Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.

On socialism in Cuba, or "Bad Socialism":

Much work had been done, however, painting the propaganda slogans. SOCIALISM OR DEATH appeared on almost every overpass. What if the U.S. government had slogans all over the place? I tried to come up with a viable campaign. My suggestion, AMERICA—IT DOESN'T SUCK.

On brotherly love in Russia:

[...] a socialist society seems to produce solidarity among people. It does so in Sweden. And it does so in Cuba, even if that is a solidarity of suffering and anger. Socialism, however at odds with economic sense, engenders brotherhood.

Or so I was thinking as I arrived in the Siberian city of Irkutsk. The twentysomething Intourist guide who met me at the airport certainly seemed a younger-brother type. Ivor was affable, outgoing, and....

'You'll notice there are no niggers here,' said this product of socialist childhood and schooling.

On Russian fitness:

The World Bank estimated that one-third of Russia's population had an income below the minimum sustenance level; One out of three people was keeling over from hunger. This wasn't happening. Indeed, three out of three Russians could use some time on a StairMaster.

The conditions of a sleeper car on a four-day journey to Siberia:

You can stretch out on these bunks in comfort if you answered the casting call for Tattoo on Fantasy Island. The compartment window does not open, and there's no fan or other form of ventilation, and no window shade. In the summer in southern Siberia, the sun shines eighteen hours a day. If your compartment is on the south side of the train, as mine was, you can use it to bake pies. A few of the windows in the corridor do open, and some relief can be had by sticking your head out and letting your jaw hang open in the breeze. I saw most of Siberia the way your dog sees I-95.

[...] I'd brought my own food along, too, purchased in Irkutsk's Martha Stewart grocery. And when the train made its brief stops, I could go to the market stalls that lines the station platforms and buy fresh bread, homemade pickles, smoked fish, and—even in Ust'-Urluk, on the frontier of Outer Mongolia—Pepsi. I also bought carbonated Russian mineral water. This tastes like Spic-and-Span but I could shake the bottles and use my thumb to direct squirts of household-cleaner-type liquid at the cockroaches eating Hong Kong tea biscuits under my bunk.

On the economy of Tanzania:

Man was born into a state of nature, and nature, I'm sad to report, is woefully underdeveloped in an economic sense. The wildlife herds were sad reminders that there are only two ways to obtain a thing; either agree upon a price for it or take it by butting heads. Wildebeest must depend on the latter method. Due to lack of pockets, wildebeest cannot carry cash or credit cards. Among animals, only marsupials have pockets, and then just to keep their young inside. And there are various difficulties, practical and theoretical, with an economic system based on inch-long blind and hairless kangaroos.

[...] Wildebeest also sleep, but not peacefully. A significant minority of creatures on the African veldt aren't grazers or browsers, or members of PETA.

Still in Tanzania:

[...] Maasai [tribe] cuisine is nothing but, basically, gravy. It would be food suicide for any other people and may cause even the Maasai a certain amount of indigestion. They call Europeans iloredaa enjekat, 'those who confine their farts with clothing.'

In Tanzania's capital:

In Dar [es Salaam], as knowing travelers call it, I was met by a driver named Nzezele (pronounced 'Nzezele'). [...] Buses and taxis bear pictures of Bob Marley. Pedestrians wear T-shirts emblazoned with Rastafarian slogans. BACK TO AFRICA is—confoundingly—a popular slogan in Tanzania.

A quote from John Cowperthwaite, the British officer given credit for Hong Kong's laissez-faire economic success:

[...] in the long run the aggregate of decisions of individual businessmen, exercising individual judgment in a free economy, even if often mistaken, is less likely to do harm than the centralized decisions of a government; and certainly the harm is likely to be counteracted faster.

On the notion of the U.S. opening its doors to Hong Kongese emigrants after the handover to Red China:

Imagine 6.5 million savvy, hardworking citizens-to-be with a great cuisine. What a blessing for America. And how we would hate them. Pat Buchanan would hate their race. The AFL-CIO would hate their wage rate. The NAACP would hate their failure to fail as a minority. And Al Gore would hate 6.5 million campaign contributors who didn't have to sneak pro-free-trade money to the Democratic National Committee anymore but could go right into polling booths and vote Republican.

In summation:

The first nine commandments concern theological principles and social law: Thou shalt not make graven images, steal, kill, etc. Fair enough. But then there's the Tenth Commandment: 'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's.'

Here are God's basic rules about how we should live, a very brief list of sacred obligations and solemn moral precepts, and right at the end of it is, 'Don't envy your buddy's cow.'

What is that doing in there? Why would God, with just ten things to tell Moses, choose, as one of them, jealousy about the livestock next door? And yet, think about how important to the well-being of a community this Commandment is. If you want a donkey, if you want a pot roast, if you want a cleaning lady, don't bitch about what the people across the street have. Go get your own.

The Tenth Commandment sends a message to socialists, to egalitarians, to people obsessed with fairness, to American presidential candidates in the year 2000—to everyone who believes that wealth should be redistributed. And the message is clear and concise: Go to hell."