American Consequences

P. J. O’Rourke

June 2019

Toledo, Ohio

A Lesson in Successful Failure By P.J. O’Rourke “Toledo… the germ of a second Buffalo.” Pierre Irving, nephew of Washington Irving and an early Toledo land speculator, in an 1836 letter to a friend. America’s exceptionalism lies not in its...

June 2019

Schumpeter’s Creative Destruction

Letter from the Editor: Editor in Chief P.J. O’Rourke The amazing thing about free-market capitalism is that it gets rid of stuff that doesn’t work. You say, “Amazing? When stuff doesn’t work, of course you get rid of it!” If you’ve got a washing...

May 2019

Negative Rights vs. Positive Rights

It’s Positively Confusing By P.J. O’Rourke There’s a reason why so much political thinking starts out in the neighborhood of Idealism, crosses Naive Street, and winds up in Stupidville. The reason is confusion between negative rights and positive...

May 2019

It’s The End of the World

Goodbye to Classical Liberalism… Letter from the Editor: Editor in Chief P.J. O’Rourke People are always saying this… especially people my age. Marcus Tullius Cicero, born in 106 B.C. and therefore even older than I am, is famous for his...

April 2019

Trick Quiz

By P.J. O’Rourke For 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidates Where Will the Money Come From?  The big, unruly crowd of would-be Democratic presidential candidates is engaged in a free-for-all. Literally. They’re fighting to see who can promise the...

April 2019

Committee Brain

Why Government Doesn’t Work, No Matter Who Runs It By P.J. O’Rourke Lesson II The other reason government will always malfunction – besides the logical impossibility of sensible spending – has to do with a politician’s brain. “What brain...

April 2019

Dumb Money

Why Government Doesn’t Work, No Matter Who Runs It By P.J. O’Rourke Lesson I In 1980, Nobel prize-winning economist Milton Friedman and his equally brilliant economist wife Rose produced a 10-part PBS series and an accompanying book about the...

April 2019

The Big Ugly

Everyone Loses In The Zero-sum Game Called Politics Letter from the Editor: Editor in Chief P.J. O’Rourke For people like me who consider themselves to be libertarian, the 35-day “government shutdown” at the beginning of this year was a real be...

March 2019

A Libertarian Looks at Legalization

“I am never sure I’ve handled a subject properly till I have contradicted myself at least three times.” John Ruskin By P.J. O’Rourke What should politics, government, and law have to do with people taking drugs for fun? Sitting on my shoulder is a...