… is from page 187 of H.L. Mencken’s Prejudices: A Selection:
Is government, then, useful and necessary? So is a doctor. But suppose that the dear fellow claimed the right, every time he was called in to prescribe for a bellyache or a ringing in the ears, to raid the family silver, use the family tooth-brushes, and execute the droit de seigneur upon the housemaid?
Mencken here describes precisely the logic of – the inevitable officiousness of – the state. Given this inevitability, one might reasonably conclude that the doctor, being incurably unable to stick to his limited role, is in fact unnecessary. Best to find some less dangerous alternative.
