Flashback: Give War A Chance (P.J. O'Rourke)

I hitched a ride back to Saudi Arabia on a New Zealand Air Force C-130. The members of the flight crew were all in their twenties and filled with leftover joy of combat. They let me stand on the flight deck as they brought their 132-foot wingspan, 100,000 pounds of an airplane down to a hundred feet and began chasing camels and goats across the desert at 300 miles an hour. The scattered tamarisk bushes were coming at us like uncountable fastballs in a batting-cage nightmare. The camels gave out pretty quick but the billies and nannies and kids were inspired to remarkable sprints of terror - turbo goats. The vast destitution of the Dahna Sands spread out in an infinity around us. "Wall-to-wall f**k, eh?" shouted the Kiwi pilot. He and his crew mates all had smiles as wide as their skulls. This was the stuff that made it all worthwhile, to be in absolute charge of 17,200 horsepower, to have, gripped in your fists, the whole might of science, of industry, of civilization's mastery of the world - our civilization's mastery of this world. "HOOOOO-AH!!!" as the Gulf troops say.

We popped over the top of a little ridge, and there was a Bedouin camp on the other side. I watched a boy about nine or ten years old come running out from one of the goat-hair tents. We were so close I could see his expression - thrill and fear and awe and wonder combined. His whole life he'll remember the moment that sky-blackening, air-mauling, thunder-engined steel firmament of war crossed his face. And I hope all his bellicose, fanatical, senseless, quarrel-mongering neighbors - from Tel Aviv to Khartoum, from Tripoli to Tehran - remember it too.

More of my favorites:

"Who does Bill Clinton think got off the boat and stepped on Plymouth
Rock? Peace Corps volunteers?" -- P.J. O'Rourke

"I believe that Western civilization, after some disgusting glitches,
has become almost civilized. I believe it is our first duty to protect
that civilization. I believe it is our second duty to improve it. I
believe it is our third duty to extend it if we can." - P. J. O'Rourke

"...Daniel Patrick Moynihan is the archtypical extremely smart person
who went into politics anyway instead so doing something worthwhile for
his country. So maybe he owes all of us an apology..." -- Parliament of
Whores by P. J. O'Rourke

"You'll note that politicians no longer spend money, they invest it.
Don't worry about paying more to the [IRS]. You aren't being taxed;
you're taking a plunge on a fly-by-night stock issue." -- P.J. O'Rourke

"The whole idea of our 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 - A Parliament of Whores

"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child - miserable, as all
spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic
and useless. Liberalism is a philosphy of sniveling brats." -- P.J.
O'Rourke

"Giving government money and power is like giving car keys and whiskey
to a teenage boy" - P.J. O'Rourke

Sen. Ted Kennedy: "And when the Reagan administration was selling arms
to Iran, WHERE WAS GEORGE?"
Answer: Dry, sober, and at home with his wife.
Paraphrased from "A Parliament of Whores" by P.J. O'Rourke

"The American political system is like a gigantic Mexican Christmas
fiesta. Each political party is a huge pinata -- a papier-mache donkey,
for example. The donkey is filled with full employment, low interest
rates, affordable housing, comprehensive medical benefits, a balanced
budge and other goodies. The American voter is blindfoled and given a
stick. The voter then swings the stick wildly in every direction, trying
to hit a political candidate on the head and knock some sense into the
silly bastard." - P.J. O'Rourke, "Parliament of Whores"

"You can't get good chinese takeout in China and cuban cigars are
rationed in Cuba. That's all you need to know about communism." - P.J.
ORourke

"A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a
fool trusts either of them." P.J. O'ROURKE

"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." -- PJ O'Rourke

"[T]he 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? -- P.J.
O'Rourke, speech at the Cato Institute, May 6, 1993

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

"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

Politics should be limited in scope to ware, protection of property, and
the occasional precautionary beheading of a member of the ruling class."
-- P.J. O'Rourke

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