Daily Inspiration Quote by P. J. O'Rourke

Cruelty is the joke here, and O'Rourke wants you to feel its laziness. The line isn’t a defense of born-again Christians so much as a jab at the people who treat them as an easy punchline. “Hunting dairy cows” is an image of absurd overkill: the target is slow, domesticated, and not fighting back; the hunter is armed like he’s heading into war. Add the “high powered rifle and scope” and the imbalance turns from mere teasing into performative dominance. The satire lands because it frames a common cultural reflex - mocking earnest believers - as a kind of macho sport that confuses effort with virtue.

O'Rourke’s intent is twofold: skewer the smugness of secular elites and puncture the self-congratulating idea that ridicule equals sophistication. The subtext is about status. Publicly clowning “born-agains” can function as a social signal in certain rooms, proof you’re not naive, not provincial, not one of them. By comparing it to an unethical, pointless hunt, he implies the mocker is less brave than they think; they’re not challenging power, they’re bullying sincerity.

The context matters: late-20th-century American culture wars, when evangelical Christianity was both politically visible and culturally coded as tacky or credulous in media circles. O'Rourke, a contrarian journalist with libertarian instincts, isn’t pleading for reverence. He’s policing comedic honor: if you’re going to shoot, pick a target that can shoot back.