A Cry from the Far Middle: Dispatches from a Divided Land
The first broadly functional social media network, SixDegrees, wasn’t introduced until 1997. At the height of its popularity it had 3.5 million subscribers.
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
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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the lungs of long-distance joggers, gym rats, hot yoga practitioners, and others who engage in vigorous physical activity can emit as much as eight times the average amount of CO2
P.J. O'Rourke • 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
The growth of politics is the opposite of the growth of liberty. When liberty grows we get increased individual enterprise and expansion of free markets. We create more goods, services, and benefits to society. The pie gets bigger. But politics is not about creating more goods, services, and benefits to society. Politics is about dividing them up.
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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
Civil liberties. Free speech. Property rights. Rule of law. Representative democracy. Free enterprise. Free trade. These are the ideas of Classical Liberalism. Since 1776 the fortunate among us have been living in places where those ideas were embraced.
P.J. O'Rourke • A Cry from the Far Middle: Dispatches from a Divided Land
Under the aegis of Classical Liberalism earth thrived. Global per capita GDP went, in inflation-adjusted dollars, from $3,900 in 1950 to $17,300 in 2017.