracy first hand. The theory diverged significantly from the practice.<br /><br />The Jackal/Jackass symbiosis gets far too little attention amongst the conservative commentariat. At its heart, the GFC was a result of the symbiosis between opportunistic bankers and stupid speculators. Too many conservatives are happy to point the finger at "the evil bankers" not enough people want to point the finger at the stupid borrowers.The Social Pathologisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12927698533626086780noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post-78354938072224320062012-08-10T01:02:09.184+10:002012-08-10T01:02:09.184+10:00I have been a Mencken fan all my life, and I have ...I have been a Mencken fan all my life, and I have visited his home in Baltimore and the little shrine to his memory at the public library there. His words seem as witty and insightful today as when he wrote them almost a century ago.<br /><br />Mencken was very distrustful of the common people in particular. He equated democracy with mob rule. We are witnessing the accuracy of his predictions borne out in the US and EU (and elsewhere) today. Generations of corrupt politicians have used (mostly borrowed) government funds to reward their (mostly stupid) constituents and thereby buy votes. The wheels are already coming off this corrupt bargain in places such as Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. The US, UK and others aren't far behind. <br /><br />In "The Calamity of Appomattox," Mencken wrote about the outcome of the American Civil War, which he regarded as unfortunate:<br /><br />The chief evils in the Federal victory lay in the fact, from which we still suffer abominably, that it was a victory of what we now call Babbitts over what used to be called gentlemen. I am not arguing here, of course, that the whole Confederate army was composed of gentlemen; on the contrary, it was chiefly made up, like the Federal army, of innocent and unwashed peasants, and not a few of them got into its corps of officers. But the impulse behind it, as everyone knows, was essentially aristocratic, and that aristocratic impulse would have fashioned the Confederacy if the fortunes of war had run the other way. Whatever the defects of the new commonwealth below the Potomac, it would have at least been a commonwealth founded upon a concept of human inequality, and with a superior minority at the helm. It might not have produced any more Washingtons, Madisons, Jeffersons, Calhouns and Randolphs of Roanoke, but it would certainly not have yielded itself to the Heflins, Caraways, Bilbos and Tillmans.Black Deathnoreply@blogger.com