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Daniel Patrick Moynihan is the archetypal 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...
P. J. O'Rourke
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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
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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.
P. J. O'Rourke
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Maybe a nation that consumes as much booze and dope as we do and has our kind of divorce statistics should pipe down about 'character issues'. Either that or just go ahead and determine the presidency with three-legged races and pie-eating contests. It would make better TV.
P. J. O'Rourke
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There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal, particularly in women. Chief among these is the Porsche 911 Cabriolet.
P. J. O'Rourke
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I am a little to the right of... Why is the Attila comparison used? Fifth-century Hunnish depredations on the Roman Empire were the work of an overpowerful executive pursuing a policy of economic redistribution in an atmosphere of permissive social mores. I am a little to the right of Rush Limbaugh. I'm so conservative that I approve of San Francisco City Hall marriages, adoption by same-sex couples, and New Hampshire's recently ordained Episcopal bishop. Gays want to get married, have children, and go to church. Next they'll be advocating school vouchers, boycotting HBO, and voting Republican.
P. J. O'Rourke
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Wherever there is suffering, injustice and oppression, the Americans will show up, six months late, and bomb the country next to where it's happening.
P. J. O'Rourke
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You can keep the dining room clean by eating in the kitchen.
P. J. O'Rourke
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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
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The Three Branches of Government: Money, Television, and Bullshit
P. J. O'Rourke
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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.
P. J. O'Rourke
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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
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Wherever there's injustice, oppression, and suffering, America will show up six months late and bomb the country next to where it's happening.
P. J. O'Rourke
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Health care is too expensive, so the Clinton administration is putting Hillary 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.
P. J. O'Rourke
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Money is preferable to politics. It is the difference between being free to be anybody you want and to vote for anybody you want. And money is more effective than politics both in solving problems and in providing individual independence. To rid ourselves of all the trouble in the world, we need to make money. And to make money, we need to be free.
P. J. O'Rourke
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When Adam Smith was being incomprehensible, he didn't have the luxury of brief, snappy technical terms as a shorthand for incoherence.
P. J. O'Rourke
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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.
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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.
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Foreigners may pretend otherwise, but if English is spoken loudly enough, anyone can understand it, the British included. Actually, there's no such thing as a foreign language. The world is just filled with people who grunt and squeak instead of speaking sensibly. French may be an exception. But since it's impossible to figure out what French people are saying, we'll never know for sure.
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Your money does not cause my poverty. Refusal to believe this is at the bottom of most bad economic thinking.
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The Italians have had two thousand years to fix up the Forum and just look at the place.
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Golf... combines two favorite American pastimes: taking long walks and hitting things with a stick.
P. J. O'Rourke
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How a peaceful, uncrowded place with ample wherewithal stays poor is hard to explain. How a conflict-ridden, grossly over-populated place with no resources whatsoever gets rich is simple. The British colonial government turned Hong Kong into an economic miracle by doing nothing.
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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.
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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.
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Quote of the day
Destiny is the invention of the cowardly, and the resigned.
Ignazio Silone
P. J. O'Rourke
Creative Commons
Born:
November 14, 1947
Died:
February 15, 2022
(aged 74)
Bio:
Patrick Jake "P. J." O'Rourke was an American political satirist and journalist.
Known for:
Parliament of Whores (1991)
Give war a chance (1992)
Holidays in Hell (1988)
Eat the Rich (1998)
Don't Vote: It Just Encourages the Bastards (2010)
Most used words:
people
government
money
politics
bad
kind
life
children
car
human
years
power
time
free
war
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