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'ROURKEWhen buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.
More P. J. O'Rourke Quotes
-
-
As a former writer for the ‘National Lampoon,’ I’ve probably contributed to the sea of sarcasm in which we live.
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 -
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 -
You can’t get rid of poverty by giving people money.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
Mikhail Gorbachev was the Jimmy Carter of the Communist bloc. The Russians hate him.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
The divorce rate in 1946 was higher than it ever had been and as high as it ever would be until the ’70s. The reason was that prior relationships had not endured the strain of war.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
By the end of the 1950s, American cars were so reliable that their reliability went without saying even in car ads. Thousands of them bear testimony to this today, still running on the roads of Cuba though fueled with nationalized Venezuelan gasoline and maintained with spit and haywire.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
Head lice have their own animal-rights group, or may as well. The National Pediculosis Association doesn’t exactly advocate letting lice live with dignity, but it does oppose pediculicidal treatments.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
Political leaders are expert at saying nothing.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
Family love is messy, clinging, and of an annoying and repetitive pattern, like bad wallpaper.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
Just because a subject is serious doesn’t mean it doesn’t have plenty of absurdities.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
The problem with public school is not overcrowding in the classroom. The problem is not teacher unions. The problem is not underfunding or lack of computer equipment. The problem is your damn kids.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
Liberals are always proposing perfectly insane ideas, laws that will make everybody happy, laws that will make everything right, make us live forever, and all be rich. Conservatives are never that stupid.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
Gay marriage acceptance is happening in the blink of an eye.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
The beauty of democracy is that an average, random, unremarkable citizen can lead it.
P. J. O'ROURKE






