by H.L. Mencken
It is one of my firmest and most sacred beliefs, reached after an inquiry extending over a score of years and supported by incessant prayer and meditation, that the Government of the United States, in both its legislative arm and its executive arm, is ignorant, incompetent, corrupt and disgusting- and from this judgement I except no more than twenty living lawmakers and no more than twenty executioners of their laws.
It is a belief no less piously cherished that the administration of justice in the Republic is stupid, dishonest, and against all reason and equity- and from this judgement I except no more than thirty judges, including two upon the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States.
It is another that the foreign policy of the United States- its habitual manner of dealing with other nations, whether friend or foe- is hypocritical, disingenuous, knavish and dishonorable- and from this judgement I consent to no exceptions whatever, either recent or long past.
And it is my fourth (and to avoid too depressing a bill, final) conviction that the American people taken one with another, constitute the most timorous, sniveling, poltroonish, ignominous mob of serfs and goose-steppers ever gathered under one flag in Christendom since the Middle Ages, and that they grow more timorous, more sniveling, more poltroonish, more ignominous every day."
In fairness, Mencken undoubtedly was trying to out-Swift Jonathan Swift, with the added benefit of hilarity. After all, Mencken was one of the 2oth century's greatest satirists. In some ways, he was the Don Rickles of his day, lashing out against the American people and their social and political customs in a way that entertained, rather than mortified his victims. But there is a point to satire and his attacks on the absurdities and banalities of American society may not have been far off the mark. Interestingly enough, much of what he said rings as true today as it did when he first wrote this essay in 1922
