Don’t Vote — It Just Encourages the Bastards

Conservative humorist P.J. O'Rourke has nothing against politicians -- indeed, some of his best friends are politicians. "Politicians are great," writes O'Rourke in Don't Vote -- It Just Encourages the Bastards, "until they stick their noses into things they don't understand, which is most things. Then politicians turn into ratchet-jawed purveyors of monkey-doodle and baked wind. They are piddlers upon merit, beggars at the door of accomplishment, thieves of livelihood, envy-coddling tax lice applauding themselves for giving away other people’s money. They are the lap dogs of the poly-sci class, returning to the vomit of collectivism. They are pig herders tending that sow-who-eats-her-young, the welfare state. They are muck-dwelling bottom-feeders growing fat on the worries and disappointments of the electorate. They are the ditch carp in the great river of democracy. And that's what one of their friends says."