[842] in libertarians
PJ at CATO, on fire again!
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Vernon Imrich)
Wed Mar 22 17:06:02 1995
To: libertarians@MIT.EDU
Date: Wed, 22 Mar 1995 16:56:58 EST
From: Vernon Imrich <vimrich@MIT.EDU>
forwarded from libernet:
Date: Tue, 21 Mar 1995 17:13:16 -0500
From: Richard Carey <carey@dev.cdx.mot.com>
Subject: P.J. O'ROURKE: Liberty Manifesto
To: ayn-rand@iubvm.ucs.indiana.edu
Subject: P.J. O'ROURKE: Liberty Manifesto
THE LIBERTY MANIFESTO
BY P. J. O'ROURKE
_________________________________________________________________
The Cato Institute has an unusual political cause -- which is no
political cause whatsoever. We are here tonight to dedicate ourselves
to that cause. To dedicate ourselves, in other words, to . . .
nothing.
We have no ideology, no agenda, no catechism, no dialectic, no plan
for humanity. We have no "vision thing," as our ex-president would
say, or, as our current president would say, we have no Hillary.
All we have is the belief that people should do what people want to
do, unless it causes harm to other people. And that had better be
clear and provable harm. No nonsense about second-hand smoke or
hurtful, insensitive language, please.
I don't know what's good for you. You don't know what's good for me.
We don't know what's good for mankind. And it sometimes seems as
though we're the only people who don't. It may well be that, gathered
right here in this room tonight, are all the people in the world who
don't want to tell all the people in the world what to do.
This is because we believe in freedom. Freedom -- what this country
was established upon, what the Constitution was written to defend,
what the Civil War was fought to perfect.
Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in
Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It's not entitlement.
An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they?
It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights -- the "right" to
education, the "right" to health care, the "right" to food and
housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights,
those are the rations of slavery -- hay and a barn for human cattle.
There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well
please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take
the consequences.
So we are here tonight in a kind of anti-matter protest -- an un-political
un-demonstration by deeply uncommitted inactivists. We are part of a
huge invisible picket line that circles the White House twenty-four
hours a day. We are participants in an enormous non-march on
Washington -- millions and millions of Americans not descending upon
the nation's capital in order to demand nothing from the United States
government. To demand nothing, that is. except the one thing which no
government in history has been able to do -- leave us alone.
There are just two rules of governance in a free society:
Mind your own business. Keep your hands to yourself.
Bill, keep your hands to yourself. Hillary, mind your own business.
We have a group of incredibly silly people in the White House right now,
people who think government works. Or that government would work, if
you got some real bright young kids from Yale to run it. We're being
governed by dorm room bull session. The Clinton administration is over
there right now pulling an all-nighter in the West Wing. They think
that, if they can just stay up late enough, they can create a healthy
economy and bring peace to former Yugoslavia. The Clinton administration
is going to decrease government spending by increasing the amount of money
we give to the government to spend. Health care is too expensive, so the
Clinton administration is putting a high-powered corporate lawyer in charge
of making it cheaper. (This is what I always do when I want to spend less
money -- hire a lawyer from Yale.) If you think health care is expensive
now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.
The Clinton administration is putting together a program so that
college graduates can work to pay off their school tuition. As if this
were some genius idea. It's called getting a job. Most folks do that
when they get out of college, unless, of course, they happen to become
governor of Arkansas.
And the Clinton administration launched an attack on people in Texas
because those people were religious nuts with guns. Hell, this country
was founded by religious nuts with guns. Who does Bill Clinton think
stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock? Peace Corps volunteers? Or maybe the
people in Texas were attacked because of child abuse. But, if child
abuse was the issue, why didn't Janet Reno tear-gas Woody Allen?
You know. if government were a product, selling it would be illegal.
Government is a health hazard. Governments have killed many more
people than cigarettes or unbuckled seat belts ever have. Government
contains impure ingredients -- as anybody who's looked at Congress can
tell you. On the basis of Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign promises. I
think we can say government practices deceptive advertising. And the
merest glance at the federal budget is enough to convict the government
of perjury, extortion, and fraud. There, ladies and gentlemen, you have
the Cato Institute's program in a nutshell: government should be against
the law. Term limits aren't enough. We need jail.
P.J. O'Rourke is the Cato Institute's Menken research fellow. He
delivered these remarks at a May 6 gala dinner celebrating the opening
of the Cato Institute's new headquarters in Washington.
The American Spectator, July 1993
------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Vernon Imrich | market failure, n. The inabilty of the |
| MIT, Dept. OE | market to recover from a blow by |
| Cambridge, MA 02139 | intervention. (The Exchange) |
------------------------------------------------------------------------
| MIT LP: http://www.mit.edu:8001/activities/libertarians/home.html |
------------------------------------------------------------------------
