[lbo-talk] Mencken

[John Thornton]

Gar Lipow wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 10:50 AM, John Thornton <jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>   
>> Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
>> Mencken wrote in praise of Strom Thurmond and in praise of Jim Crow.
>> He opposed lynch mobs because he hated mobs. Same for the KKK.
>> He also wrote that the US would have been better served if the South had won
>> the Civil War and the US was ruled by an elite Southern aristocracy.
>> I don't paint Mencken as virulently racist but he was a little more racist
>> than average in my opinion.
>> Better than 50% of American's opposed Jim Crow in 1950 but Mencken did not.
>>
>> John Thornton
>>     
>
> Also, though he opposed individual cases of lynching, he also opposed
> Federal laws outlawing it as improperly stepping on States Rights. The
> overwhelming majority of Americans supported anti-lynch laws.  Given
> some of his statements, I would paint him virulently racist.
>
> Again, I repeat that that Mark Twain really should never have been
> lumped in with Bierce and Mencken. Bierce and Mencken were primarily
> concerned with stupidity and self-delusion.  At Twain's core was a
> hatred of cruelty and unnecessary suffering.

Whether one considers his racism virulent or not he was not left of 
anything as someone here claimed.
He was a libertarian of a center/right sort who admired an elite 
aristocracy of which he considered himself an equal.
Opposing lynching because it is "populist" in a disgusting way is not 
the same as opposing lynching for all the other more important reasons 
one can oppose it.
Opposing any federal action to end lynching demonstrates the absolute 
shallowness of his anti-lynching stance.

John Thornton