#Hoist the black flag plus#

That goes for liberty as much as for anything else. We do not live in a global utopian society, and if you do not take it you will likely die waiting for it to be given to you. And to have anything at all, you will have to fight for it. The sad fact of life on this planet is that not everyone will have what they want, and many will not have what they need. No one ever wrote a treatise on the survival of the nicest. It is, in a way, Darwin’s evolution in action. If keeping your house means another family goes homeless, that’s something you’ll just have to face. If keeping your job means someone else goes unemployed, so be it. So what does this have to do with Mencken’s quote? I think the deeper meaning behind it says you have to be your own pirate, be prepared to fight for anything you want, and if you really want it you can’t let others stand in your way. With a pirate on every side wondering how they can get their hands on it next. Someone is watching their house or car or savings or future circle the drain when that newest chest is drug on board the winning ship and its golden contents are revealed. From the world’s largest corporation to grade schoolers, everyone’s playing pirate.īut someone somewhere is losing. Hey, that’s the new American Dream: getting something for nothing. Anything to make another dollar, and the less honest the better. Bye bye now.Īnd of course there were still the usual rackets of car sales, internet companies, Wall Street, and, well, anything run by the government. Don’t forget, your next payment is due in two weeks. Nope, it’s not a flood, it’s a wave, and we don’t cover that. But no, sorry, we don’t pay off on damages from storm surge. A hurricane you say? Your house flooded? Oh how awful.

#Hoist the black flag plus#

Tell you what, we’ll give you this month’s mortgage payment plus an extra $50. Your house burnt? Oh, so sorry, we won’t pay for anything damaged by smoke or water or heat or any wall left standing. If you were in insurance you issued thousands of policies that were useless and refused to pay claims, slitting more throats and raking in treasure chests of booty. Besides, that’s what homeowner’s insurance is for. So what if the floor joists won’t last five years, and the basement leaks if so much as a dog takes a whizz two doors down, and the wallboard emits poisonous gas? Sorry, buddy, you were dumb enough to sail into my harbor and your throat just got slit. If you were in construction, you threw together as many buildings as possible and waited for fat profits to roll in, and who cares about the structural integrity of those houses and business spaces. Lie and steal from your government, your employer, your family, your fellow man. Buy things you can’t afford with someone else’s money. In fact, cheat at anything if you think you won’t get caught. Wanting a large payoff from a smaller, somewhat riskier investment seemed to be the prevailing modus operandi. It strikes me that much of American society is already busy at pirating, or was until the Big Bust of 2008. To war, then, and to the victor goes the spoils. Mencken will have to pardon my conclusions they are mine alone. You can be taught to see more, to see better, he said, but never fully trust what you are told. But a learned man once told me that what we see on our own is more important than what we are told to see. Those sentiments may not be remotely near what the author intended when writing it.

I’ve never read that line in its original context. There comes a time, these words say, when every man will have to take action, make a stand, and risk everything to fight for what they value or else lose it to another’s plundering.

A rallying cry, a warning, a call-to-arms. Every normal man must sometimes want to throw caution to the wind and be a pirate, it says, to slit throats with abandon and claim the spoils regardless of consequence. Mencken that reads, “Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.” Since first reading it, I’ve been struck by those words and have remembered them.