The state—or, to make the matter more concrete, the government—consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can’t get, and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time it is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.
—H.L. Mencken, “Sham Battle,” published in the Baltimore Evening Sun, October 26, 1936....... This statement is so true, and to think that something written in 1936 still stands true today.
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Mencken wrote some racist stuff, and he had a peculiar idea that wars were good for societal strength, but his observations on politics were generally spot-on.