Edgar Friendly

A poster on the Powerline forum, discussing my book, offers up a great quote by Denis Leary (as Edgar Friendly) in the nanny-state fable Demolition Man. The movie, outside of a couple of great Leary lines, is God-awful. In other words, I’ve seen it a few dozen times.

“See … according to Cocteau’s plan, I’m the enemy, ’cause I like to think, I like to read. I’m into freedom of speech, and freedom of choice. I’m the kinda guy that likes to sit in a greasy spoon and wonder, “Gee, should I have the T-bone steak or the jumbo rack of barbecue ribs with the side-order of gravy fries?” I want high cholesterol! I wanna eat bacon, and butter, and buckets of cheese, okay?! I wanna smoke a Cuban cigar the size of Cincinnati in the non-smoking section! I wanna run naked through the street, with green Jell-O all over my body, reading Playboy magazine. Why? Because I suddenly may feel the need to, okay, pal?”