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P. J. O'Rourke

P. J. O'Rourke Quotes

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Famous P. J. O'Rourke Quotes

“.......the poor of the world cannot be made rich by redistribution of wealth. Poverty can't be eliminated by punishing people who've escaped poverty, taking their money and giving it as a reward to people who have failed to escape. Economic leveling doesn't work. Whether we call it Marxism, Progressive Reform, or Clintonomics, the result is the same slide into the stygian pit. Communists worship Satan; socialists think perdition is a good system run by bad men; and liberals want us to go to hell because it's warm there in the winter.”

PeopleThinkingMenWorldWantGivingMadeRunningWealthPoorResultsPovertyHellRichEconomicWorshipEconomicsRewardsWinterWarmReformSatanProgressiveCommunistWant UMarxismPitsSlidesGo To HellBad ManPerditionRedistribution Of Wealth
Book:All the Trouble in the World: The Lighter Side of Overpopulation, Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague, and Poverty
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“There is a fine line in the Third World between half a dozen customs officials waiting for you to offer them a bribe and half a dozen customs officials waiting for you to offer them a bribe so they can throw you in jail.”

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Book:All the Trouble in the World: The Lighter Side of Overpopulation, Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague, and Poverty
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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.”

PeopleWorldFirstsRememberSleepPayClassSeriousHairLosingChampionApplesEmployeePanicRecipesFirst ClassHystericalFdaWorld ChampionsRodentsChili
Book:All the Trouble in the World: The Lighter Side of Overpopulation, Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague, and Poverty
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“The Vietnamese Hoa were merchants and manufacturers. They were very successful and thus, according to the logic of Marxism, responsible for society's failures. The Hoa suffered the same fate as the pizza parlour in Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing except at the hands of the world's fourth largest army instead of a small, petulant movie director.”

WorldHandsSuccessfulFateDirectorsLogicArmyResponsibleRight ThingFourthMarxismPizzaMerchantsVietnameseMovie Director
Book:All the Trouble in the World: The Lighter Side of Overpopulation, Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague, and Poverty
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“Seriously. It was running out at Rolling Stone. First of all, they didn't feel the need for a dissident conservative voice in a world where certain conservative aspects had become intellectually dominant. I would actually argue against that, but on the surface of it, in the [Bill] Clinton years the market economy triumphed, certain libertarian ideas became ordinary, and certain early-20th-century ideas about centralization of government and economic planning and socialism with a small "s" had obviously gone out the window. The Cold War was over, blah blah blah.”

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Author:P. J. O'Rourke
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“It is important to remember when reading Adam Smith or even when just thinking about Smith that the era that he lived in, we're not talking about poverty in a day when it meant not enough bedrooms for the kids, an old car, a black and white television. We're talking about a whole world where poverty meant not enough to eat.”

ThinkingWorldImportantEnoughWholeKidsRememberReadingBlackWhiteTalkingPovertyCarTelevisionWhole WorldErasAdamBlack And WhiteBedroomRemember WhenNot TalkingOld Car
Author:P. J. O'Rourke
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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.”

IfsWorldYearsWarMightGivenHappenedMiddlePolicyDefenseEastDebateBudgetsWar Of The WorldsResolveWorld War IiMiddle EastWorld War ISaddamHusseinAugustKuwaitGearing UpPolicy Debate
Book:Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government
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“In comparative terms, there's no poverty in America by a long shot. Heritage Foundation political scientist Robert Rector has worked up figures showing that when the official U.S. measure of poverty was developed in 1963, a poor American family had an income twenty-nine times greater than the average per capita income in the rest of the world. An individual American could make more money than 93 percent of the other people on the planet and still be considered poor.”

PeopleWorldLongStillsAmericaPoliticalIndividualTermPoorPovertyGreaterModernFiguresPlanetsPercentShotsScientistTwentiesFoundationAverageNineIncomeOfficialsHeritageMore MoneyModern WorldAmerican FamilyLong ShotsPoverty In America
Book:Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government
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“So-called Western Civilization, as practised in half of Europe, some of Asia and a few parts of North America, is better than anything else available. Western civilization not only provides a bit of life, a pinch of liberty and the occasional pursuance of happiness, it's also the only thing that's ever tried to. Our civilization is the first in history to show even the slightest concern for average, undistinguished, none-too-commendable people like us.”

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Author: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.”

WorldWantNeedsProblemIndividualDifferencesTroubleVoteIndependenceMaking MoneyProvidingProblem SolvingBeing FreeIndividual Independence
Book:All the Trouble in the World: The Lighter Side of Overpopulation, Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague, and Poverty
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“Wealth is, for most people, the only honest and likely path to liberty. With money comes power over the world. Men are freed from drudgery, women from exploitation. Businesses can be started, homes built, communities formed, religions practiced, educations pursued. But liberals aren't very interested in such real and material freedoms. They have a more innocent - not to say toddlerlike - idea of freedom. Liberals want the freedom to put anything into their mouths, to say bad words and to expose their private parts in art museums.”

PeopleMenWorldWantArtIdeasRealHomeCommunityWealthLibertyPathHonestMaterialsMouthsBuiltInnocentMuseumsExploitationPursuedDrudgeryBad WordPrivate Parts
Book:Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer
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“Automobiles are free of egotism, passion, prejudice and stupid ideas about where to have dinner. They are, literally, selfless. A world designed for automobiles instead of people would have wider streets, larger dining rooms, fewer stairs to climb and no smelly, dangerous subway stations.”

PeopleWorldIdeasPassionRoomsStreetsDangerousStupidPrejudiceDinnerClimbsStationsFewerSelflessEgotismStairsAutomobileSubwayDiningDining RoomsSmellyStupid Ideas
Book:Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer
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“The poor of the world cannot be made rich by the redistribution of wealth. Poverty can't be eliminated by punishing people who've escaped poverty, taking their money and giving it as a reward to people who have failed to escape.”

PeopleWorldGivingMadeWealthPoorPovertyRichRewardsPerditionRedistribution Of Wealth
Book:All the Trouble in the World: The Lighter Side of Overpopulation, Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague, and Poverty
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“Now for good or ill, California is the place where trends tend to be set in Western civilization - if civilization indeed it is. California, for several generations now, has been the newest, biggest, most experimental place in the newest, biggest, most experimental part of liberal Western capitalism - which is itself a new experiment for mankind.”

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Author:P. J. O'Rourke
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