Liberty Manifesto
Michael R Conners
be posted...
The following remarks were delivered at a dinner celebrating the opening of
the Cato Institute's new headquarters in Washington.
The Liberty Manifesto
by
P.J. O'Rourke
The Cato Institute 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
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 protect.
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 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 on Plymouth
Rock? Peace Corps volunteers? or maybe the people in Texas were attacked
because of child abuse. But, if child abuse was the case, 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.
--
*** Michael Conners - THE Ohio State University - Go Bucks! ***
"It's nice to be nice to the nice when they're nice." - Frank Burns