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Authority Has Always Attracted The Lowest Elements In The Human Race. All Through History, Mankind Has Been Bullied By Scum. Those Who Lord It Over Their Fellows And Toss Commands In Every Direction And Would Boss The Grass In The Meadow About Which Way To Bend In The Wind Are The Most Depraved Kind Of Prostitutes. They Will Submit To Any Indignity, Perform Any Vile Act, Do Anything To Achieve Power. The Worst Off-sloughings Of The Planet Are The Ingredients Of Sovereignty. Every Government Is A Parliament Of Whores. The Trouble Is, In A Democracy The Whores Are Us.

-P. J. O'Rourke

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Authority Has Always Attracted

P. J. O'Rourke

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Authority Has Always Attracted The Lowest Elements In The Human Race. All Through History, Mankind Has Been Bullied By Scum. Those Who Lord It Over Their Fellows And Toss Commands In Every Direction And Would Boss The Grass In The Meadow About Which Way To Bend In The Wind Are The Most Depraved Kind Of Prostitutes. They Will Submit To Any Indignity, Perform Any Vile Act, Do Anything To Achieve Power. The Worst Off-sloughings Of The Planet Are The Ingredients Of Sovereignty. Every Government Is A Parliament Of Whores. The Trouble Is, In A Democracy The Whores Are Us.

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There's Something About Marxism That Brings Out Warts; The Only Kind Of Growth This Economic System Encourages.

Zen Martini: A Martini With No Vermouth At All. And No Gin, Either.

People Think The Free Market Is A Philosophy, They Think That It Is A Creed. It Is None Of Those Things. Free Market Is A Bathroom Scale, It Is A Measuring Tape, It's Simply A Measurement.

Even Very Young Children Need To Be Informed About Dying. Explain The Concept Of Death Very Carefully To Your Child. This Will Make Threatening Him With It Much More Effective.

Iran And Iraq Have Been At War For Five Years Now. The Traditional Present For A Fifth Anniversary Is Wood. Here's A Gift Suggestion: A Big Stick To Beat Some Goddamned Sense Into Their Heads.

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 ... It Is Impossible To Be Alive And Safe.

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.

We Need A Government, Alas, Because Of The Nature Of Humans.

The Harvard Lampoon Itself, Which Had A Pretty Stellar Run In The '60s.

Ideology, Politics And Journalism, Which Luxuriate In Failure, Are Impotent In The Face Of Hope And Joy.

Lampoon Was Exactly The Opposite. The Work Was A Lot Of Fun, But The Office Environment Was Hell. You Cannot Put 20 Humorists Together.

Never Serve Oysters In A Month That Has No Paycheck In It.

Generally It's Not A Good Idea To Wear Banana Republic - Type Khaki Journalist Clothes In A War Zone. You Might Look Too Much Like Something That's Supposed To Be Shot, Such As A Journalist.

The U.s. Tax Code Was Written By A Students. Every April 15 We Have To Pay Somebody Who Got An A In Accounting To Keep Ourselves From Being Sent To Jail.

The Democrats Planned To Fiddle While Rome Burned. The Republicans Were Going To Burn Rome, Then Fiddle.

In Our Brief National History We Have Shot Four Of Our Presidents, Worried Five Of Them To Death, Impeached One And Hounded Another Out Of Office. And When All Else Fails, We Hold An Election And Assassinate Their Character.

Lampoon Was A Very Collegial Operation, Though "collegial" Usually Means "friendly" And It Wasn't That Friendly. But We Were Tight, Like A Family.

In General, Life Is Better Than It Has Ever Been, And If You Think That, In The Past, There Was Some Golden Age Of Pleasure And Plenty To Which You Would, If You Were Able, Transport Yourself, Let Me Say One Single Word : Dentistry.

Wealth Is, For Most People, The Only Honest And Likely Path To Liberty. With Money Comes Power Over The World. Men Are Freed From Drudgery, Women From Exploitation. Businesses Can Be Started, Homes Built, Communities Formed, Religions Practiced, Educations Pursued. But Liberals Aren't Very Interested In Such Real And Material Freedoms. They Have A More Innocent - Not To Say Toddlerlike - Idea Of Freedom. Liberals Want The Freedom To Put Anything Into Their Mouths, To Say Bad Words And To Expose Their Private Parts In Art Museums.

You Can Smoke Or Drink On A Golf Course Without Interrupting The Game, And You Can Take A Leak - Something You Can't Do On A Squash Court And Shouldn't Do In A Swimming Pool.

You Can Keep The Dining Room Clean By Eating In The Kitchen.

Seriousness Is Stupidity Sent To College.

I Can Think Of A Number Of Areas In New York Where Three Acres Of Nuclear Waste Would Make The Neighborhood Safer To Walk Around In Than It Is Now, And Better Lit.

It Remains To Be Seen Which Program Will Cause Greater Societal Damage: China's One-child Policy Or America's One-parent Policy.

I Had Really Not Been Out Of The United States Much, Except For Mexico. I Thought, "jesus Christ, This [russia] Is Like A Whole New World." Instead Of Writing Michael Jackson One-glove Jokes, All I Had To Do Was Go To These Weird Places And Keep My Eyes And Ears Open.

I Always Thought There Was Some Romance To That '30s Leftist Stuff, Even Though I'm A Republican.

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