Blockquoting X

X = H.L. Mencken:

Always they resolve themselves into huge bureaucracies, and a bureaucracy is a public menace in direct ration to its power. In normal times it annoys us devilishly without doing us much serious damage, but when it has Authority with a big A behind it it invariably puts on a circus in the grand manner. The bureaucrat begins, perhaps, by doing only what he conceives to be his sworn duty, but unless there are very efficient four-wheel brakes upon him he soon adds a multitude of inventions of his own, all of them born of his professional virtuosity and designed to lather and caress his sense of power. Here my figures of speech may be mixed, but my meaning should be clear. The only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and it's good-by to the Bill of Rights.