… is from page 60 of the 2009 edition of H.L. Mencken’s 1926 Notes on Democracy; of course, by “laws” Mencken here means what is properly called “legislation”:
Public policies are determined and laws are made by small minorities playing upon the fears and imbecilities of the mob – sometimes minorities of intelligent and honest men, but usually minorities of rogues.
No better summary of modern government has ever been penned.
