If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.
Interpretation
This quote critiques politicians who exploit and deceive their constituents for personal gain.
H. L. Mencken's quote suggests that a politician will go to any extent to please the desires of their constituents, even if it means promising morally questionable actions. It highlights the idea that some political leaders prioritize their survival and advancement over ethical considerations, serving whatever appetites their supporters may have, sometimes at the expense of fundamental morality.
In practice
During a political debate, a candidate quoted Mencken to highlight the insincerity often found in political promises.
I know a good many men of great learning-that is, men born with an extraordinary eagerness and capacity to acquire knowledge. One and all, they tell me that they can't recall learning anything of any value in school. All that schoolmasters managed to accomplish with them was to test and determine the amount of knowledge that they had already acquired independently-and not infrequently the determination was made clumsily and inaccurately.
It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person to reconcile himself to the idea that after all God will not help him
It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen; it is the practice of all of them to limit its exercise, and sometimes very narrowly.
The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.
The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.
It is my conviction that no normal man ever fell in love, within the ordinary meaning of the term, after the age of thirty.
There exists no politician in India daring enough to attempt to explain to the masses that cows can be eaten.
Viewed as a means to the end of political freedom, economic arrangements are important because of their effect on the concentration or dispersion of power. The kind of economic organization that provides economic freedom directly, namely, competitive capitalism, also promotes political freedom because it separates economic power from political power and in this way enables the one to offset the other
We must have faith, first, that the peasant masses are ready to advance step by step along the road of socialism under the leadership of the Party, and second, that the Party is capable of leading the peasants along this road. These two points are the essence of the matter, the main current.
We can have democracy and a prosperous, just, and sustainable human future. Or we can have corporate rule. We cannot have both.
The government should not be guided by Temporary Excitement, but by Sober Second Thought.
The 20th century shows that the form of government that we take for granted, a constitutional democratic republic with checks and balances and a rule of law - that form of government is usually temporary.
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