Monday, January 07, 2008

Refresher Course for 2008 Politics: 24 Truths

1.

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul
can always depend on the support of Paul.
--George Bernard Shaw


2.

A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man,
which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.
--G. Gordon Liddy


3.

Democracy must be something more than
two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
--James Bovard (1994)


4.

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer
from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
--Douglas Casey (1992)


5.

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


6.

Government is the great fiction, through which
everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.
--Frederic Bastia


7.

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases:
If it moves, tax it.
If it keeps moving, regulate it.
And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
-- Ronald Reagan (1986)


8.

I don't make jokes.
I just watch the government and report the facts.
--Will Rogers


9.

If you think health care is expensive now,
wait until you see what it costs when it's free.
--P.J. O'Rourke


10.

If you want government to intervene domestically, you're a liberal.
If you want government to intervene overseas, you're a conservative.
If you want government to intervene everywhere, you're a moderate.
If you don't want government to intervene anywhere, you're an extremist.
--Joseph Sobran (1995)


11.

In general, the art of government consists in taking as much
money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.
--Voltaire (1764)


12.

Just because you do not take an interest in politics
doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you.
--Pericles (430 B.C.)


13.

No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.
--Mark Twain (1866)


14.

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress.
But I repeat myself.
--Mark Twain


15.

Talk is cheap--except when Congress does it.
--Author Unknown


16.

The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end
and no responsibility at the other.
--Ronald Reagan


17.

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings.
The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.
--Winston Churchill


18.

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist
is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.
--Mark Twain


19.

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
--Herbert Spencer (1891)


20. There is no distinctly native American criminal class save Congress.
--Mark Twain


21.

There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you please.
And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.
--P.J. O'Rourke (1993)


22.

We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity
is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
--Winston Churchill


23.

What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.
–Edward Langley O'Rourke


24.

When buying and selling are controlled by legislation,
the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.
--P.J. O'Rourke (Jack Carey)