A Cry from the Far Middle: Dispatches from a Divided Land
Politics hands us the spear of outrage at the slightest perceived slight to our primitive political clan, smears us with the war paint of identity politics, gives us the shield of political correctness, and tells us that we’re not naked savages squatting around a smoldering fire of resentment and envy but noble Social Justice Warriors.
P.J. O'Rourke • A Cry from the Far Middle: Dispatches from a Divided Land
In 1945 only the lucky few could be called citizens of a free country. Today, 39 percent of the world’s population has political freedom, another 24 percent has partial freedom, and 74 percent of the world’s 195 nations are at least free enough to give Classical Liberalism a try.
P.J. O'Rourke • A Cry from the Far Middle: Dispatches from a Divided Land
(total global debt is now $244 trillion, three times the size of the world economy)
P.J. O'Rourke • A Cry from the Far Middle: Dispatches from a Divided Land
What this country needs is fewer people who know what this country needs. We’d be better off, in my opinion, without so many opinions. Especially without so many political opinions. Including my own.
P.J. O'Rourke • A Cry from the Far Middle: Dispatches from a Divided Land
Government and politics are different. Government is . . . words fail me . . . government. Politics is the fight over who runs the government. And the fix is in because, as you may have noticed, every time politicians stage that fight a politician wins.
P.J. O'Rourke • A Cry from the Far Middle: Dispatches from a Divided Land
In the report we see that the federal government spends $877.5 billion annually on these benefits and services. And let us note that this spending does not include Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, or Affordable Care Act subsidies. However, the $877.5 billion does include $467.8 billion spent on health care for the poor in programs
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Also, lacking civil liberties and property rights, representative democracy is left with nothing to represent except the will of the mob or—as it’s called these days—“activism.”
P.J. O'Rourke • A Cry from the Far Middle: Dispatches from a Divided Land
Our country was founded by the delusional and the crazy, populated by the desperate and the unwilling, motivated by most of the Seven Deadly Sins, and is somehow . . . the richest and most powerful nation on earth, ever.
P.J. O'Rourke • A Cry from the Far Middle: Dispatches from a Divided Land
Transformations in health care have turned the historically cheapest part of being alive—dying—into something so expensive that many people can’t afford to do it.