* Health care is too expensive, so the Clinton administration
is putting a high-powered corporate lawyer in charge of making it
cheaper. (This is what I always do when I want to spend less money —
hire a lawyer from Yale.) If you think health care is expensive now,
wait until you see what it costs when it's free.


* The Democrats are the party that says government will make
you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn.
Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work, and
then they get elected and prove it.
..

* Many reporters, when they go to work in the nation’s capital,
begin thinking of themselves as participants in the political
process instead of glorified stenographers.


* 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.


* ...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...


* The American political system is like a gigantic Mexican
Christmas fiesta. Each political party is a huge piñata — a
papier-mâché donkey, for example. The donkey is filled with full
employment, low interest rates, affordable housing, comprehensive
medical benefits, a balanced budget 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 *******.


* Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey
and car keys to teenage boys.


* The second item in the liberal creed, after
self-righteousness, is unaccountability. Liberals have invented
whole college majors— psychology, sociology, women's studies— to
prove that nothing is anybody's fault. No one is fond of taking
responsibility for his actions, but consider how much you'd have to
hate free will to come up with a political platform that advocates
killing unborn babies but not convicted murderers. A callous
pragmatist might favor abortion and capital punishment. A devout
Christian would sanction neither. But it takes years of therapy to
arrive at the liberal view.


* 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 philosophy of
sniveling brats.


* I have often been called a Nazi, and, although it is unfair,
I don't let it bother me. I don't let it bother me for one simple
reason. No one has ever had a fantasy about being tied to a bed an
sexually ravished by someone dressed as a liberal.


* The principal feature of American liberalism is
sanctimoniousness. By loudly denouncing all bad things — war and
hunger and date rape — liberals testify to their own terrific
goodness. More important, they promote themselves to membership in a
self-selecting elite of those who care deeply about such things....
It's a kind of natural aristocracy, and the wonderful thing about
this aristocracy is that you don't have to be brave, smart, strong
or even lucky to join it, you just have to be liberal.


* 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.


* You can't shame or humiliate modern celebrities. What used to
be called shame and humiliation is now called publicity. And forget
traditional character assassination; if you say a modern celebrity
is an adulterer, a pervert and a drug addict, all it means is that
you've read his autobiography.


* Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs
have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It's not
entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how
free are they? It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights — the
"right" to education, the "right" to food and housing. That's not
freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the
rations of slavery — hay and a barn for human cattle.


* 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.


* There are just two rules of governance in a free society:
Mind your own business. Keep your hands to yourself. Bill, keep your
hands to yourself. Hillary, mind your own business.


* Health care is too expensive, so the Clinton administration
is putting a high-powered corporate lawyer in charge of making it
cheaper. (This is what I always do when I want to spend less money —
hire a lawyer from Yale.) If you think health care is expensive now,
wait until you see what it costs when it's free.


* And the 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?


* You know, if government were a product, selling it would be
illegal.


* Government is a health hazard. Governments have killed many
more people than cigarettes or unbuckled seat belts ever have.


* Term limits aren't enough. We need jail.




-- P. J. O'Rourke.