From The American Spectator, July 1993

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 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 harm. 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

other 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 right 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 all nighter 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 high powered 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 cigarettes 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.

 

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