We live in a selectively infantilized culture where twentysomethings are children if they're serving in the Third Infantry Division in Ramadi but grown-ups making rational choices if they drop to the broadloom in President Clinton's Oval Office. Mark Steyn More Quotes by Mark Steyn More Quotes From Mark Steyn ...discussing cultural relativism with cultural relativists is like playing tennis with some guy who says, "Your ace is just a social construct. Mark Steyn cultural-relativism tennis guy The state of our civilization manifests itself both in the non-problems that terrify us beyond all reason - rising sea levels - and in the real problems we pay no heed to [population decline]...In reality, much of the planet will be uninhabited long before it's uninhabitable Mark Steyn real sea civilization When Cromwell instructed his portraitist to paint him 'warts and all', he meant both halves of that equation. To teach the warts alone is morbid and unhealthy. Mark Steyn morbid half history Those who can do. Those who can't form a supercommittee. Mark Steyn saboteurs form political The president has borrowed more money to spend to less effect than anybody on the planet. Mark Steyn more-money political president Kafka would surely have been impressed by the twin ambitions of the modern empathetic state: the need to set up hyper-regulatory bodies preventing you from doing anything yourself, while simultaneously endowing lavish pseudo-agencies to hand out leaflets listing a 1-800 number you can dial to order more leaflets. Mark Steyn agency ambition hands The progressive Left can be in favor of Big Government or population control but not both. The mutual incompatibility is about to plunge Europe into societal collapse. There is no precedent in human history for economic growth on declining human capital - and that's before anyone invented unsustainable welfare systems. Mark Steyn growth government europe But in reality the point of free speech is for the stuff that’s over the line, and strikingly unbalanced. If free speech is only for polite persons of mild temperament within government-policed parameters, it isn’t free at all. So screw that. Mark Steyn lines government reality What happened to those men and women at Fort Hood had a horrible symbolism: Members of the best trained, best equipped fighting force on the planet gunned down by a guy who said a few goofy things no one took seriously. And that's the problem: America has the best troops and fiercest firepower, but no strategy for throttling the ideology that drives the enemy — in Afghanistan and in Texas. Mark Steyn texas fighting men The greatest crime of welfare isn't that it's a waste of money, but that it's a waste of people. Mark Steyn rich waste people The essence of a government health care system - for people who have never lived under it and don't know - is waiting, waiting, waiting. You wait for everything. You wait for years for operations that are routine in America. Mark Steyn government essence years Once you accept you're a child in the government nursery, why shouldn't Nanny tell you what to do? Mark Steyn nannies government children America's belated embrace of government health care is going to be far more expensive and disastrous than the Euro-Canadian models. Whatever one's philosophical objection to the Canadian health system, it is, broadly, fair: Unless you're a cabinet minister or a big time hockey player, you'll enjoy the same equality of crappiness and universal lack of access that everybody else does. But, even before it's up-and-running, Pelosi-Reid-Obamacare is an impenetrable thicket of contradictory boondoggles, shameless payoffs and arbitrary shakedowns. Mark Steyn hockey philosophical running When the family dies, the nation follows. Mark Steyn nations dies Apparently the pro-choice types who jump up and down in the street demanding that you keep your rosaries off their ovaries are entirely relaxed about the government getting its bureaucratics all over your lymphatics. Mark Steyn government over-you choices There is no conceivable amount of money worth telling the world that you were beaten up by Liza Minnelli. Mark Steyn amount beaten world Contemporary politics is all about phony energy, about running around slamming doors for the sake of it-or, more to the point, opening them and tossing through a huge sack of taxpayer dollars. Mark Steyn energy running doors The story of the Western world since 1945 is that, invited to choose between freedom and government 'security,' large numbers of people vote to dump freedom every time - the freedom to make your own decisions about health care, education, property rights, and a ton of other stuff. Mark Steyn government rights numbers I like Mitch Daniels on the fiscal conservative issues. You disagree with him on this idea that social issues, you takeoff the table. I do that for two reasons. I think the fiscal issues in a sense are a symptom of a lot of the deeper cultural issues in America. I don't think they are as disconnected as he thinks. Mark Steyn two ideas thinking When a man doesn't know the meaning of the word 'fear', that might just be a deficiency in his education. Mark Steyn success happiness men
