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The
Soviet constitution guarantees everyone a job. A pretty scary idea, I'd
say. The
Institute of U.S. and Canadian Studies is supposed to have subscribed to
the "Village Voice" for six years in an attempt to find out
about life in America's rural areas. I'm
a registered Republican and consider socialism a violation of the
American principle that you shouldn't stick your nose in other people's
business except to make a buck. These
were people who believed everything about the Soviet Union was perfect,
but they were bringing their own toilet paper. Smoking
cigarettes seems to alarm peace activists much more than voting for
Reagan does. Anything
that makes your mother cry is fun. I
mean, so what if some fifty-eight-year-old butt-head gets a load on and
starts playing Death Race 2000 in the rush-hour traffic jam? What kind
of chance is he taking? He's just waiting around to see what kind of
cancer he gets anyway. But if young, talented you, with all of life's
possibilities at your fingertips, you and the future Cheryl Tiegs there,
so fresh, so beautiful - if the two of you stake your handsome heads on
a single roll of the dice in life's game of stop-the-semi - now that's
taking chances! Which is why old people rarely risk their lives. It's
not because they're chicken - they just have too much dignity to play
for small stakes. The
real slums are another matter. The bad parts of Tondo are as bad as any
place I've seen, ancient, filthy houses swarmed with the poor and
stinking of sewage and trash. But there are worse parts - squatter areas
where people live under cardboard, in shipping crates, behind tacked-up
newspapers. Dad would march you straight to the basement with a
hairbrush in his hand if he caught you keeping your hamster cage like
this. Freddie
Aguilar, who's billed as "the Bob Dylan of the Philippines".
This is unfair, since he's good-looking, plays the guitar well, can
carry a tune, and writes songs that make sense. To
really enjoy drugs you've got to want to get out of where you are. But
there are some wheres that are harder to get out of than others. This is
the drug-taking problem for adults. Teenage weltschmerz is easy to
escape. But what drug will get a grown-up out of, for instance, debt? A
child growing up in an excessively safe environment may never learn that
he is one - not until he gets married and has a wife to tell him so. The
forces of safety are afoot in the land. I, for one, believe it is a
conspiracy - a conspiracy of Safety Nazis shouting "Sieg
Health" and seeking to trammel freedom, liberty, and large noisy
parties. The Safety Nazis advocate gun control, vigorous exercise, and
health foods. The result can only be a disarmed, exhausted, and
half-starved population ready to acquiesce to dictatorship of some kind. Something
is happening to America, not something dangerous but something all too
safe. I see it in my lifelong friends. I am a child of the "baby
boom", a generation not known for its sane or cautious approach to
things. Yet suddenly my peers are giving up drinking, giving up smoking,
cutting down on coffee, sugar, and salt. They will not eat red meat and
go now to restaurants whose menus have caused me to stand on a chair
yelling, "Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, dinner is served!" This
from the generation of LSD, Weather Underground, and Altamont Rock
Festival! And all in the name of safety! Our nation has withstood many
divisions - North and South, black and white, labor and management - but
I do not know if the country can survive division into smoking and
non-smoking sections. In
fact, safety has no place anywhere. Everything that's fun in life is
dangerous. Horse races, for instance, are very dangerous. But attempt to
design a safe horse and the result is a cow (an appalling animal to
watch at the trotters.) And everything that isn't fun is dangerous too.
It is impossible to be alive and safe. Neither
conservatives nor humorists believe man is good. But left-wingers do. Every
generation finds the drug it needs. Drugs
are a one-man birthday party. Man
developed in Africa. He has not continued to do so there. Industrialization
came to England but has since left. Fishing
... is a sport invented by insects and you are the bait. The
America's Cup is like driving your Lamborghini to the Grand Prix track
to watch the charter buses race. There
are a lot of mysterious things about boats, such as why anyone would get
on one voluntarily. In
Western Australia they don't even know how to make that vital piece of
sailing-boat equipment, the gin and tonic. Earnestness
is just stupidity sent to college. The
larger the German body, the smaller the German bathing suit and the
louder the German voice issuing German demands and German orders to
everybody who doesn't speak German. For this, and several other reasons,
Germany is known as 'the land where Israelis learned their manners'. War
will exist as long as there's a food chain. Civilization
is an enormous improvement on the lack thereof. I'm
sure they were looking for a person who embodied democratic spirit,
intellectual excellence and the American ethos, which is why they picked
Prince Charles. And
Harvard has been almost as important to the American Jewish community as
the pork-sausage industry. The
world is built on discrimination of the most horrible kind. The problem
with South Africans is they admit it. Sailing-boat
racing can be interesting. So was Altamont. The
Australian language is easier to learn than boat talk. It has a
vocabulary of about six words. Stars
& Stripes captain and future White House guest Dennis Conner was
there, also in a bad tux. He looked like a poster child for the Penguin
Obesity Fund. The
purpose of the spinnaker is, I believe, to give the sponsor some place
where he can put the name of his company in really gigantic letters. I've
always figured that if God wanted us to go to church a lot He'd have
given us bigger behinds to sit on and smaller heads to think with. To
grasp the true meaning of socialism, imagine a world where everything is
designed by the post office, even the sleaze. One
nice thing about the Third World, you don't have to fasten your seat
belt. (Or stop smoking. Or cut down on saturated fats.) It takes a lot
off your mind when average life expectancy is forty-five minutes. Cockfighting
has always been my idea of a great sport - two armed entrées battling
to see who'll be dinner. Everything
on a boat has a different name than it would have if it weren't on a
boat. Either this is ancient seafaring tradition or it's how people who
mess around with boats try to impress the rest of us who actually
finished college. I
am no stranger to loud music. I've been to a Mitch Ryder and the Detroit
Wheels concert. I once dated a woman with two kids. Some
people are worried about the difference between right and wrong. I'm
worried about the difference between wrong and fun. Everyone's
very busy, though not exactly working. The
interesting thing about staring down a gun barrel is how small the hole
is where the bullet comes out, yet what a big difference it would make
in your social schedule. If
Christ came back tomorrow, He'd have to change planes in Frankfurt.
Modern air travel means less time spent in transit. That time is now
spent in transit lounges. They
don't like anyone who isn't Korean, and they don't like each other all
that much, either. They're hardheaded, hard-drinking, tough little
bastards, 'the Irish of Asia'. What
would be a road hazard anywhere else, in the Third World Is probably the
road. Italy
is not technically part of the Third World, but no one has told the
Italians. Even
when they don't know what they're doing, they're doing so much of it
that they're still going to get an A. Moscow
has changed. I was here in 1982, during the Brezhnev twilight, and
things are better now. For instance, they've got litter. In 1982 there
was nothing to litter with. I
can understand why mankind hasn't given up war. During a war you get to
drive tanks through the sides of buildings and shoot foreigners - two
things that are usually frowned on during peacetime. The
most extraordinary change in Moscow was Arbat Street, the USSR's first
pedestrian mall. Of course, there's something a little sad about a
pedestrian mall in a nation where few people own cars - the whole damn
country's a pedestrian mall. The
Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then
gets elected and proves it. The
entire Soviet service economy is conducted in geological time. The
French are a smallish, monkey-looking bunch and not dressed any better,
on average, than the citizens of Baltimore. True, you can sit outside in
Paris and drink little cups of coffee, but why this is more stylish than
sitting inside and drinking large glasses of whiskey I don't know. The
Italians have had two thousand years to fix up the Forum and just look
at the place. There
are probably more fact-finding tours of Nicaragua right now than there
are facts - the country has shortages of practically everything. It
had never occurred to us that the Kremlin's new anti-booze campaign
would apply to journalists. Now, that's a human-rights violation. I
like to do my principal research in bars, where people are more likely
to tell the truth or, at least, lie less convincingly than they do in
briefings and books. There's
only one secret to bachelor cooking - not caring how it tastes. A
steady job is at least as deleterious to the spirit of bachelorhood as a
steady date. Some jobs are worse than actual wives. Never
serve oysters during a month that has no paycheck in it. Despite
the fact that meat is made from dead animals, it shouldn't smell that
way. Try this test for meat freshness: close your eyes and see if you
can tell the pork chops from a gym locker. For
some mysterious Darwanian reason, women feel compelled to straighten up
bedrooms before and after sex. Try to make love in every other room of
the house. Keeping
house is as unpleasant and filthy as coal mining, and the pay's a lot
worse. Even
newlyweds don't spend much time together, now that few marriages outlast
the appliance warranties. You
can keep the dining room clean by eating in the kitchen. Cleaning,
like seduction, should be done from the top down - starting with the
ceiling, which is ridiculous. Gravity takes care of that. Women
make their beds each morning and they assume everyone - criminals on the
lam, animals in their burrows - does the same. Lemon
juice, an important ingredient in Bloody Marys and other forms of liquid
breakfast. Makes fish taste as if it was grown on trees. And improves,
immensely, the taste of lemons. The
real truth about children is they don't speak the language very well.
They're physically uncoordinated. And they are ignorant of our elaborate
ideas about right and wrong. Bachelors
know all about parties. In fact, a good bachelor is a living, breathing
party all by himself. At least that is what my girlfriend said when she
found the gin bottles under the couch. I believe her exact words were,
"You're a disgusting, drunken mess." And that's a good
description of a party, if it's done right. A
good bachelor drinks his dessert (and sometimes the rest of his meals).
A sweet tooth is a danger signal that you're getting too much exercise
and not enough cocktails. The
only really good vegetable is Tabasco sauce. Put Tabasco sauce in
everything. Tabasco sauce is to bachelor cooking what forgiveness is to
sin. You
have to wonder about a food that everybody agrees is great except that
sometimes it tastes like what it is. Coffee
and cigarettes are much better if you want an instant breakfast. Remember,
your body needs 6 to 8 glasses of fluid daily. Straight up or on the
rocks. Traffic
was like a bad dog. It wasn't important to look both ways when crossing
the street; it was important to not show fear. Asia
is the continent rhythm forgot. At best Asian music is off-brand
American pop, like Sonny Bono in a karaoke bar. At worst Asian music
sounds as if a truck full of wind chimes collided with a stack of empty
oil drums during a birdcall contest. I'd
like to end the book a lot of ways. Except I don't have any answers. Use
your common sense. Be nice. This is the best I can do. All the trouble
in the world is human trouble. Well, that's not true. But when cancer
cells run amok and burst out of the prostate and take over the liver and
lymph glands and end up killing everything in the body including
themselves, they certainly are acting like some humans we know. Saigon
is like all the other great modern cities of the world. It's the mess
left from people getting rich. Personally,
I believe a rocking hammock, a good cigar, and a tall gin-and-tonic is
the way to save the planet. Sloths
move at the speed of congressional debate but with greater deliberation
and less noise. From
Virgil a line of direct descent runs for two thousand years to John
Denver. One
thing that's certain about going outdoors: When you come back inside,
you'll be scratching. In
a war against hunger, what do you do? Shoot the lunch? It
takes a lot of weapons to do good works (as Richard the Lionhearted
could have told us). And this is not just a Somali problem. We have
poverty and deprivation in our own country. Try standing unarmed on a
street corner in Compton handing out twenty-dollar bills and see how
long you last. Somalia
is so bad that making a mess improves the place. Any
person who has spent time outdoors actually doing something, such as
hunting and fishing opposed to standing there with a doobie in his
mouth, knows nature is not intrinsically healthy. Ecology
is the science of everything. Nobody knows everything. Nobody even knows
everything about any one thing. And most of us don't know much. Say it's
ten-thirty on a Saturday night. Where are your teenage children? I
didn't ask where they said they were going. Where are they really? What
are they doing? Who are they with? Have you met the other kids'
families? And what is tonight's pot smoking, wine-cooler drinking, and
sex in the backseats of cars going to mean in a hundred years? Now
extend these questions to the entire solar system. And
biotechnology is a worry. What if they take genetic material from wet
noodles and blowfish and splice it into politician chromosomes and
create a Clinton administration? Man
has been breeding livestock for ten thousand years and has yet to come
up with a monstrous sheep that can trample buildings and graze a whole
golf course for breakfast. Remember,
FDA employees are serious about fear. We pay these people to panic about
an iota of rodent hair in our chili, even when the recipe calls for it.
FDA employees are first-class agonizers, world champions at losing
sleep. When Meryl Streep got hysterical about Alar, they actually
checked the apples instead of Meryl's head. Mankind
is supposed to have evolved in the treetops. But I have examined my
sense of balance, the prehensility of my various appendages, and my
attitude toward standing on anything higher than, say, political
principles, and I have concluded that, personally, I evolved in the
backseat of a car. The
people who believe that, as a result of industrial development, life is
about to become a hell, or may be one already, are guilty, at least, of
sloppy pronouncements. On page 8 of Earth
in the Balance, Al Gore claims that his study of the arms race gave
him "a deeper appreciation for the most horrifying fact in all our
lives: civilization is now capable of destroying itself." In the
first place, the most horrifying fact in many of our lives is that our
ex-spouse has gotten ahold of our ATM card. And civilization has always
been able to destroy itself. The Greeks of ancient Athens, who had a
civilization remarkable for lack of technological progress during its
period of greatest knowledge and power, managed to destroy them fine. A
careful reading of 50 Simple
Things leaves you wondering whether you're going to die from
environmental disaster or intellectual annoyance. Failing either, you
can worry yourself to death. Everybody
wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes. Politics
is the business of getting power and privilege without possessing merit.
A politician is anyone who asks individuals to surrender part of their
liberty - their power and privilege - to State, Masses, Mankind, Planet
Earth, or whatever. This state, those masses, that mankind, and the
planet will then be run by ... politicians. Human
problems are complex. If something isn't complex it doesn't qualify as
problematic. Very simple bad things are not worth troubling ourselves
about. Being
gloomy is easier than being cheerful. Anybody can say "I've got
cancer" and get a rise out of a crowd. But how many of us can do
five minutes of good stand-up comedy? And
the typical old-fashioned diet was so bad it almost resembled modern
dieting. Even
the bad things are better than they used to be. Bad music, for instance,
has gotten much briefer. Wagner's Ring Cycle takes four days to perform
while "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" by the Crash Test Dummies lasts little
more than three minutes. Are
we disheartened by the breakup of the family? Nobody who ever met my
family is. American
children grow up to be valuable citizens. Bangladeshi children grow up
to be part of the world population problem. Fretting
about overpopulation, is a perfect guilt-free - indeed, sanctimonious -
way for "progressives" to be racists. Imagine
a weight-loss program at the end of which, instead of better health,
good looks, and hot romantic prospects, you die. Somalia had become just
this kind of spa. When
a thing defies physical law, there's usually politics involved. There
is a fine line in the Third World between half a dozen customs officials
waiting for you to offer them a bribe and half a dozen customs officials
waiting for you to offer them a bribe so they can throw you in jail. Anyone
who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do
is a swine. "Malthus,",
says Vice President Al Gore in Earth
in the Balance, "was right in predicting that the population
would grow geometrically." Al, as the father of four children,
should know. Crowded
as the country is, is overcrowding even its main problem? Hong Kong and
Singapore both have greater population densities (14.315 and 12.347 per
square mile, respectively) than Bangladesh, and they're called success
stories. The same goes for Monaco. In fact, the whole Riviera is packed
in August, and neither Malthus nor Ehrlich have complained about the
topless beaches of St. Tropez. Most
of the research about species extinction has been conducted on islands
because islands are controlled environments and scientists can get
drinks with little umbrellas in them there. (...) Island logic also
tells us that an increase in habitat size means an increase in number of
species. But it doesn't necessarily. You can build your bed as large as
you like and still get very few people to sleep with you. I
guess the argument of contextuality is that anything is okay as long as
it's done by people who are sufficiently unlike you. If
the politics of disease are to be understood, particularly in the
dreadful countries where this understanding is most needed, then the
politics of total collapse have to be understood first. "Why
would we have crime in Haiti?" said Dumarsais. "We have the
police and the army to do that for us." Idealism
is based on big ideas. And, as anybody who has ever been asked
"What's the big idea?" knows, most big ideas are bad ones. Violence
is interesting. This is a great obstacle to world peace and also to more
thoughtful television programming. War
is a great asshole magnet. It's
hard to come back from the Balkans and not sound like a Pete Seeger
song. Haitians
weren't screwed-up, but everything political, intellectual, and material
around them is. In
Japan people drive on the left. In China people drive on the right. In
Vietnam it doesn't matter. Any
random group of thirty Vietnames women will contain a dozen who make
Julia Roberts look like Lyle Lovett. ...
two key rules of Third World travel: The
morning meal was served in traditional socialist fashion - very slowly,
with the courses out of order so that the jelly arrived half an hour
after the toast and the coffee didn't come until we'd called for the
check. However, it was hard to be angry at a place that had ice cream,
beer, and cigarettes on its breakfast menu. In
a society where commonweal does not exist, there are no duties, only
exactations to be avoided, and no freedoms, only privileges to be
grabbed. There can be no such thing as "public services"
because nothing in the country is truly public. Everything is somebody's
fief. And every fief must be exploited if the exploiter cares to
survive. I
suspect the Haitian Ministry of Health's principal contribution to
health in Haiti is providing nice, healthy jobs to those Haitians with
the connection to get them. Of
course, the humans in Haiti have hope. They hope to leave. Bureaucrats
want bigger bueraus. Special interests are interested in whatever's
special to them. These two groups bring great pressure to bear upon
politicians who have another agenda yet: to cater to the temporary whims
and fads of the public and the press. Government
subsidies can be critically analyzed according to a simple principle:
You are smarter than the government, so when the government pays you to
do something you wouldn't do on your own, it is almost always paying you
to do something stupid. People
who are wise, good, smart, skillful, or hardworking don't need politics,
they have jobs. We
tried to find the mayor. His secretary said he was at home. His wife
said he was at the office. In Italy or France this would mean His Honor
was having an affair. In Chabarovice it probably meant he'd run off to
be a busboy in Stuttgart. Schneider
has made a career of telling the public that the climate is going to
change drastically any time now, and indeed every spring and fall he's
been right. People
with a mission to save the earth want the earth to seem worse than it is
so their mission will look more important. Worshiping
the earth is more fun than going to church. It's also closer. We can
just step off the sidewalk. And sometimes we can get impressionable
members of the opposite sex to perform sacramental rites with us.
"Every drop of water wasted is a drop less of a wild and scenic
river, Jennifer. We'd better double up in the shower." When
government does, occasionally, work, it works in an elitist fashion.
That is, government is most easily manipulated by people who have money
and power already. This is why government benefits usually go to people
who don't need benefits from government. Government may make some
environmental improvements, but these will be improvements for rich
bird-watchers. And no one in government will remember that when poor
people go bird-watching they do it at Kentucky Fried Chicken. On
Friday, June 12, 1992, 110 heads of state gathered at Riocentro. They
were indistinguishable in dress and deportment. Where was biodiversity
when we needed it? Advocating
the expansion of the powers of the state is treason to mankind,
goddamnit! The
observers had a logbook recording the assaults, bombings, and artillery
attacks on the area. Each page was ruled in vertical columns: DATE,
TIME, LOCATION, DAMAGE, CASUALTIES. The columns headed ACTION TAKEN BY
THE UN were completely empty. If
Martin Luther were a modern ecologist, he would have to nail ninety-five
T-shirts to the church door in Wittenberg. When
a private entity does not produce the desired results, it is (certain
body parts excepted) done away with. But a public entity gets bigger. If
we're going to improve the environment, the first thing we should do is
duck the government. The second thing we should do is quit being moral.
Screw the rights of nature. Nature will have rights as soon as it get
duties. The minute we see birds, trees, bugs, and squirrels picking up
litter, giving money to charity, and keeping an eye on our kids at the
park, we'll let them vote. A
pleasant natural environment is a good - a luxury good, philosophical
good, a moral goody-good, a good time for all. Whatever, we want it. If
we want something, we should pay for it, with our labor or our cash. We
shouldn't beg it, steal it, sit around wishing for it, or euchre the
government into taking it by force.
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Copyright
© by Eberhard Wenzel, 1997-2001
Drugs have taught an
entire generation of American kids the metric system.
--P. J. O'Rourke
You know your
children are growing up when they stop asking you where they came from and
refuse to tell you where they're going.
--P. J. O'Rourke
You can't get rid of
poverty by giving people money.
--P. J. O'Rourke
Its easy to
understand why the cat has eclipsed the dog as modern America's favorite pet.
People like pets to possess the same qualities they do. Cats are irresponsible
and recognize no authority, yet are completely dependent on others for their
material needs. Cats cannot be made to do anything useful. Cats are mean for the
fun of it.
--P. J. O'Rourke
One of the annoying
things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the
difficulty of finding somebody to blame your problems on. And when you do find
somebody, it's remarkable how often his picture turns up on your driver's
license.
--P. J. O'Rourke
No drug, not even
alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the
sources of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them
for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.
--P. J. O'Rourke
A fruit is a
vegetable with looks and money. Plus, if you let fruit rot, it turns into wine,
something Brussels sprouts never do.
--P. J. O'Rourke
Humans are the only
animals that have children on purpose with the exception of guppies, who like to
eat theirs.
--P. J. O'Rourke
Weird clothes are
helpful to teens, making it easier for them to fend off sexual advances from
older people. Certain types of older persons, with more aesthetics than good
sense, are drawn to the beauty and vitality of teenagers. But on closer
inspection, the older person will see that the teenagers have nose rings,
tattoos, and are covered in vegetable dye, feathers, denim things, and that it
isn't easy to tell if they are girls or what, and he will leave them alone.
--P. J. O'Rourke
Fame is a
communicable disease. If you get screwed by someone who's got it, you may catch
it yourself.
--P. J. O'Rourke
One difficult problem
of divorce is knowing what to call an ex-mother-in-law, a former uncle by
marriage, and other relatives of a discarded spouse. Most people call them
'dirt.'
--P. J. O'Rourke
No matter how
liberated she is, every woman still wants a husband. No one knows why, but it's
true. Modern Manners demands then that whenever you visit a single woman, you
should put your feet up on her furniture, smoke stinky cigars, and refuse to
take the garbage out. Identify with the role and try to be a husband at all
times. Ask every single woman you know, 'When's dinner?' or 'Why you putting on
so much weight.
--P. J. O'Rourke
Never serve oysters
in a month that has no paycheck in it.
--P. J. O'Rourke
Always read stuff
that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
--P. J. O'Rourke
Living wills should
be very specific about the definition of 'brain dead' and not so carelessly
worded that they can be enacted by greedy heirs if you foot goes to sleep.
--P. J. O'Rourke
The weirder you're
going to behave, the more normal you should look. It works in reverse, too. When
I see a kid with green hair and three or four rings in his nose, I know there is
absolutely nothing extraordinary about that person.
--P. J. O'Rourke
A woman should dress
to attract attention. To attract the most attention, a woman should be either
nude or wearing something as expensive as getting her nude is going to be.
--P. J. O'Rourke
A hat should be taken off when you greet a lady and left off for the rest of your life. Nothing looks more stupid than a hat.
P. J. O'Rourke
Fish is the only food that is considered spoiled once it smells like what it is.
P. J. O'Rourke
Humans are the only animals that have children on purpose with the exception of guppies, who like to eat theirs.
P. J. O'Rourke
Never fight an inanimate object.
P. J. O'Rourke
The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop.
P. J. O'Rourke
Very little is known of the Canadian country since it is rarely visited by anyone but the Queen and illiterate sport fishermen.
P. J. O'Rourke
When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.
P. J. O'Rourke
With Epcot Center the Disney corporation has accomplished something I didn't think possible in today's world. They have created a land of make-believe that's worse than regular life.
P. J. O'Rourke
"Who does Bill Clinton think got off the boat and stepped on Plymouth Rock? Peace Corps volunteers?" -- P.J. O'Rourke
"I believe that Western civilization, after some disgusting glitches, has become almost civilized. I believe it is our first duty to protect that civilization. I believe it is our second duty to improve it. I believe it is our third duty to extend it if we can." - P. J. O'Rourke
"...Daniel Patrick Moynihan is the archtypical extremely smart person who went into politics anyway instead so doing something worthwhile for his country. So maybe he owes all of us an apology..." -- Parliament of Whores by P. J. O'Rourke
"You'll note that politicians no longer spend money, they invest it. Don't worry about paying more to the [IRS]. You aren't being taxed; you're taking a plunge on a fly-by-night stock issue." -- P.J. O'Rourke
"The whole idea of our government is this: If enough people get together and act in concert, they can take something and not pay for it." -- P.J. O'Rourke - A Parliament of Whores
"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child - miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosphy of sniveling brats." -- P.J. O'Rourke
"Giving government money and power is like giving car keys and whiskey to a teenage boy" - P.J. O'Rourke
Sen. Ted Kennedy:
"And when the Reagan administration was selling arms to Iran, WHERE WAS
GEORGE?"
Answer: Dry, sober, and at home with his wife.
Paraphrased from "A
Parliament of Whores" by P.J. O'Rourke
"The American political system is like a gigantic Mexican Christmas fiesta. Each political party is a huge pinata -- a papier-mache donkey, for example. The donkey is filled with full employment, low interest rates, affordable housing, comprehensive medical benefits, a balanced budge and other goodies. The American voter is blindfoled and given a stick. The voter then swings the stick wildly in every direction, trying to hit a political candidate on the head and knock some sense into the silly bastard." - P.J. O'Rourke, "Parliament of Whores"
"You can't get good chinese takeout in China and cuban cigars are rationed in Cuba. That's all you need to know about communism." - P.J. ORourke
"A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them." P.J. O'ROURKE
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -- PJ O'Rourke
"[T]he Clinton administration launched an attack on people in Texas because those people were religious nuts with guns. Hell, this country was founded by religious nuts with guns. Who does Bill Clinton think stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock? Peace Corps volunteers? Or maybe the people in Texas_ were attacked because of child abuse. But, if child abuse was the issue, why didn't Janet Reno tear-gas Woody Allen? -- P.J. O'Rourke, speech at the Cato Institute, May 6, 1993
The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it. -- P.J. O'Rourke
"How did an allegedly free people spawn a vast, rampant cuttlefish of dominion with its tentacles in every orifice of the body politic?" - P.J. O'Rourke
Politics should be limited in scope to ware, protection of property, and the occasional precautionary beheading of a member of the ruling class." -- P.J. O'Rourke
"The free market is ugly and stupid, like going to the mall; the unfree market is just as ugly and just as stupid, except there is nothing in the mall and if you don't go there they shoot you." - P.J. O'Rourke
Some may decry the
impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton as a national trauma, but not humorist
P.J. O'Rourke, who thinks the proceedings are a win-win situation -- and grand
entertainment to boot. Mr. O'Rourke, writing in the latest issue of the Weekly Standard, acknowledges that "some earnest souls have
gone so far as to aver that impeachment has distracted President Clinton from
... raising taxes, destroying health care, appointing 1960s bakeheads to high
political office, soliciting felonious campaign contributions, hanging friends
out to dry for Arkansas real estate frauds, giving missile secrets to the
Chinese, taking credit for the benefits of a free market about which he knows
little and cares less, using U.S. military forces as fig leaves for domestic
scandals and au pairs for the U.N., leading foreign policy back into the flea
circus of Jimmy Carterism, having phone sex, groping patronage seekers, and
snapping the elastic on the underpants of psychologically disturbed school-age
White House interns entrusted with the task of delivering high-level government
pizza."
Ouch. Tell us what you really think, P.J. "No matter what, Bill,"
Mr.O'Rourke concludes, "your girlfriend's ugly, your wife hates you, and
your dog can't hunt."
"Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power." -- P.J. O'Rourke
"There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as "caring" and "sensitive" because he wants to expand the government's charitable programs is merely saying that he's willing to try to do good with other people's money. Well, who isn't? And a voter who takes pride in supporting such programs is telling us that he'll do good with his own money -- if a gun is held to his head." -- P.J. O'Rourke
Worshiping the earth is more fun than going to church. It's also closer. We can just step off the sidewalk. And sometimes we can get impressionable members of the opposite sex to perform sacramental rites with us. "Every drop of water wasted is a drop less of a wild and scenic river, Jennifer. We'd better double up in the shower." -- P.J. O'Rourke, All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death.
"...and biotechnology is a worry. What if they take genetic material from wet noodles and blowfish and splice it into politician chromosomes and create a Clinton administration?" -- P.J. Rourke, All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death.
"The people who believe that, as a result of industrial development, life is about to become a hell, or may be one already, are guilty, at least, of sloppy pronouncements. On page 8 of Earth in the Balance, Al Gore claims that his study of the arms race gave him "a deeper appreciation for the most horrifying fact in all our lives: civilization is now capable of destroying itself." In the first place, the most horrifying fact in many of our lives is that our ex-spouse has gotten ahold of our ATM card. And civilization has always been able to destroy itself. The Greeks of ancient Athens, who had a civilization remarkable for lack of technological progress during its period of greatest knowledge and power, managed to destroy them fine." -- P.J. O'Rourke, All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death.
"Fretting about overpopulation, is a perfect guilt-free - indeed, sanctimonious - way for "progressives" to be racists." -- P.J. O'Rourke, All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death.
"Malthus,", says [former] Vice President Al Gore in Earth in the Balance, "was right in predicting that the population would grow geometrically." Al, as the father of four children, should know. -- P.J. O'Rourke, All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death.
"Coffee and cigarettes are much better if you want an instant breakfast." -- P.J. O'Rourke, The bachelor home companion. A practical guide to keeping house like a pig.
"...Harvard has been almost as important to the American Jewish community as the pork-sausage industry." -- P.J. O'Rourke, Holidays in hell
"When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators." -- P.J. O'ROURKE
The Dignified Way to Vomit: Remain standing. With right hand, hold cocktail to the side at arm's length. Bow deeply at the waist. Include all regurgitation in one retch. Resume upright position. Use left hand to wipe mouth with handkerchief (not toilet paper). Take another drink. -- P.J. O'Rourke
"It's better to spend money like there's no tomorrow than to spend tonight like there's no money." -- Modern Manners: An Etiquette Book for Rude People.
"Never Refuse Wine. It is an odd but universally held opinion that anyone who doesn't drink must be an alcoholic." -- Modern Manners: An Etiquette Book for Rude People.
"A woman should dress to attract attention. To attract the most attention, a woman should be either nude, or wearing something as expensive as getting her nude is going to be." -- Modern Manners: An Etiquette Book for Rude People.
"The founding fathers, in their wisdom, devised a method by which our republic can take one hundred of its most prominent numbskulls and keep them out of the private sector where they might do actual harm." -- P.J. O'Rourke
"Well the planet I've got a chance to visit is Earth, and Earth's principal features are chaos and war. I think I'd be a fool to spend years here and never have a look." -- P.J. O'Rourke
"The college idealists who fill the ranks of the environmental movement seem willing to do absolutely anything to save the biosphere, except take science courses and learn something about it." -- P.J. O'Rourke
"There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as 'caring' and 'sensitive' because he wants to expand the government's charitable programs is merely saying that he's willing to try to do good with other people's money. Well, who isn't? And a voter who takes pride in supporting such programs is telling us that he'll do good with his own money -- if a gun is held to his head." -- P.J. O'Rourke
"Armenians and Azerbaijanis in Stepanakert, capital of the Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous region, rioted over much needed spelling reform in the Soviet Union." -- P.J. O'Rourke
"After all, what is your hosts' purpose in having a party? Surely not for you to enjoy yourself; if that were their sole purpose, they'd have simply sent champagne and women over to your place by taxi." -- P.J. O'Rourke
"It's the squars who know how to fly the fighter planes and operate the missiles and the bombs and work the M-16s. Liberals would still be fumbling with the federally mandated trigger locks." -- P.J. O'Rourke
P.J. O'Rourke on Food:
Never
refuse wine. It is an odd but universally held opinion that anyone who doesn't
drink must be an alcoholic.
P.J. O'Rourke on Funny:
Guns
are always the best method for private suicide. Drugs are too chancy. You might
miscalculate the dosage and just have a good time.
P.J. O'Rourke on Funny:
There's
a part of the human psyche that's never satisfied with the chunks of an Archduke
at Sarajevo and has to have a World War I.
P.J. O'Rourke on Intelligence:
The difference between individual intelligence and group intelligence is the difference between Harvard University and the Harvard University football team.
P.J. O'Rourke on Money:
Economics is an entire scientific discipline of not knowing what you're talking about.
P.J. O'Rourke on Money:
It's better to spend money like there's no tomorrow than to spend tonight like there's no money.
P.J. O'Rourke on Money:
The
free market is ugly and stupid, like going to the mall; the unfree market is
just as ugly and just as stupid, except there's nothing in the mall and if you
don't go there they shoot you.
P.J. O'Rourke on Money:
In
order to understand the stock market we have to realize that, like anything
enormous and inert, it's fundamentally stable, and, like anything
emotion-driven, it's volatile as hell. Got that? Me neither.
P.J. O'Rourke on Money:
Reading about economics after watching a lot of economic activity is like reading the assembly instructions after the Christmas toy has been put together. Certain significant patterns begin to take shape in the mind, even though the instructions are still gibberish and the toy doesn't work.
P.J. O'Rourke on Politics:
Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
P.J. O'Rourke on Politics:
A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them.
