This May Be The Greatest Brief Ever Filed In Supreme Court History...

[jazdoc]

PJ O'Rourke (author of "Don't Vote, It Only Encourages The Bastards") co-authored this Amicus brief in a free speech case challenging an Ohio election law making it illegal to lie about politician. Selected highlights include:

This case concerns amici because the law at issue undermines the First Amendment’s protection of the serious business of making politics funny

After all, where would we be without the knowledge that Democrats are pinko-communist flag-burners who want to tax churches and use the money to fund abortions so they can use the fetal stem cells to create pot-smoking lesbian ATF agents who will steal all the guns and invite the UN to take over America? Voters have to decide whether we’d be better off electing Republicans, those hateful, assault-weapon-wielding maniacs who believe that George Washington and Jesus Christ incorporated the nation after a Gettysburg reenactment and that the only thing wrong with the death penalty is that it isn’t administered quickly enough to secularhumanist professors of Chicano studies.

Supporters of Ohio’s law believe that it will somehow stop the lies, insults, and truthiness, raising the level of discourse to that of an Oxford Union debate.16 Not only does this Pollyannaish hope stand in the face of all political history, it disregards the fact that, in politics, truths are felt as much as they are known. When a red-meat Republican hears “Obama is a socialist,” or a bleeding-heart Democrat hears, “Romney wants to throw old women out in the street,” he is feeling a truth more than thinking one. No government agency can change this fact, and any attempt to do so will stifle important political speech.

The footnotes are even better:

1...Also, amici and their counsel, family members, and pets have all won the Congressional Medal of Honor.

9 Amici are unsure how much torture statistics can withstand before they too run afoul of the law.

14 While President Obama isn’t from Kenya, he is a Keynesian—so you can see where the confusion arises.

15 Driehaus voted for Obamacare, which the Susan B. Anthony List said was the equivalent of voting for taxpayerfunded abortion. Amici are unsure how true the allegation is given that the healthcare law seems to change daily, but it certainly isn’t as truthy as calling a mandate a tax.

 

[still-one]

The funny thing is that too many individuals don't realize how funny that is.

 

[Mosin]

I was watching C-SPAN when Richard Nixon died.
PJ O'Rourke was the guest, and I remember what he said. "Any man who hated the Kennedys couldn't have been all bad."

 

[zztop7]

Did not he say something about - giving alcohol and a car to a teenager is like giving absolute power [current status] to the USA government.

zz.

 

[jazdoc]

Did not he say something about - giving alcohol and a car to a teenager is like giving absolute power [current status] to the USA government.

zz.

I believe the exact quote is "Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."

 

[asindc]

Especially loved this one: While President Obama isn’t from Kenya, he is a Keynesian—so you can see where the confusion arises.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Yes O'Rourke is a funny guy and a well-known advocate of small government. Small government advocates have always mystified me. It's a decent enough idea in theory, though in practice it has all the depth and substance of a bumper sticker. But what I really wonder is who do these advocates vote for? Not the democrats; certainly not the republicans. Where do they find politicians who've actually been elected to anything and then stuck to their small government campaign platform?

Maybe PJ's not joking. Maybe he doesn't vote. Maybe he only advocates.

Tim