"Whatever it is that the government does, sensible Americans would prefer that the government does it to somebody else. This is the idea behind foreign policy"
About this Quote
P. J. O'Rourke turns libertarian skepticism into a joke with teeth. By calling Americans who avoid government intrusion at home sensible and then flipping that impulse outward, he mocks the NIMBY instinct of politics: if the state must coerce, let it coerce somebody else. Foreign policy becomes the convenient elsewhere for exercising power without immediate domestic blowback.
The gag lands because it captures a recurring democratic temptation. Citizens dislike taxes, regulation, and surveillance when aimed at them, yet often accept war, sanctions, and covert operations that impose costs on distant strangers who do not vote in U.S. elections. This is a moral outsourcing problem and a public-choice problem at once. The incentives of politicians and bureaucracies tilt toward external action because the victims are out of sight, the benefits can be sold as national security, and accountability is weaker. The executive branch enjoys greater latitude abroad, secrecy shields decision-making, and the rally-around-the-flag effect dampens dissent.
O'Rourke is not only lampooning officials; he is needling the audience. The word sensible is barbed. It recognizes a rational desire to avoid government harm while exposing the hypocrisy of endorsing that same harm when others bear it. One can hear echoes of post-Cold War hubris, nation-building and sanctions regimes that were easier to justify precisely because their burdens were exported. From Vietnam to Iraq to the diffuse collateral damage of drone warfare and economic blockades, the pattern has been to locate risk and suffering at a distance.
The line compresses a civic warning. A republic that treats foreign policy as a dumping ground for interventions it would never tolerate at home corrodes its ethics and its institutions. Prudence is not shunting pain across borders; prudence is restraining state power consistently, measuring necessity, proportionality, and consent whether the target lives in Boise or Basra. O'Rourke’s joke stings because it sounds like common sense and reveals how uncommon genuine restraint is.
The gag lands because it captures a recurring democratic temptation. Citizens dislike taxes, regulation, and surveillance when aimed at them, yet often accept war, sanctions, and covert operations that impose costs on distant strangers who do not vote in U.S. elections. This is a moral outsourcing problem and a public-choice problem at once. The incentives of politicians and bureaucracies tilt toward external action because the victims are out of sight, the benefits can be sold as national security, and accountability is weaker. The executive branch enjoys greater latitude abroad, secrecy shields decision-making, and the rally-around-the-flag effect dampens dissent.
O'Rourke is not only lampooning officials; he is needling the audience. The word sensible is barbed. It recognizes a rational desire to avoid government harm while exposing the hypocrisy of endorsing that same harm when others bear it. One can hear echoes of post-Cold War hubris, nation-building and sanctions regimes that were easier to justify precisely because their burdens were exported. From Vietnam to Iraq to the diffuse collateral damage of drone warfare and economic blockades, the pattern has been to locate risk and suffering at a distance.
The line compresses a civic warning. A republic that treats foreign policy as a dumping ground for interventions it would never tolerate at home corrodes its ethics and its institutions. Prudence is not shunting pain across borders; prudence is restraining state power consistently, measuring necessity, proportionality, and consent whether the target lives in Boise or Basra. O'Rourke’s joke stings because it sounds like common sense and reveals how uncommon genuine restraint is.
Quote Details
| Topic | War |
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