O’Rourke on how “the movement” blew it
P.J. O’Rourke writing in the Weekly Standard as usual delivers in a libertarian bent with highly engaging and only slightly hyperbolic prose. Writing about how the US conservative movement (in my parlance: libertarianism) blew it over the past many years. I aspire to write as cleanly and here are a few choice quotes:
- “After the events of the 20th century–national socialism, international socialism, inter-species socialism from Earth First–anyone who is still on the left is obviously insane and not responsible for his or her actions. No, we on the right did it.”
- “…a low tax rate is not–never mind the rhetoric of every conservative politician–a bedrock principle of conservatism. The principle is fiscal responsibility.”
- “Our attitude toward immigration has been repulsive. Are we not pro-life? Are not immigrants alive? Unfortunately, no, a lot of them aren’t after attempting to cross our borders.”
- “Get a pro-life friend drunk to the truth-telling stage and ask him what happens if his 14-year-old gets knocked up. What if it’s rape? Some people truly have the courage of their convictions. I don’t know if I’m one of them. I might kill the baby. I will kill the boy.”
- “Taxpayer money composted to produce a fuel made of alcohol that is more expensive than oil, more polluting than oil, and almost as bad as oil with vermouth and an olive.”
And far and away the best one of the bunch:
- “What will destroy our country and us is not the financial crisis but the fact that liberals think the free market is some kind of sect or cult, which conservatives have asked Americans to take on faith. That’s not what the free market is. The free market is just a measurement, a device to tell us what people are willing to pay for any given thing at any given moment. The free market is a bathroom scale. You may hate what you see when you step on the scale. “Jeeze, 230 pounds!” But you can’t pass a law making yourself weigh 185. Liberals think you can. And voters–all the voters, right up to the tippy-top corner office of Goldman Sachs–think so too.”
This essay is truly one of the best I’ve read targeting neoliberalism and neoconservatism -both of which bastardize their originating philosophies towards manipulation, control, and a lack of personal responsibility.
Thanks to Arnold Kling for the link.
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