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… is from pages 119-120 of the 1997 Johns Hopkins University Press edition of H.L. Mencken’s brilliant 1956 collection, Minority Report [2]:
The elements in democracy that are sound in logic and of genuine cultural value may be very briefly listed. They are:
1. Equality before the law.
2. The limitation of government.
3. Free speech.
All the rest of the democratic dogma is, at best, dubious, and at worst palpable nonsense. No professional whooper-up of democracy, so far as I know, is in favor of the three things I have listed.