Voting is simply a way of determining which side is the stronger without putting it to the test of fighting.
Interpretation
Voting serves as a peaceful method to determine power dynamics without resorting to conflict.
In this quote, H. L. Mencken suggests that voting represents a civilized, non-violent approach to resolving differences and deciding leadership. It highlights the importance of political processes in providing a mechanism for people to express their preferences and reach decisions collectively, rather than through force or conflict.
In practice
During a political debate, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of voting as a solution to political disputes.
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
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.
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.
Our tax policy is engineered by people who view tax as a means of achieving changes in our social structure.
Once the coffers of the federal government are opened to the public, there will be no shutting them again.
I learned to be far more skeptical of what I'm told by presidents, no matter who the presidents are, and also to be much more cautious, always, in any action or vote that could lead to the use of American military power and most particularly what we call 'boots on the ground.'
If the United States loses the economic weapons of control, it is very much weakened.
Politics has long been a place where fear and loathing are exploited: fear of progress, fear of the unknown, fear of the other, fear of our own neighbors.
Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage.
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