Politics & Power Quote by P. J. O'Rourke

O'Rourke’s genius here is the bait-and-switch: he starts with the uplifting civic religion of national “betterment” and then yanks the hymnbook away. The line refuses the idea of America as a moral improvement project. Instead, it frames the country as a permissive machine for self-invention, powered less by virtue than by choice and appetite. The profanity-adjacent cadence of “damned well pleased” isn’t just seasoning; it’s the point. It makes liberty sound like a lived, slightly messy practice, not a marble statue.

The intent is corrective and combative. O'Rourke is pushing back on reformers, scolds, and ideologues who treat the United States as a classroom where the population needs to be disciplined into righteousness. His subtext is that a lot of political rhetoric uses “better” as a velvet glove for control: who decides what “better” means, and who gets punished until they comply? By contrast, “anything” smuggles in a bracing, uncomfortable pluralism. It’s not “anything noble,” not “anything productive,” not even “anything wise.” It’s maximal freedom, with all the weirdness and vice that implies.

Context matters: O’Rourke wrote across decades when culture-war moralism and policy paternalism kept resurging on left and right. The quote functions as a libertarian punchline with teeth, elevating the Founding as a license for experimentation rather than a mandate for collective uplift. It’s funny because it’s harsh. It’s persuasive because it admits the part polite patriotism often edits out: freedom includes people you don’t approve of, doing things you’d never choose.