H.L. Mencken
Offline Henry Lewis Mencken was a leading 'rational responder' of the early 20th century. He was an acerbic critic of puritanism and fundamentalism. Here are some of his quotes.
http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/mencken.htm
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/h/h_l_mencken.html
I recommend becoming familiar with his works and discussing.
'In Defense of Women' is an essay that closely matches my own opinions about the sexes. After writing this, he was called both a great defender of women's rights and a misogynist. Why? In my opinion, he was very rational about things really are. Men either put women down to keep them in their place or put them up on a pedestal they don't necessary deserve just for have a vagina. But it's hard to know when he is serious or when he's being satirical.
http://www.io.com/gibbonsb/mencken/defense/Introduction.html
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
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Mencken was the man.
Mencken's Creed
Some people may take more than one of those maxims out of context, and if you do, I think I know the man's work well enough to give a reply.
I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world. - Richard Dawkins
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I'm not sure if there's some extra context that's supposed to surround this one, but as it stands, I disagree with it (...well, maybe. 'Evil' is one of those terms that tends to be rather flexible and ill-defined). Progress and science are products of industry, and industry is impossible to establish without government. Arguably government does mean a sacrifice of freedoms, but the benefits tend to outweigh the losses (...and if it's 'evil' because it restricts freedom, I would argue that most of the universe's physical laws are likewise 'evil'.
)
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
To be sure Mencken was pretty cynical. He lived in a time when America was even more fundamentalist and more boobs and idiots than today. But he also had these gem quotes:
"I believe in the capacity of man to conquer his world, and to find out what it is made of, and how it is run. "
"I believe in the reality of progress. "
So, I think he's like a lot of us. He was very cynical because of all the idiocy and irrationality in the world, but then he can still see the ability of man to one day overcome our irrationality.
So I think he saw how government had always operated. It has never been the glue for a brotherhood of man or a vehicle to promote mutually beneficial social contracts. Government has largely been a threat to liberty by enforcing morality, waging war and favoring one group of people over another. And governments have always had some level of corruption. If progress enables us to improve the problems of government perhaps it could no longer be a threat to liberty.
Government would not be a threat to liberty if people would listen to men like Mencken instead of politicians and preachers.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen