ftp.cse.unsw.edu.au/2014.06.ftp.cse.unsw.edu.au.tar/ftp.cse.unsw.edu.au/pub/doc/misc/The Liberty Manifesto

Internet Message Format | 1993-12-09 | 5.7 KB

From usage!metro!basser.cs.su.oz.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msuinfo!agate!ames!sgi!igor!donb Fri Dec 10 15:12:52 EST 1993
Article: 34723 of alt.peeves
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Path: usage!metro!basser.cs.su.oz.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msuinfo!agate!ames!sgi!igor!donb
From: [e-mail] (Don Baldwin)
Subject: I _had_ to post this
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Organization: TOSHIBA America MRI, South San Francisco, CA
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 93 00:10:04 GMT
Lines: 119

Here is a most excellent and triumphant address given by P. J. O'Rourke
at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

     don

The Liberty Manifesto

by P. J. O'Rourke

The Cato lnstitute 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 harn.  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 unpolitical
undemonstration 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 nght
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 allnighter 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 highpowered 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 cigarenes 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