It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen; it is the practice of all of them to limit its exercise, and sometimes very narrowly.
Interpretation
The quote critiques the contradiction between the principles of government and their actual practices regarding citizens' freedoms.
H. L. Mencken's quote highlights a fundamental paradox in modern governance, where the theoretical framework promotes the protection of individual liberties while, in practice, these liberties are often restricted. This contradiction raises questions about the sincerity of governmental promises to uphold personal freedoms and challenges citizens to scrutinize the extent of their rights and the limitations imposed by those in power.
In practice
In a speech about civil rights, one might use this quote to illustrate the ongoing struggle for true freedom.
I know a good many men of great learning-that is, men born with an extraordinary eagerness and capacity to acquire knowledge. One and all, they tell me that they can't recall learning anything of any value in school. All that schoolmasters managed to accomplish with them was to test and determine the amount of knowledge that they had already acquired independently-and not infrequently the determination was made clumsily and inaccurately.
It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person to reconcile himself to the idea that after all God will not help him
The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.
The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.
It is my conviction that no normal man ever fell in love, within the ordinary meaning of the term, after the age of thirty.
A poet more than thirty years old is simply an overgrown child.
Yet food is something that is taken for granted by most world leaders despite the fact that more than half of the population of the world is hungry.
Come with me, ladies and gentlemen who are in any wise weary of London: come with me: and those that tire at all of the world we know: for we have new worlds here.
I do not approve the extermination of the enemy; the policy of exterminating or, as it is barbarously said, liquidating enemies, is one of the most alarming developments of modern war and peace, from the point of view of those who desire the survival
A southern moon is a sodden moon, and sultry. When it swamps the fields and the rustling sandy roads and the sticky honeysuckle hedges in its sweet stagnation, your fight to hold on to reality is like a protestation against a first waft of ether.
Most sets of values would give rise to universes that, although they might be very beautiful, would contain no one able to wonder at that beauty.
Give a thing a name and it will somehow come to be.
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