Never Refuse Wine

P.J. O’Rourke is a conservative/libertarian journalist and satirist. His wicked and twisted sense of humor combined with his libertarian politics ensure that you can never know for certain what is going to flow from neither pen nor mouth. Personally, I think he has keen insight into the way the world works.

“You say we [reporters] are distracting from the business of government. Well, I hope so. Distracting a politician from governing is like distracting a bear from eating your baby.”

"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."

"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."

"These were people who believed everything about the Soviet Union was perfect, but they were bringing their own toilet paper."

"Giving government money and power is like giving car keys and whiskey to a teenage boy"

"Man developed in Africa. He has not continued to do so there."

"Health care is too expensive, so the Clinton administration is putting a high-powered corporate lawyer -- 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."

"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."

"A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them."

"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."

"One nice thing about the Third World, you don't have to fasten your seat belt. (Or stop smoking. Or cut down on saturated fats.) It takes a lot off your mind when average life expectancy is forty-five minutes."

"The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop"

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

"One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding somebody to blame your problems on."

"Politics should be limited in scope to war, protection of property, and the occasional precautionary beheading of a member of the ruling class."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Schneider has made a career of telling the public that the climate is going to change drastically any time now, and indeed every spring and fall he's been right."

"Never Refuse Wine. It is an odd but universally held opinion that anyone who doesn't drink must be an alcoholic."

"The founding fathers, in their wisdom, devised a method by which our republic can take one hundred of its most prominent numbskulls and keep them out of the private sector where they might do actual harm."

"The college idealists who fill the ranks of the environmental movement seem willing to do absolutely anything to save the biosphere, except take science courses and learn something about it."