Libertarianism is a way of measuring how the government and other kinds of systems respect the individual. At the core of libertarianism is the idea that the individual is sacrosanct and that anything that's done contrary to the well-being of the individual needs some pretty serious justification.
~ P. J. O'rourke
Teasing and a sense of humor, if you can develop that in your kids, and if you can exercise it with the kids, just makes for a pleasanter atmosphere.
I think that humor has become a principle means of communication among Americans about politics.
Ideology, politics and journalism, which luxuriate in failure, are impotent in the face of hope and joy.
The idea of capitalism is not just success but also the failure that allows success to happen.
Adam Smith's huge failure was the fact that he did not foresee the industrial revolution.
The Communist bloc of old was a study in the failure of failure. Losers in the Soviet economy were the people at the end of the long lines for consumer goods. Worse losers were the people who had spent hours getting to the head of the line, only to be told that the goods were unavailable.
Children live in the only successful Marxist state ever created: the family. 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his need' is the family's practice as well as its theory. Even with today's scattershot patterns of marriage and parenting, a family is collectivist to a more than North Korean degree.
Horses and horsepower alike are about status and being cool.
There are a few things that people all around the world need to admit to themselves. Trade restraints slow economic growth, the euro is not a reserve currency, and scoreless sports ties are boring.
When I was fifteen, I dreamed of living in the big city, as many a young person does if he is artistic and sensitive. By 'artistic and sensitive' I mean short, skinny, unkissed, bad at sports, and carrying a C average in high school.
The purpose of sports - even foreign sports - is not to bore people.
What Alexander Graham Bell thought up occupied less space than a flower vase. Now it's so small that I have to search all my pockets to discover I've received a spam text.
A 'farm' today means 100,000 chickens in a space the size of a Motel 6 shower stall.
Space has always been confusing to politics.
The words 'Space Age' have a quaint, nostalgic tone - sitting on midcentury modern furniture watching 'The Jetsons.'
Obama's space policy doesn't differ much from George W. Bush's.
Computers seem a little too adaptively flexible, like the strange natives, odd societies, and head cases we study in the social sciences. There's more opposable thumb in the digital world than I care for; it's awfully close to human.
Don't send funny greeting cards on birthdays or at Christmas. Save them for funerals, when their cheery effect is needed.
A very quiet and tasteful way to be famous is to have a famous relative. Then you can not only be nothing, you can do nothing too.
To mistrust science and deny the validity of scientific method is to resign your job as a human. You'd better go look for work as a plant or wild animal.
Let's reintroduce corporal punishment in the schools - and use it on the teachers.
The problem with public school is not overcrowding in the classroom. The problem is not teacher unions. The problem is not underfunding or lack of computer equipment. The problem is your damn kids.
In our brief national history we have shot four of our presidents, worried five of them to death, impeached one and hounded another out of office. And when all else fails, we hold an election and assassinate their character.
If death weren't around to 'finalize' the Darwinian process, we'd all still be amoebas.
If we heard that somebody starved to death in Sweden or Switzerland, we would be shocked.
I blame feminism and Facebook for the death of the American automobile. I'm a Republican, so I blame everything on feminism - or commies.
Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
Little islands of human happiness, peace, and prosperity are so exceptional at this point in history that I'm not even sure we can draw lessons from them.
I think it's been hard for people to understand how Islam can be a good religion, and yet the Islamists are evil. Those of us who have had experience with Islam understand this, just as we understand the difference between snake handlers and people going to church on Sunday morning.
On inspection, Gaudi's architecture isn't whimsical at all.
Tel Aviv is new, built on the sand dunes north of Jaffa in the 1890s, about the same time Miami was founded. The cities bear a resemblance in size, site, climate, and architecture, which ranges from the bland to the fancifully bland.
I like to think of my behavior in the sixties as a 'learning experience.' Then again, I like to think of anything stupid I've done as a 'learning experience.' It makes me feel less stupid.
I grew up going to public school, and they were huge public schools. I went to a school that had 3,200 kids, and I had grade school classes with 40-some kids. Discipline was rigid. Most of the learning was rote. It worked.
The young are adept at learning, but even more adept at avoiding it.
The First Amendment only says 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.' It can disrespect all it wants.
If you are young and you drink a great deal it will spoil your health, slow your mind, make you fat - in other words, turn you into an adult.
Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.
Most people sort of enjoy going to work because of the socialisation, a chance to flirt with co-workers and so on, but actually hate the job they do.
