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Politics is the attempt to achieve power and prestige without merit.

P. J. O'Rourke

Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. 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

Alcohol Anyway Fundamental Look Source Tets Trouble
Regulation creates a moral hazard.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Create Hazard Morale Regulation
A fundamental American question is, ‘What’s the big idea?’
P. J. O'ROURKE

Big Country Fundamental Ideas Question
Humans are the only animals that have children on purpose with the exception of guppies, who like to eat theirs.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Animal Children Eat Exception Human Purpose
Even very young children need to be informed about dying. Explain the concept of death very carefully to your child. This will make threatening him with it much more effective.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Carefully Child Children Concert Explain Inform Make Threaten Young
You can’t destroy America by destroying our elite. Think about America’s elite. Think about it down through history. Destroy our elite, and about half the time, you’re doing us a favor.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Country Detroit Down Elite History Think
There is a simple rule here, a rule of legislation, a rule of business, a rule of life: beyond a certain point, complexity is fraud. You can apply that rule to left-wing social programs, but you can also apply that rule to credit derivatives, hedge funds, all the rest of it.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Beyond Business Certain Complexity Fraud Legislation Rule Simply Time
Let’s reintroduce corporal punishment in the schools – and use it on the teachers.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Corporal Introduce Let Punishment School Tracker Use
Richard Nixon was the best thing that ever happened to journalism. I mean this guy was wonderful. Just when you thought he could get no worse, he got worse.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Best Bought Guy Happen Journalism People Person Popular Thing Wonderful
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'ROURKE

Baby Band Boomer Covered Great People Silliness Type Underground
Preachers at black churches are the last people left in the English-speaking world who know the schemes and tropes of classical rhetoric: parallelism, antithesis, epistrophe, synecdoche, metonymy, periphrasis, litotes – the whole bag of tricks.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Black Church Classical English People Preach Scheme Speak Troop
We need a government, alas, because of the nature of humans.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Government Human Nature Need
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

Country Else Government Idea Prefer Sensible Somebody
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.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Democrat Government Lawn Make Party Republican Smarter
The beauty of democracy is that an average, random, unremarkable citizen can lead it.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Average Beauty Citizen Democracy Lead Random Unremarkable
The 20th century was a test bed for big ideas – fascism, communism, the atomic bomb.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Atomic Bed Big Bomb Century Idea Test

Politics is the attempt to achieve power and prestige without merit.

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Politics is the attempt to achieve power and prestige without merit.

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