It was P.J. O’Rourke brought me back to sanity; P.J. O’Rourke, who, like me, was a former barking-mad long-haired slacker but who furthermore was also a bomb-throwing leftist, until he travelled the world and saw that for all of America’s injustice, stupidity and corruption, everywhere else was worse. Holidays in Hell, Parliament of Whores, Eat the Rich: PJ O’ Rourke taught me that good enough is good enough because perfect doesn’t exist, and those people that say it does will kill you if you disagree.
So when it comes to the big things, while I may not always be right, I am never wrong. I know that sounds arrogant: it is the exact opposite of arrogant. I’m a pilot – a rhetorical pilot – and I take people on journeys. I have an obligation to pre-flight these ideas; to kick the tires and wiggle the flaps and check the pitot tubes for obstructions, and most importantly, to know where the hell we are going. Every day – every single day – I ask myself: what if I’m wrong? What if I’m wrong? What if you can just keep printing money? What if health care really is free? What if a strangers moral comfort is more important than your right to defend yourself? What if dependency and envy are in fact good and kind things?
Well, they’re not. Capitalism is better than socialism – not because I say so, but because all of the rafts are going from Cuba to America and none of the rafts are going from America to Cuba. Freedom is better than tyranny because no one ever got shot trying to climb a wall to get into East Berlin. Equality of Opportunity is more fair, more humane and more fun than equality of result, because equality of result has to be enforced in places called Gulags.
