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So-called Western Civilization, As Practised In Half Of Europe, Some Of Asia And A Few Parts Of North America, Is Better Than Anything Else Available. Western Civilization Not Only Provides A Bit Of Life, A Pinch Of Liberty And The Occasional Pursuance Of Happiness, It's Also The Only Thing That's Ever Tried To. Our Civilization Is The First In History To Show Even The Slightest Concern For Average, Undistinguished, None-too-commendable People Like Us.

-P. J. O'Rourke

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So-called Western Civilization, As

P. J. O'Rourke

...

So-called Western Civilization, As Practised In Half Of Europe, Some Of Asia And A Few Parts Of North America, Is Better Than Anything Else Available. Western Civilization Not Only Provides A Bit Of Life, A Pinch Of Liberty And The Occasional Pursuance Of Happiness, It's Also The Only Thing That's Ever Tried To. Our Civilization Is The First In History To Show Even The Slightest Concern For Average, Undistinguished, None-too-commendable People Like Us.

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I Have Three Children And Three Dogs. You Put Them In A Prius, You Know? People Who Have A Prius Obviously Have No Life! No Wife, No Kids, No Pets - There's No Room In There For Anything!

It Is Very Hard Now To Shock People Into Thinking About Government Regulation And The Extent Of Government Involvement In Life.

Everybody In 15th Century Spain Was Wrong About Where China Was And As A Result, Columbus Discovered Caribbean Vacations.

I Started Reading Hunter S. Thompson When I Was In College.

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.

On Michael Moore Tv Show, When He Went To The Home Of The Guy Who Invented The Car Alarm And Set Off All The Car Alarms On The Block... Pretty Funny.

Smoking Is Very Bad For You And Should Only Be Done Because It Looks So Good. People Who Don't Smoke Have A Terrible Time Finding Something Polite To Do With Their Lips.

The Purpose Of The Senate Is To Keep 100 Middle Aged Knuckleheads Out Of The Private Sector Where They Can Do Real Harm.

Drugs Have Taught An Entire Generation Of Kids The Metric System

There Is One Thing Women Can Never Take Away From Men. We Die Sooner.

Pollution Is A Problem, And There's The Whole Problem Of The Spoiling Of The Commons, But We've Addressed The Pollution Problem On A Variety Of Different Levels In A Variety Of Ways, And It's Worked Pretty Well.

Finland Is A Rich Country. What Have They Got? They Got Nokia Phones And Plywood. How'd They Get So Rich? Because They're Free.

Never Steal Anything So Small That You'll Have To Go To An Unpleasant City Jail For It Instead Of A Minimum-security Federal Tennis Prison.

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.

The Young Are Adept At Learning, But Even More Adept At Avoiding It.

In The Wake Of Animal House, The Stock Briefly And Quite Wrongly Shot Up. So I Love That Movie.

Hunter S. Thompson Brings A Lunatic Genius To Ordinary Events, And I Bring An Ordinary Sensibility To Lunatic Events.

The Mystery Of Government Is Not How Washington Works But How To Make It Stop.

Christmas Begins About The First Of December With An Office Party And Ends When You Finally Realize What You Spent, Around April Fifteenth Of The Next Year.

I Was Never In The Office [of Rolling Stone]. It Was Very Different From Lampoon, Where We Spent A Lot Of Time Together Socially, Which Is To Say "drunk."

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.

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.

Anyone Who Thinks He Has A Better Idea Of What's Good For People Than People Do Is A Swine.

Greatest Generation Came Through Some Stuff That We Can't Even Imagine - The Depression, World War I - And All They Wanted After That Was A Breather And A Calm And A Quiet Life, And They Get Us.

That Happy Sense Of Purpose People Have When Standing Up For A Principle They Haven't Really Been Knocked Down For Yet.

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.

B Students Work For C Students - A Students Teach.

Off They Go On This Sort Of Camping Trip To Iwo Jima, Where They're Taken Around And Shown Where All The Battles Took Place. It's Very Moving. Disgusting Little Island, Though. Still An Active Volcano. Stinks Of Sulfur. There Are Dead Japanese Everywhere Under That Island. It's Icky. But I Knew I Would Never Have Another Chance To Go, So I Took The Job.

Fiscal Conservatism Is Just An Easy Way To Express Something That Is A Bit More Difficult, Which Is That The Size And Scope Of Government, And Really The Size And Scope Of Politics In Our Lives, Has Grown Uncomfortable, Unwieldy, Intrusive And Inefficient.

We Are A Nation That Worships Speed And Power. And For Good Reason. Without Power We Would Still Be Part Of England And Everybody Would Be Out Of Work... Bicycles Are Too Slow And Impuissant For A Nation Like Ours. They Belong In Czechoslovakia.

Fashionably Amusing Table Manners Are A Matter Of Breaking The Right Rule At The Right Time.

The Purpose Of A Funeral Service Is To Comfort The Living. It Is Important At A Funeral To Display Excessive Grief. This Will Show Others How Kind-hearted And Loving You Are And Their Improved Opinion Of You Will Be Very Comforting.

Then There Was Communism's Weak-tea Sister, Socialism. Socialists Maintained That We Shouldn't Take All The Money Away From All The People Since All The People Don't Have Money. We Should Take All The Money Away From Only The People Who Make Money. Then, When We Run Out Of That, We Could Take More Money From The People Who...hey, Wait! Where'd You People Go? What Do You Mean You're "tax Exiles In Monaco?"

I Think In The [bill] Clinton Era, If People Hadn't Been Spending Vast Amounts Of Time Attacking Clinton, They Would Have Found That They Had Essentially The Same Problems As They Do Now.

I Don't See Evidence Of America Being A Poorer Country Than It Was 20 Years Ago. I've Seen Impoverished Devastation. I've Seen Places Where Things Had Been Good And Now They Were Very Bad.

Automobiles Are Free Of Egotism, Passion, Prejudice And Stupid Ideas About Where To Have Dinner. They Are, Literally, Selfless. A World Designed For Automobiles Instead Of People Would Have Wider Streets, Larger Dining Rooms, Fewer Stairs To Climb And No Smelly, Dangerous Subway Stations.

We're Told Cars Are Wasteful. Wasteful Of What? Oil Did A Lot Of Good Sitting In The Ground For Millions Of Years. We're Told Cars Should Be Replaced With Mass Transportation. But It's Hard To Reach The Drive-through Window At Mcdonald's From A Speeding Train. And We're Told Cars Cause Pollution. A Hundred Years Ago City Streets Were Ankle Deep In Horse Excrement. What Kind Of Pollution Do You Want? Would You Rather Die Of Cancer At Eighty Or Typhoid Fever At Nine?

Guns Are Always The Best Method For A Private Suicide. They Are More Stylish Looking Than Single-edged Razor Blades And Natural Gas Has Got So Expensive. Drugs Are Too Chancy. You Might Miscalculate The Dosage And Just Have A Good Time.

Even A Band Of Angels Can Turn Ugly And Start Looting If Enough Angels Are Unemployed And Hanging Around The Pearly Gates Convinced That All The Succubi Own All The Liquor Stores In Heaven.

Republicans Are The Party That Says Government Doesn't Work, And Then They Get Elected And Prove It.

Hubris Is One Of The Great Renewable Resources.

Renewable Resources

I Like To Think Of My Behavior In The Sixties As A 'learning Experience.' Then Again, I Like To Think Of Anything Stupid I've Done As A 'learning Experience.' It Makes Me Feel Less Stupid.

The Great Thing About Being A Print Journalist Is That You Are Permitted To Duck. Cameramen Get Killed While The Writers Are Flat On The Floor. A War Correspondent For The Bbc Dedicated His Memoir To 50 Fallen Colleagues, And I Guarantee You They Were All Taking Pictures. I Am Only Alive Because I Am Such A Chicken.

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.

There's No Such Thing As A Trade Deficit.

There's One More Terrifying Fact About Old People: I'm Going To Be One Soon.

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.

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If You Think Health Care Is Expensive Now, Wait Until You See What It Costs When It's Free.

Italy Is Not Technically Part Of The Third World, But No One Has Told The Italians.

Haitians Weren't Screwed-up, But Everything Political, Intellectual, And Material Around Them Is.

A Charity Ball Is Like A Dance Except It's Tax Deductible.

Mike Had Called Me And Said He Could Offer Me Less, And I Said, "you're On!" Because I Was Really Excited With What Mike Kelly Was Doing, And Now What Cullen Murphy Is Doing With Atlantic. It's A Really Cool Magazine.

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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.

I Don't Think I'll Ever Be A Real Boat Reporter. My Rolex Isn't Big Enough.

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Every Generation Finds The Drug It Needs.

Marijuana Is Self-punishing. It Makes You Acutely Sensitive, And In This World, What Worse Punishment Could There Be?

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The Political Process Consists Entirely Of Politicians Talking Out Of Their Butts.

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Whatever The Occasion, Do Not Neglect Alcohol. No Other Refreshment Will Do. Yes, Alcohol Kills Brain Cells, But It's Very Selective. It Only Kills The Brain Cells That Contain Good Sense, Shame, Embarrassment, And Restraint.

You Can Learn All About The Human Condition From Covering The Crime Beat In A Big City - You Don't Need To Go To Beirut For That - But A Foreign Correspondent Begins To Understand Poverty From A Different Perspective.

Liberalism Is Just Communism Sold By The Drink.

I Have A 10 Year Old At Home, And She Is Always Saying, 'that's Not Fair.' When She Says That, I Say, "honey, You're Cute; That's Not Fair. Your Family Is Pretty Well Off; That's Not Fair. You Were Born In America; That's Not Fair. Honey, You Had Better Pray To God That Things Don't Start Getting Fair For You.

Politics Should Be Limited In Scope To Ware, Protection Of Property, And The Occasional Precautionary Beheading Of A Member Of The Ruling Class.

[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?

Politicians Are Always Interested In People. Not That This Is Always A Virtue. Fleas Are Interested In Dogs.

When Buying And Selling Are Controlled By Legislation, The First Things To Be Bought And Sold Are Legislators.

Funny Inspirational

Taxi Drivers All Over The World, By The Way, Are Under Newspaper Guild Contract To Give Easy Quotes To Foreign Correspondents.

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How Did An Allegedly Free People Spawn A Vast, Rampant Cuttlefish Of Dominion With Its Tentacles In Every Orifice Of The Body Politic?

So What If I Don't Agree With The Democrats? What's To Disagree With? They Believe Everything. And What They Don't Believe, The Republicans Do. Neither Of Them Stands For Anything They Believe In, Anyway.

If You're Doing A Column, You Kind Of Have To. Like In The Back Of Sports Illustrated, Rick Reilly Has To Find Something To Be Mad About. It's Not Really The Way I Approach Things.

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.

Gambling Is So Pervasive In Nevada That Maybe The State Should Just Go The Whole Hog. There'd Be Gum Machines That Dispensed Chewing Tobacco If You Lost. You Could Gamble For The Toilet Paper In Public Bathroom Stalls. And Fill Out Keno Cards In An Attempt To Win Cancer Therapy At The Hospital.

Then Basically What Was Happening Was That It Was The Middle '80s, And Rolling Stone Realized That A Lot Of Their Readers Had Voted For [ronald] Reagan, And They Were Going, "gosh! We Need A Republican! Does Anybody Know A Republican? Wait A Minute! I Think P.j.'s A Republican!"

This Going On And On About How Terrible A Carbon-based Economy Is, These People Are Full Of Crap. They Don't Know What They're Talking About. Their Motives Are Not Necessarily Good Just Because They Say They Are Being Good. It's Peace, Love, And Understanding. To Which I Can Just Say, "shut Up." Human Liberty, Rule Of Law, And Free Markets Fix This Stuff. It Isn't Necessary To Go Around Being The Mia Farrow Of The Ecosphere.

If You Get Outside The World Of Show Business And Its Satellites, There's A Whole World Of Car Nuts In The Los Angeles Area.

I'm Not Guaranteeing What We Come Up With Will Be Better For The Planet. There Is Ethanol, For Instance, Which Actually Nets Out With More Pollution At Greater Expense, And More Harm To The Environment Than Petroleum, But We'll Come Up With Something.

Everybody Wants To Save The Earth; Nobody Wants To Help Mom Do The Dishes.

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Farm Policy, Although It's Complex, Can Be Explained. What It Can't Be Is Believed. No Cheating Spouse, No Teen With A Wrecked Family Car, No Mayor Of Washington, D.c., Videotaped In Flagrante Delicto Has Ever Come Up With Anything As Farfetched As U.s. Farm Policy.

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The Middle Eastern States Aren't Nations; They're Quarrels With Borders.

A Cocktail Party Is What You Call It When You Invite Everyone You Know To Come Over To Your House At Six P.m., Put Cigarettes Out On Your Rug, And Leave At Eight To Go Somewhere More Interesting For Dinner Without Inviting You.

African Famine Is Not A Visitation Of Fate. It Is Largely Man-made, And The Men Who Made It Are Largely Africans.

Bureaucrats Want Bigger Bureaus. 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.

There's A Current Notion That You Should "take Charge Of Your Disease." No Thanks. I'm Busy. I've Got Cancer. I'm Willing To Face Having Cancer. I'm Not Willing To Face Having Cancer With Homework. I Promised Dr. Pipas And Dr. Zaki That I Wouldn't Show Up With Sheaves Of Printouts From The Internet Containing Everything On Wikipedia On Malignancies. They Each Laughed With Detectable Notes Of Relief. Although I Suspect My Wife Has Made Her Way Into The Health Blog Ether. Fish Oil Pills, Raw Kelp, And Other Untoward Substances Started Showing Up On Dinner Plates After I Was Diagnosed.

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.

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.

Getting Down On All Fours And Imitating A Rhinoceros Stops Babies From Crying. (put An Empty Cigarette Pack On Your Nose For A Horn And Make Loud "snort" Noises.) I Don't Know Why Parents Don't Do This More Often. Usually It Makes The Kid Laugh. Sometimes It Sends Him Into Shock. Either Way It Quiets Him Down. If You're A Parent, Acting Like A Rhino Has Another Advantage. Keep It Up Until The Kid Is A Teenager And He Definitely Won't Have His Friends Hanging Around Your House All The Time.

America Is The World's Policeman, All Right -- A Big, Dumb, Mick Flatfoot In The Middle Of The One Thing Cops Dread Most, A "domestic Disturbance.

Fishing... Is A Sport Invented By Insects And You Are The Bait.

I Like The Fact That They Still Run Substantive Pieces. I'm Not Sure I Like The Pieces, But It's Nice That They Do That. Anyway, It Was Always Sort Of Ridiculous, Me Having Anything To Do With The Youth Culture, But Now That I'm In My 50s, It's Extra-double-ridiculous. They Were Losing Interest In Me, And I Was Losing Interest In Them. When I Went To Renegotiate My Contract At Rolling Stone, I Kind Of Halfheartedly Asked If I Could Do Half The Work For Half The Money, And They Asked If I Could Do Two-thirds Of The Work For Half The Money. I Ran That By My Agent, Since He Can Do Math.

In The Third World, Honk Your Horn Only Under The Following Circumstances: 1. When Anything Blocks The Road. 2. When Anything Doesn't. 3. When Anything Might. 4. At Red Lights. 5. At Green Lights. 6. At All Other Times.

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.

Worshiping The Earth Is More Fun Than Going To Church. It's Also Closer.

Going To Church

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Something Is Worth What Somebody Will Pay For It. Nothing Else, Nothing More, Nothing Less.

I've Been A New Yorker For Ten Years, And The Only People Who Are Nice To Us Turn Out To Be Moonies.

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.

I Suspect The Soviets Never Did Want To Use Those Bombs. The Most Stalinist Of Soviet Hard-liners - Stalin, For Example - Must Have Realized A Nuclear War Would Be A Hard Thing To Clean Up After.

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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'.

As Long As We Are On Firm Moral Ground, As Long As We're Caring About Other People, These Are Legitimate Worries. The Minute That We Start Protecting Our Own Interests In The Name Of These Worries And Saying, "oh, We Have To Make Sure That Only Ford Motor Company Manufactures Cars, Because We Can't Be Sure That The Cars In Other Countries Are Being Made Quite Up To Our Point Of View," We're Economically Off Base, And, Of Course, We're Moral Hypocrites, Too.

Los Angeles Is Many Places In One Place.

Neither Conservatives Nor Humorists Believe Man Is Good. But Left-wingers Do.

I Remember Thinking Cocaine Was Subtle Until I Noticed I'd Been Awake For Three Weeks And Didn't Know Any Of The Naked People Passed Out Around Me.

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

I Think It's Been Hard For People To Understand How Islam Can Be A Good Religion, And Yet The Islamists Are Evil. Those Of Us Who Have Had Experience With Islam Understand This, Just As We Understand The Difference Between Snake Handlers And People Going To Church On Sunday Morning.

I'll Be 56 This Year, I've Got Two Kids, And I Think It's Probably Time To Go Back To Writing One-glove Jokes.

Then There Was Lsd, Which Was Supposed To Make You Think You Could Fly. I Remember It Made You Think You Couldn't Stand Up, And Mostly It Was Right.

In 1970 Or '71, Early In The Magazine, Michael O'donoghue Did Maybe Eight Pages Of A 1958 Yearbook, From Ezra Taft Benson High School. But By The Time The [book-length] High-school Yearbook Came Around, He Didn't Want To Be Involved.

I Like To Take Things That Are Boring-but-important And Try To Make Them Interesting. That Was Definitely What I Was After With Eat The Rich.

Oh, God. The Sixties Are Coming Back. Well I've Got A 12-gauge Double-barreled Duck Gun Chambered For Three-inch Magnum Shells. And - Speaking Strictly For This Retired Hippie And Former Pinko Beatnik - If The Sixties Head My Way, They Won't Get Past The Porch Steps. They Will Be History. Which, For Chrissakes, Is What They're Supposed To Be.

The Soviet Constitution Guarantees Everyone A Job. A Pretty Scary Idea, I'd Say.

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.

The Main Reason To Be Opposed To Political Control Of Smoking Is To Keep Power -even The Smallest And Silliest Kind Of Power - Out Of The Hands Of ... Members Of A Dangerous Class -the Class That Knows What's Good For Us Better Than We Do.

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.

The Italians Have Had 2,000 Years To Fix Up The Forum And Just Look At The Place!

Wearing A Hat Implies That You Are Bald If You Are A Man And That Your Hair Is Dirty If You Are A Woman.

Those Who Do Not Know History Are Probably Also Not Doing Well In English Or Math. P.j. O'rourke

I Wonder If It Changes The Nature Of A Society For Beauty To Be So Common. Maybe In Vietnam "she Has A Wonderful Personality" Really Means Something. But I Couldnt Figure Out A Polite Way To Ask.

When Adam Smith Was Being Incomprehensible, He Didn't Have The Luxury Of Brief, Snappy Technical Terms As A Shorthand For Incoherence.

Apparently Bolivia Is The Key Source Of Lithium In The World. So We're Gonna Trade The Saudis For The Bolivians.

Tabasco Sauce Is To Bachelor Cooking What Forgiveness Is To Sin.

Adam Smith's Huge Failure Was The Fact That He Did Not Foresee The Industrial Revolution.

I Read Good. I Was An English Major.

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.

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

[friedrich] Hayek Is Not Protesting That Things Like Child Labor And Stuff Are Good. He's Just Trying To Show That When Government Undertakes To Make Everything Good For Everybody, This Is What Happens. And He Addresses It To Socialists Of All Parties.

Last Year, On A Long Car Trip, I Was Listening To Rush Limbaugh Shout. I Usually Agree With Rush Limbaugh; Therefore I Usually Don't Listen To Him. I Listen To Npr: "world To End-poor And Minorities Hardest Hit." I Like To Argue With The Radio.

Newsmen Believe That News Is A Tacitly Acknowledged Fourth Branch Of The Federal System. This Is Why Most News About Government Sounds As If It Were Federally Mandated -- Serious, Bulky And Blandly Worthwhile, Like A High-fiber Diet Set In Type.

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.

Humans Have Trouble With Economics, As You May Have Noticed, And Not Just Because Economic Circumstances Sometimes Cause Them To Starve. Humans Seem To Have An Innate Inability To Pay Attention To Economic Principles.

I'm Certainly Not Fearful.

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.

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

This Country Is So Urbanized We Think Low-fat Milk Comes From Cows On Nutri/system Weight-loss Plans.

A U.s. Dollar Is An Iou From The Federal Reserve Bank. It's A Promissory Note That Doesn't Actually Promise Anything. It's Not Backed By Gold Or Silver.

Writing This Book Required An Enormous Amount Of Help From Friends. To Them Goes The Credit. I'll Take The Money.

Some People Are Better Imagined In One's Bed Than Found There In The Morning.

What Use Is It To Endure The Dutch Rubs And Indian Rope Burns That Are Politics If You Can't Obtain Mastery Over People And Give Them Noogies Back?

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.

The Body Is Forever Teaching Us Lessons. There Are All Sorts Of Things That We Can't Do, Shouldn't Do, Had Better Not Do Very Often Or Do For Too Long As We Get Older. The Body Makes Its Presence Known.

Politics Is The Art Of Achieving Prestige And Power Without Merit.

Who Does Bill Clinton Think Got Off The Boat And Stepped On Plymouth Rock? Peace Corps Volunteers?

America Wasn't Founded So That We Could All Be Better. America Was Founded So We Could All Be Anything We Damned Well Pleased.

Armenians And Azerbaijanis In Stepanakert, Capital Of The Nagorno-karabakh Autonomous Region, Rioted Over Much Needed Spelling Reform In The Soviet Union.

I've Decided That My Motto In Life Is "get Off My Lawn." It's The Right Answer To Everything.

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Stay Away From Girls Who Cry A Lot Or Who Look Like They Get Pregnant Easily Or Have Careers.

I've Never Been Able To Get It Straight About What These People Who Are Worried About The Trade Deficit Are Worried About. When They Say That We're Buying Too Much From Overseas, That We're Sending Too Many Dollars Overseas To Get All These Goods And Services They Got, They're Saying That The American Dollar Is Too Strong And That Is Hurting Our Economy. And The Result Of This Will Be That The American Dollar Will Get Too Weak, And That Will Hurt Our Economy.

Never Refuse Wine. It Is An Odd But Universally Held Opinion That Anyone Who Doesn't Drink Must Be An Alcoholic.

The Vietnamese Hoa Were Merchants And Manufacturers. They Were Very Successful And Thus, According To The Logic Of Marxism, Responsible For Society's Failures. The Hoa Suffered The Same Fate As The Pizza Parlour In Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing Except At The Hands Of The World's Fourth Largest Army Instead Of A Small, Petulant Movie Director.

There Is A Remarkable Breakdown Of Taste And Intelligence At Christmastime. Mature, Responsible Grown Men Wear Neckties Made Of Holly Leaves And Drink Alcoholic Beverages With Raw Egg Yolks And Cottage Cheese In Them.

We Should Never Hesitate To Listen To A Fool About Life Because Life Is Pretty Foolish As Far As I Can Tell.

It Is Important To Remember When Making Jokes About Women, That They Are Not A Minority. They Weren't Captured On Another Continent And Brought Here In Leg-irons (funny Shoes, Yes, But Not Leg-irons) And Hitler Didn't Blame Them For Germany's Loss In Wwi. Therefore, You Can Make Any Kind Of Fun Of Them You Want.

Term Limits Aren't Enough. We Need Jail.

Authority Has Always Attracted The Lowest Elements In The Human Race

Sometimes You Need A B-2 Bomber And Sometimes You Need Your Mother.

The Old Woman Was Not Only Ugly With The Ugliness Age Brings Us All But Showed Signs Of Formidable Ugliness By Birth - Pickle-jar Chin, Mainsail Ears And A Nose Like A Trigonometry Problem. What's More, She Had The Deep Frown And Snit Wrinkles That Come From A Lifetime Of Bad Character.

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

Creative Writing Teachers Should Be Purged Until Every Last Instructor Who Has Uttered The Words 'write What You Know' Is Confined To A Labor Camp. Please, Talented Scribblers, Write What You Don't. The Blind Guy With The Funny Little Harp Who Composed The Iliad, How Much Combat Do You Think He Saw?

So-called Western Civilization, As Practised In Half Of Europe, Some Of Asia And A Few Parts Of North America, Is Better Than Anything Else Available. Western Civilization Not Only Provides A Bit Of Life, A Pinch Of Liberty And The Occasional Pursuance Of Happiness, It's Also The Only Thing That's Ever Tried To. Our Civilization Is The First In History To Show Even The Slightest Concern For Average, Undistinguished, None-too-commendable People Like Us.

Never Do Anything To A Clitoris With Your Teeth That You Wouldn't Do To An Expensive Waterproof Wristwatch.

Feminism Is The Result Of A Few Ignorant And Literal-minded Women Letting The Cat Out Of The Bag About Which Is The Superior Sex. Once Women Made It Public That They Could Do Things Better Than Men, They Were, Of Course, Forced To Do Them.

If A Journalist Shows A Facility For Praise He's Liable To Be Offered A Job In Public Relations Or Advertising And The Next Thing You Know He's Got A Big Office, A Huge Salary And Is Living In A Fine Home With A Lovely Wife And Swell Kids - Another Career Blown To Hell.

The Arab Peoples Possess An Ancient And Highly Developed Civilization That Is In Many Ways More Sophisticated Than Our Own. For Instance, They Invented Algebra. And This Is Why We Have To Go To War With Saddam Hussein This Minute And Bomb The Shish Kebab Out Of Him Before He Invents Trig And Chemistry And The Whole Of America Flunks High School.

Politics Is The Business Of Getting Power And Privilege Without Possessing Merit

As A Result Of That, And As A Result Of Friendship, I Don't Think We've Ever Been Competitive. I Mean, There's Probably A Very Good Reason Hunter [s. Thompson] Isn't Jealous Of Me.

It's Better To Spend Money Like There's No Tomorrow Than To Spend Tonight Like There's No Money.

Ireland And The Irish

I'm 61 Years Old. I'm Not That Fearful Of The Future, Period. I'm Not Going To See That Much Of It.

I Buy A Tractor Two Years Ago, And Four-fifths Of The Tractor Manual Is About Not Tipping Over, Not Raising The Bucket High Enough To Hit High-tension Wire... Not Killing Yourself, Basically. And In That Manual, I Found Out - And It Cost Me A Thousand Dollars - That When The Tractor Is New, 10 Hours Into Use Of The Tractor, You Have To Re-torque The Lug Nuts. If You Don't, You Will Oval The Holes. This Is Buried Between The Moron Warnings. I Never Found It. I Take The Tractor In For Its Regular Servicing, And They Say My Wheels Are Gone. How Am I Supposed To Know That? "it's In The Manual."

Where Self-interest Is Violently Suppressed, It Is Replaced By A Burdensome System Of Bureaucratic Control Which Dries Up The Wellsprings Of Initiative And Creativity.

There's A Very Good Reason That Governments Aren't Supposed To Compete With Private-enterprise Companies. Governments Have Monopolies On Certain Things, Like Eminent Domain And Deadly Force.

Staying Married May Have Long-term Benefits. You Can Elicit Much More Sympathy From Friends Over A Bad Marriage Than You Ever Can From A Good Divorce.

The Sky Was So Clear That The Starlight Cast Shadows, And So Many Sparkles And Glitters And Glints Appeared Above Us That It Looked Like Something Really Expensive Had Been Dropped And Shattered In Heaven - God's Steuben Ashtray, Maybe.

Anyhow, All Mankind's Ideas And Interests, All Human Aims And Motives, Are Exhibited, Fully Formed, In A Three-year-old Child. The Kid Is Just Operating On A Smaller Scale And Lacks The Advantage Of Having Made Enormous Soft-money Campaign Contributions To Political Candidates.

As I Get Older, All Sorts Of Things Become Less Funny. Once One Has Children, Any Cruelty Involving Children Becomes Far Less Amusing Than When One Was At The Mercy Of One's Friends' And Relatives' Children.

I Suppose I Should Get A Vcr, But The Only Thing I Like About Television Is Its Ephemerality.

The Typical Old-fashioned Diet (in The Nineteenth Century) Was So Bad It Almost Assembled Modern Dieting.

Now Majority Rule Is A Precious, Sacred Thing Worth Dying For. But Like Other Precious, Sacred Things .... It's Not Only Worth Dying For; It Can Make You Wish You Were Dead. Imagine If All Life Were Determined By Majority Rule. Every Meal Would Be A Pizza.

Smoking Crack Is A Way For People Who Couldn't Afford College To Study The Works Of Charles Darwin.

Russian Cars Are Silly. They Look Like Imports Drawn By A Cartoonist For A Uaw Newsletter.

Dates Used To Be Made Days Or Even Weeks In Advance. Now Dates Tend To Be Made The Day After. That Is, You Get A Phone Call From Someone Who Says, "if Anyone Asks, I Was Out To Dinner With You Last Night, Okay?"

It's Much Better To Have Your Arguments Dismissed Because You Might Be Joking Than To Have Your Arguments Dismissed Because You're Not Telling The Truth.

Telling The Truth

All Change Is Bad. But Sometimes It Has To Be Done.

Just As Some Things Are Too Strange For Fiction, Others Are Too True For Journalism.

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.

What Would Annoy The Most People Most Often? That Is The True Left-wing Test Of Government Intervention.

Ann Coulter To Me Is Someone Who Says Things That I Say All The Time, But I Say Them At Three In The Morning When I'm Drunk As A Monkey. She Says Them At Three In The Afternoon Stone Sober In Bright Daylight.

Never Wear Anything That Panics The Cat.

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