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Parliament of whor*s: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. GovernmentbyP.J. O'Rourke
3,768 ratings, 4.01 average rating, 272 reviews
Parliament of whor*s Quotes Showing 1-21 of 21
“The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of whor*s: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government
tags: america, democrats, government, humor, politics, republicans
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“Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race. All through history, mankind has been bullied by scum. Those who lord it over their fellows and toss commands in every direction and would boss the grass in the meadow about which way to bend in the wind are the most depraved kind of prostitutes. They will submit to any indignity, perform any vile act, do anything to achieve power. The worst off-sloughings of the planet are the ingredients of sovereignty. Every government is a parliament of whor*s. The trouble is, in a democracy the whor*s are us.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of whor*s: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government
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“It is a popular delusion that the government wastes vast amounts of money through inefficiency and sloth. Enormous effort and elaborate planning are required to waste this much money.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of whor*s: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government
tags: government, government-spending, politics
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“The college idealists who fill the ranks of the environmental movement seem willing to do absolutely anything to save the biosphere, except take science courses and learn something about it.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of whor*s: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government
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“Every government is a parliament of whor*s. The trouble is, in a democracy, the whor*s are us.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of whor*s: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government
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“If government were a product, selling it would be illegal.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of whor*s: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government
tags: government
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“Everyone with any sense and experience in life would rather take his fellows one by one than in a crowd. Crowds are noisy, unreasonable and impatient. They can trample you easier than a single person can. And a crowd will never buy you lunch.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of whor*s: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government
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“Politicians are interested in people. Not that it is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of whor*s: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government
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“The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of whor*s: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government
tags: government, washington-dc
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“The whole idea of government is this: If enough people get together and act in concert, they can take something and not pay for it.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of whor*s: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government
tags: government, greed
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“A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of whor*s: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government
tags: government, luck, trust
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“Whenever I'm in the middle of conformity, surrounded by oneness of mind with people oozing concurrence on every side, I get scared. And when I find myself agreeing with everybody, too, I get terrified.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of whor*s: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government
tags: conformity, humor, stupidity
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“Whatever it is that the government does, sensible Americans would prefer that the government do it to somebody else. This is the idea behind foreign policy.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of whor*s: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government
tags: foreign-policy, government
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“…being specific is the essence of lawmaking and the whole difference between having a Congress and having a mom.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of whor*s: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government
tags: congress, lawmaking, nanny-state
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“The three branches of government number considerably more than three and are not, in any sense, "branches" since that would imply that there is something they are all attached to besides self-aggrandizement and our pocketbooks.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of whor*s: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government
tags: branches, government, humor, politics
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“Mass movements need what Eric Hoffer—in his book The True Believer, about the kind of creepy misfits who join mass movements—called a unifying agent. “Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all unifying agents,” said Hoffer. “Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.” Hoffer goes on to cite historian F. A. Voigt’s account of a Japanese mission sent to Berlin in 1932 to study the National Socialist movement. Voigt asked a member of the mission what he thought. He replied, “It is magnificent. I wish we could have something like it in Japan, only we can’t, because we haven’t got any Jews.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of whor*s: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government
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“Their view of government was O’Rourke’s: “this oozing behemoth, this fibrous tumor, this monster of power and expense.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of whor*s: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government
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“Nor did I ever determine any valuable rule for examining the branches of government, except one: If you want to know what an institution does, watch it when it's doing nothing.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of whor*s: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government
tags: branches-of-government, government, humor, institutions, politics
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“All the senators and representatives and all the citizens of the United States that voted for them are guilty of forgetting one basic rule of business and life: When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of whor*s: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government
tags: humor, politics
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“What is this oozing behemoth, this fibrous tumor, this monster of power and expense hatched from the simple human desire for civic order? How did an allegedly free people spawn a vast, rampant cuttlefish of dominion with its tentacles in every orifice of the body politic?”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of whor*s: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government
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“Government is so tedious that sometimes you wonder if the government isn’t being boring on purpose. Maybe they’re trying to put us to sleep so we won’t notice what they’re doing.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of whor*s: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government
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