Quotation of the Day…
by Don Boudreaux
on September 12, 2020
… is from a short essay that H.L. Mencken wrote in 1924 for The American Mercury; by “Liberals” Mencken here refers to what we today call “progressives” rather than to classical – that is, to true – liberals:
[H]e saw the world first and last through an amber and palpitating haze. It is the mark of Liberals, at all times and everywhere. They are often acutely intelligent … and for certain kinds of sham they have sharp eyes, but to other kinds they are completely blind. Always they cling to some shred of illusion, as if the whole truth were too harsh to be borne, and often it is a shred indeed.
DBx: Mencken then proceeds to complain of Woodrow Wilson’s “blowsy, half-bogus and half-nonsensical ‘idealism’.”
Mencken was born on this date, September 12th, 140 years ago in Baltimore. Here’s to the memory of that unparalleled sage!
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