The baby boomers’ politics have covered a wide band of silliness, from the Weather Underground to the Timothy McVeigh types. The great majority of us are well in the middle of that spectrum, but still, there’s been both leftie silliness and right-wing silliness.
P. J. O'ROURKEThere isn’t much room for an outsider point of view in print any more.
More P. J. O'Rourke Quotes
-
-
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.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
The world is being run by irresponsible spoiled brats.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
Government is a health hazard. Governments have killed many more people than cigarettes or unbuckled seat belts ever have.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
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.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
The beauty of democracy is that an average, random, unremarkable citizen can lead it.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
If you ask the government to solve all of your problems, it’s a bit like asking your wife to cook and clean, to raise the children, to hold down a second job to help with the family finances, to keep her parents happy and well and keep your parents happy and well, and to also – to do the lawn and clean the gutters.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
There is one thing women can never take away from men. We die sooner.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
Sometimes the right response to evil is an appeal to powerful and effective social organization – an appeal to civilization itself.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
Death is so important that God visited death upon his own son, thereby helping us learn right from wrong well enough that we may escape death forever and live eternally in God’s grace.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
I rarely meet a politician that I don’t like personally. They are generally well endowed with charm. Therein lies the danger.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
America has to act. But, when America acts, other nations accuse us of being ‘hegemonistic’, of engaging in ‘unilateralism’, of behaving as if we’re the only nation on earth that counts. We are.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
Gay marriage acceptance is happening in the blink of an eye.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
Call a man ‘ignorant,’ and you have license to show the world your vast fund of knowledge and wise him up.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
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.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
The best and brightest don’t go into politics. The best and brightest are at Goldman Sachs.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
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.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
Gossip is what you say about the objects of flattery when they aren’t present.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
If we heard that somebody starved to death in Sweden or Switzerland, we would be shocked.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
We need a government, alas, because of the nature of humans.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
Politics is the attempt to achieve power and prestige without merit.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
Each child is biologically required to have a mother. Fatherhood is a well-regarded theory, but motherhood is a fact.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
Don’t send funny greeting cards on birthdays or at Christmas. Save them for funerals, when their cheery effect is needed.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
Some people have facts; these can be proven. Some people have theories; these can be disproven. But people with opinions are mindless and have their minds made up about it.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
Hubris is one of the great renewable resources.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
I’m old enough to remember when the air over American cities was a lot dirtier than it is now.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
The importance of local governance may not be obvious to an America accustomed to treating city and state downfalls with doses of federal comeuppance. Sometimes there’s a reason for that – the Civil War. More often, all reasoning seems absent – No Child Left Behind.
P. J. O'ROURKE