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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.

-P. J. O'Rourke

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The Principal Feature Of

P. J. O'Rourke

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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.

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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.

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.

No Humorist Is Under Any Obligation To Provide Answers And Probably If You Were To Delve Into The Literary History Of Humour It's Probably All About Not Providing Answers Because The Humorist Essentially Says: This Is The Way Things Are.

In Case We Have To Shoot Democrats. It Happened During The Civil War, And It Could Happen Again.

Watching Republicans In Washington Is Like Watching Lemmings, If Lemmings Jumped Into Cesspools Instead Of Off Cliffs. Splash! There Goes Mark Foley!

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

Cockfighting Has Always Been My Idea Of A Great Sport -- Two Armed Entrées Battling To See Who'll Be Dinner.

Bill Maher Can Be Pretty Good, Except When He Gets "important." Maher's All Over The Place Politically.

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.

Our Democracy, Our Culture, Our Whole Way Of Life Is A Spectacular Triumph Of The Blah. Why Not Have A Political Convention Without Politics To Nominate A Leader Who's Out In Front Of Nobody? Maybe Our National Mindlessness Is The Very Thing That Keeps Us From Turning Into One Of Those Smelly European Countries Full Of Pseudo-reds And Crypto-fascists And Greens Who Dress Like Forest Elves.

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.

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.

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?

When A Couple Decides To Divorce, They Should Inform Both Sets Of Parents Before Having A Party And Telling All Their Friends. This Is Not Only Courteous But Practical. Parents May Be Very Willing To Pitch In With Comments, Criticism, And Malicious Gossip Of Their Own To Help The Divorce Along.

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.

Never Fight An Inanimate Object.

It's The Squares 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.

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

The Only Really Firm Rule Of Taste About Cross Dressing Is That Neither Sex Should Ever Wear Anything They Haven't Yet Figured Out How To Go To The Bathroom In.

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.

Cleanliness Becomes More Important When Godliness Is Unlikely.

Walt Is Dead. And, After A Couple Of Hours At Epcot, You'll Wish You Were, Too.

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.

Never Strike Anyone So Old, Small Or Weak That Verbal Abuse Would Have Sufficed.

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.

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.

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.

Government Isn't A Good Way To Solve Problems ... [g]overnment Is Concerned Mostly With Self-perpetuation And Is Subject To Fantastic Ideas About Its Own Capabilities. ... [g]overnment Is Wasteful Of The Nation's Resources, Immune To Common Sense And Subject To Pressure From Every Half-organized Bouquet Of Assholes. ... [g]overnment Is Distrustful Of And Disrespectful Toward Average Americans While Being Easily Gulled By Americans With Money, Influence Or Fame.

Little Islands Of Human Happiness, Peace, And Prosperity Are So Exceptional At This Point In History That I'm Not Even Sure We Can Draw Lessons From Them.

Golf Combines Two Favorite American Pastimes: Taking Long Walks And Hitting Things With A Stick.

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

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

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.

All Lies Are Told With A Straight Face. It Is Truth That's Said With A Dismissive Giggle.

Lampoon Ran Out Of Steam In The Early '80s, And Wasn't Able To Reinvent Itself Because It Ran Out Of Talent. People Who Wanted To Do This Kind Of Stuff Could Suddenly Make $100,000 In Hollywood Right Out Of College.

People Are Always Angry At America. They're Absolutely Certain That America Either Caused Their Problems Or Is Deliberately Not Fixing Their Problems. But The Anger Is Always Directed At America And Never At Americans.

When Politics Are Used To Allocate Resources, The Resources All End Up Being Allocated To Politics.

I'm A Rather Decisive Type.

The Poor Of The World Cannot Be Made Rich By The Redistribution Of Wealth. Poverty Can't Be Eliminated By Punishing People Who've Escaped Poverty, Taking Their Money And Giving It As A Reward To People Who Have Failed To Escape.

Remember That All Tax Revenue Is The Result Of Holding A Gun To Somebody's Head. Not Paying Taxes Is Against The Law. If You Don't Pay Your Taxes, You'll Be Fined. If You Don't Pay The Fine, You'll Be Jailed. If You Try To Escape From Jail, You'll Be Shot. ... Therefore, Every Time The Government Spends Money On Anything, You Have To Ask Yourself, 'would I Kill My Kindly, Gray-haired Mother For This?'

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.

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.

The Lampoon Started In 1970, And I Began Writing Freelance For Them Around The End Of 1971, And Then All Through '72. They Hired Me In '73, And I Left Early In '81. I Did Everything From Low Puns To Being Editor-in-chief.

Of Course, The Humans In Haiti Have Hope. They Hope To Leave.

The Commies Are The Only People On Earth Who Think Star Wars Will Work. If They're That Gullible, Maybe We Should Have Held The Summit At Atlantic City And Let Them Lose All Their Missiles Playing Keno.

There Are A Lot Of Mysterious Things About Boats, Such As Why Anyone Would Get On One Voluntarily.

Mysterious Things

The Russians Could Have Some (warheads) Aimed At Japan, So If We Act Up They Can Destroy Our Economy.

Finally, One Night We Were Smoking Pot [with Michael O'donoghue] And Talking About The People That Are Invariably In High School, Whether You Go To Prep School Or Public School Or Ghetto School Or Rich Suburban School. And Actually, It Spun Off From A Kurt Vonnegut Quote.

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.

The Good News Is That, According To The Obama Administration, The Rich Will Pay For Everything. The Bad News Is That, According To The Obama Administration, You're Rich.

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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?

There's Nothing Inherently Lame About Electricity. I've Got A Basement Full Of Power Tools That All Operate With Electricity, And They're Manly Items. And When You See A Great Big Locomotive Hauling A Mile Of Freight Cars, That's A Hybrid. A Lot Of People Don't Understand That.

No Government Proposal More Complicated Than "this Note Is Legal Tender For All Debts, Public And Private" Ever Works.

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.

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.

A Politician Who Commends Himself As 'caring' And 'sensitive' Because He Wants To Expand The Government's Charitable Programs Is Merely Saying That He's Willing To Do Good With Other Peoples' Money.

Maybe It's Understandable What A History Of Failures America's Foreign Policy Has Been. We Are, After All, A Country Full Of People Who Came To America To Get Away From Foreigners. Any Prolonged Examination Of The U.s. Government Reveals Foreign Policy To Be America's Miniature Schnauzer -- A Noisy But Small And Useless Part Of The National Household.

People Who Are Wise, Good, Smart, Skillful, Or Hardworking Don't Need Politics, They Have Jobs.

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

Don't Send Funny Greeting Cards On Birthdays Or At Christmas. Save Them For Funerals When Their Cheery Effect Is Needed.

Good Manners Consist Of Doing Precisely What Everyone Thinks Should Be Done, Especially When No One Knows Quite What That Is.

This Country Was Founded By Religious Nuts With Guns.

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.

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

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.

We're Gonna Be In A World Of Hurt If We Don't Get It Fixed, Because There's Going To Be Billions Of People Out There - They're Hungry, They're Mad. One Thing That They Can Get Their Hands On Is Guns.

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

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.

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 Weltscbmerz Is Easy To Escape. But What Drug Will Get A Grown-up Out Of, For Instance, Debt?

Man Developed In Africa. He Has Not Continued To Do So There.

Whatever It Is That The Government Does, Sensible Americans Would Prefer That The Government Does It To Somebody Else. This Is The Idea Behind Foreign Policy.

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.

The Tenth Commandment Sends A Message To Socialists, To Collectivists, To People Who Believe That Wealth Is Best Obtained By Redistribution, And That Message Is Clear And Concise . . . Egalitarianism Is Sinful; It's Also Cowardly.

There Are Lots Of Levels Of Fear And Complaint About The Government Getting Involved In Business. First And Foremost, Of Course, Is Incompetence.

[al] Franken Is Left-wing And Funny. He's A Pretty Good Political Humorist.

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

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

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?"

I Had Grown Up As A Feature Writer, And Basically My Career Had Been In The National Lampoon And As A Magazine Editor, And I'd Never Been A Reporter.

I'm A Member Of The Working Press; You'd Think I'd Know Better Than To Listen To Journalists.

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.

Iraq's Invasion Of Kuwait Is A Case Of Bad Men Doing Wrong Things For Wicked Reasons. This Is The Full-sized Or Standard Purebred Evil And Is Easily Recognized Even By Moral Neophytes. Other Malignities-drugs In America, Famine In Africa And Everything In The Middle East-are More Complex. When Combating Those Evils People Sometimes Have Trouble Deciding Whom To Shoot.

Who, Other Than A Crazy Person, Does Anything Besides Hang Up On A Robo-call? Any Call, Any Person, Anywhere, Under Any Circumstances.

There Are Artists With Palettes And Easels Selling The Kind Of Modern Art That Soviet Art Critics Used To Critique With Bulldozers. Judging By The Paintings I Saw, The Soviets Were Right The First Time.

We Have No One To Blame For The Kennedys But Ourselves. We Took The Kennedys To Heart Of Our Own Accord. And It Is My Opinion That We Did It Not Because We Respected Them Or Thought What They Proposed Was Good, But Because They Were Pretty. We, The Electorate, Were Smitten By This Handsome, Vivacious Family. . . . We Wanted To Hug Their Golden Tousled Heads To Our Dumpy Breasts.

Collectivism Doesn't Work Because It's Based On A Faulty Economic Premise. There Is No Such Thing As A Person's "fair Share" Of Wealth. The Gross National Product Is Not A Pizza That Must Be Carefully Divided Because If I Get Too Many Slices, You Have To Eat The Box. The Economy Is Expandable And, In Any Practical Sense, Limitless.

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.

I'd Known The People At Rolling Stone For A While. I'd Gone To Them With A Piece I'd Done On Beirut For Vanity Fair That Vanity Fair Didn't Want To Publish, Because They Said I Was Making Fun Of Death... This Was Tina Brown.but They Paid Me For It. So I've Got This Big Chunk Of A Piece, And Rolling Stone Liked It, But They Thought It Was A Little Dated. But Then They Called Me Back And Asked Me To Do A Similar Piece About The Turks And Caicos Islands, Where The Whole Government Had Been Arrested For Dope Smuggling. That Was Fun.

The Question Nowadays Is Not What Makes Government Work. The Question Is How Do We Make It Stop.

Government Work

Fish Is The Only Food That Is Considered Spoiled Once It Smells Like What It Is.

What Would Be A Road Hazard Anywhere Else, In The Third World Is Probably The Road.

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.

Nothing About Economic Growth In The United States Over The Course Of The Past 40, 50 Years, During Which Time This Has Been Continually Happening, Would Indicate That We Are Being Harmed In An Overall Sense By This.

Lust, Pride, Sloth, And Gluttony, Or, As We Call Them These Days, "getting In Touch With Your Sexuality," "raising Your Self-esteem," "relaxation Therapy," And "being A Recovered Bulimic."

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.

In Theory, Taxes Should Be Like Shopping. What I Buy Is Government Services. What I Pay Are My Taxes.

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.

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

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

Everybody Knows How To Raise Children, Except The People Who Have Them.

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

You Can't Get Rid Of Poverty By Giving People Money.

Everything That's Fun In Life Is Dangerous. And Everything That Isn't Fun Is Dangerous Too. It's Impossible To Be Alive And Safe.

A Very Quiet And Tasteful Way To Be Famous Is To Have A Famous Relative. Then You Can Not Only Be Nothing, You Can Do Nothing Too.

The American Political System Is Like Fast Food - Mushy, Insipid, Made Out Of Disgusting Parts Of Things And Everybody Wants Some.

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.

Gay Marriage Acceptance Is Happening In The Blink Of An Eye.

That Doesn't Mean That You Should Just Sit Back And Just Let Accidents Happen To You. No, You Have To Go Out And Cause Them Yourself. That Way You're In Control Of The Situation.

No One Has Ever Had A Fantasy About Being Tied To A Bed And Sexually Ravished By Someone Dressed As A Liberal

West Germans Are Tall, Pink, Pert And Orthodontically Corrected, With Hands, Teeth And Hair As Clean As Their Clothes And Clothes As Sharp As Their Looks. Except For The Fact That They All Speak English Pretty Well, They're Indistinguishable From Americans.

Social Security Is A Government Program With A Constituency Made Up Of The Old, The Near Old And Those Who Hope Or Fear To Grow Old. After 215 Years Of Trying, We Have Finally Discovered A Special Interest That Includes 100 Percent Of The Population. Now We Can Vote Ourselves Rich.

Most Of The People Who Have Grabbed Hold Of Climate Change And Greenhouse Gases, Pollution, Oil Dependency - They Have Another Motive, And Their Motive Is To Attain The Appearance Of Virtue Without Having Actually Done Anything Virtuous.

I Think Michael O'donoghue Felt He'd Said What He Wanted To Say. In Fact, Nobody Thought We Could Spin It Out Long Enough To Make A Book.

A Dugout Is Much Superior To A Conventional Manufactured Canoe Because You Can Get Soaking Wet Without Bothering To Capsize It.

I Was Told To Hand Over My Disposable Lighter, To Prevent, I Suppose, Any Threat Of "do What I Say Or I'll Light This Marlboro And You'll All Die - In Thirty Years Due To Inhalation Of Secondhand Smoke."

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.

When A Thing Defies Physical Law, There's Usually Politics Involved.

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

Funny Inspirational

If The Japanese Want To Be Taken Seriously As World Financial Powers, They'd Better Quit Using The Same Tailor As Variety Show Chimps.

Men Generally Pay For All Expenses On A Date ... Either Sex, However, May Bring A Little Gift, Its Value To Be Determined By The Bizarrness Of The Sexual Request To Be Made Later That Evening.

That Is The Really Great Thing About Being An Adult Male, Once You Get Married And Have Children The Whole Decision-making Process Is Taken Out Of Your Hands, And I For One Am Extremely Grateful.

The Number Of American Presidential Candidates Varies With The Sunspot Cycle And The Phases Of The Moon. Being A Republican, I'm Backing Hillary Clinton. Because She Could Lose. The Reason Is Not That She's A Woman. The Reason Is That She's The Particular Woman Who Taught The 4th Grade Class That Every Man In America Wished He Were Dead In. Hillary Clinton Is Lucy Holding The Football For Charlie Brown. Hillary Clinton Is "america's Ex-wife."

Commies Love Concrete.

Wherever There's Injustice, Oppression, And Suffering, America Will Show Up Six Months Late And Bomb The Country Next To Where It's Happening.

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."

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

The Wonder Is That Communism Lasted So Long. But Then Again, Modern Poetry Lasted A Long Time, Too.

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

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

The Idea Of A News Broadcast Once Was To Find Someone With Information And Broadcast It. The Idea Now Is To Find Someone With Ignorance And Spread It Around.

It's Better To Make Fun Of Yourself Because You've Always Got Someone Around To Make Fun Of, And They Can't Sue You.

I Rarely Meet A Politician That I Don't Like Personally. They Are Generally Well Endowed With Charm. Therein Lies The Danger.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan Is The Archetypal Extremely Smart Person Who Went Into Politics Anyway Instead Of Doing Something Worthwhile For His Country.

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.

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.

When You Think Of The Good Old Days, Think One Word: Dentistry.

Harvard Has Been Almost As Important To The American Jewish Community As The Pork-sausage Industry.

The America's Cup Is Like Driving Your Lamborgini To The Gran Prix Track To Watch The Charter Buses Race.

The Idea Of Capitalism Is Not Just Success But Also The Failure That Allows Success To Happen.

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.

Fortunately, I'm Married To Someone Who's A Pretty Excellent Parent!

There Are Plenty Of Problems In The World, And Doubtless Climate Change - Or Whatever The Currently Voguish Phrase For It All Is - Certainly Is One Of Them. But It's Low On My List.

I Covered The Lebanese Civil War. I Could See A Place That Had Once Been Prosperous And Now Was Impoverished. I'm Not Seeing That In America.

Mike Kelly [from The Atlantic] Called Me Up And Said He Could Pay Me Less Money.

Then There's Politics. Just Imagine Politics With Its Dumbbell Element Subtracted. There Would Be No Republican Candidates. There Would Be No Democratic Voters. The Whole System Would Collapse.

Abstract Anger Is Great For Rhetorical Carrying On. You Can Go On Endlessly About The Post Office, But It Doesn't Mean You're Mad At Your Mailman.

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

My Grandmother Wouldn't Even Speak The Word Democrat If There Were Children In The Room, She'd Say Bastards Instead.

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.

The Difference Between Corporations And Governments Is Governments Have A Monopoly On Force. It's A Lot Easier To Vote With Your Feet Or Your Wallet Than It Is To Change A Government With Your Vote.

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

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

Humans Are The Only Animals That Have Children On Purpose With The Exception Of Guppies, Who Like To Eat Theirs.

To Mistrust Science And Deny The Validity Of The Scientific Method Is To Resign Your Job As A Human. You'd Better Go Look For Work As A Plant Or Wild Animal.

Actually, There Is No Way Of Making Vomiting Courteous. You Have To Do The Next Best Thing, Which Is To Vomit In Such A Way That The Story You Tell About It Later Will Be Amusing.

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

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.

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.

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.

There's No Telling What Might Have Happened To Our Defense Budget If Saddam Hussein Hadn't Invaded Kuwait That August And Set Everyone Gearing Up For World War Ii. Can We Count On Saddam Hussein To Come Along Every Year And Resolve Our Defense-policy Debates? Given The History Of The Middle East, It's Possible.

Sloths Move At The Speed Of Congressional Debate But With Greater Deliberation And Less Noise.

When I Became A Man, I Put Away Childish Things And Got More Elaborate And Expensive Childish Things From France And Japan.

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

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

There's No Such Thing As A Race And Barely Such A Thing As An Ethnic Group. If We Were Dogs, We'd Be The Same Breed.... Trouble Doesn't Come From Slopes, Kikes, Niggers, Spics Or White Capitalist Pigs; It Comes From The Heart.

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.

Globalization Is Simply Opening The Free Marketplace To Encompass The Entire World.

People Shouldn't Be Treated Like Objects. They Aren't That Valuable.

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.

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.

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

Civilization Is An Enormous Improvement On The Lack Thereof.

Children From The Age Of Five To Ten Should Watch More Television. Television Depicts Adults As Rotten Sob's Given To Fistfights, Gunplay, And Other Mayhem. Kids Who Believe This About Grownups Aren't Likely To Argue About Bedtime.

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.

The Great Thing About Starting Golf In Your Forties Is That You Can Start Golf In Your Forties. You Can Start Other Things In Your Forties But Generally Your Wife Makes You Stop Them, As Bill Clinton Found Out.

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.

Seriousness Is Stupidity Sent To College.

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.

If I Give Up Drinking, Smoking, And Fatty Foods, I Can Add Ten Years To My Life. Trouble Is, I'll Add It To The Wrong End.

Political Systems Must Love Poverty-they Produce So Much Of It. Poor People Make Easier Targets For A Demagogue. No Mao Or Even Jiang Zemin Is Likely To Arise On The New York Stock Exchange Floor. And Politicians In Democracies Benefit From Destitution, Too. The Us Has Had A Broad Range Of Poverty Programs For 30 Years. Those Programs Have Failed. Millions Of People Are Still Poor. And Those People Vote For Politicians Who Favor Keeping The Poverty Programs In Place. There's A Conspiracy Theory In There Somewhere.

You Know, If Government Were A Product, Selling It Would Be Illegal. ... Government Contains Impure Ingredients - As Anybody Who's Looked At Congress Can Tell You. ... Government Practices Deceptive Advertising. And The Merest Glance At The Federal Budget Is Enough To Convict The Government Of Perjury, Extortion, And Fraud. ... In A Nutshell: Government Should Be Against The Law. Term Limits Aren't Enough. We Need Jail.

In England, All The English Car Companies Were Beginning To Circle The Drain In A Series Of Well-deserved Failures And Bankruptcies, Earned By Making Lousy Products With Very Poor Production At High Prices. So, The Government, Back In The '70s, Nationalized All The British Car Companies. The Result Was British Leyland, A Name That Perhaps Doesn't Resonate Much With You.

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

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

The Complexity Of Economics Can Be Calculated Mathematically. Write Out The Algebraic Equation That Is The Human Heart And Multiply Each Unknown By The Population Of The World.

Coffee And Cigarettes Are Much Better If You Want An Instant Breakfast.

Then Saturday Night Live Spawns... Well, Everything Right Down To American Pie 9, Where All Humor Has To Be Irrelevant, Which Can Get A Little Tiring.

Cats Are To Dogs What Modern People Are To The People We Used To Have. Cats Are Slimmer, Cleaner, More Attractive, Disloyal, And Lazy. It's Easy To Understand Why The Cat Has Eclipsed The Dog As Modern America's Favorite Poet. People Like Poets To Possess The Same Qualities They Do.

The Government Is Huge, Stupid, Greedy And Makes Nosy, Officious And Dangerous Intrusions Into The Smallest Corners Of Life - This Much We Can Stand. But The Real Problem Is That Government Is Boring. We Could Cure Or Mitigate The Other Ills Washington Visits On Us If We Could Only Bring Ourselves To Pay Attention To Washington Itself. But We Cannot.

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

The Greenpeace Booth At All The Rock And Roll Shows Nowadays Are Akin To The Old Sorcerers Who Used To Stand In The Middle Of Villages Warning Of Danger, 'when Night Wolf Swallows Mother Moon, There Will Be Great Famine.'

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.

I Didn't See Any Nra Officials Killing Babies In Waco.

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?

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

Liberalism Is Just Communism Sold By The Drink.

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

Summing It Up..."where's A Good Place For Dinner?" I Asked. "there's The Brasserie Lipp On The Avenue St. Germaine," She Said, "or La Coupole In Montmartre." "not La Coupole," I Said. "i've Been There Before. That's The Place That's Crowded And Noisy And Smells Bad And Everybody's Rude As Hell, Isn't It?" "i Think You Just Described France," She Said.

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.

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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Voltairine De Cleyre

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