Voting is simply a way of determining which side is the stronger without putting it to the test of fighting.
Interpretation
Voting serves as a peaceful method to determine power dynamics without resorting to conflict.
In this quote, H. L. Mencken suggests that voting represents a civilized, non-violent approach to resolving differences and deciding leadership. It highlights the importance of political processes in providing a mechanism for people to express their preferences and reach decisions collectively, rather than through force or conflict.
In practice
During a political debate, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of voting as a solution to political disputes.
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.
Ours is a fully democratic government, which in our language we call a people's government.
The local interest of a State ought in every case to give way to the interests of the Union. For when a sacrifice of one or the other is necessary, the former becomes only an apparent, partial interest, and should yield, on the principle that the smaller good ought never to oppose the greater good.
Politics is the art of the next best.
The invasion of Iraq, particularly, gave a big shot in the arm to the jihadi extremists.
Nowhere else in the world do the laws on firearms become the playthings of politicians and lobbyists intent on manufacturing cultural conflict. Nowhere else do elected officials turn the matter of taking a gun to church into a searing ideological question. But then, guns are not a religion in most countries.
We do not need the empire to give us anything.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.