[HN Gopher] P. J. O'Rourke, 1947-2022
___________________________________________________________________
P. J. O'Rourke, 1947-2022
Author : jseliger
Score : 187 points
Date : 2022-03-02 15:31 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (mattlabash.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (mattlabash.substack.com)
| adlorger wrote:
| PJ O'Rourke was my first into to a feeling that I've become more
| familiar with over the years - "liberal cringe"
|
| I still count myself as a liberal (more classical than modern)
| these days but I can't help but view a lot of standard
| progressive empty promises through an O'Rourke-ian lens.
| aklemm wrote:
| I'm curious what you mean by "empty promises"? If it's what I
| hope it means, those are things I experience as thwarted dreams
| instead.
| rpmisms wrote:
| Promises that sound nice, but have huge economic consequences
| and therefore wouldn't be passed by a sane government. An
| example: Medicare for All combined with amnesty for illegal
| immigrants. It sounds nice, until you think about the obvious
| result.
| TomSwirly wrote:
| By my calculations, you are way off.
|
| Giving free healthcare to all the illegal immigrants would
| cost $100 billion; switching the single payer would save
| Americans a trillion.
|
| > It sounds nice, until you think about the obvious result.
|
| Making up a nice story isn't really "thinking". Let's see
| your actual numbers.
| rpmisms wrote:
| > Giving free healthcare to all the illegal immigrants
| would cost $100 billion; switching the single payer would
| save Americans a trillion.
|
| > Making up a nice story isn't really "thinking". Let's
| see your actual numbers.
|
| Let's see yours. Trusting a politician's estimate for a
| bureaucrat's dream money pit is naivete at its peak.
|
| According to this article:
| https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/01/416416/single-payer-
| system..., savings of 3.5% are likely in the first year
| of a single payer plan.
|
| Edit: according to Bernie Sanders' plan, the total cost
| would be $32 trillion over 10 years. Here's a nice
| article debunking that claim:
| https://www.factcheck.org/2018/08/the-cost-of-medicare-
| for-a...
| mgkimsal wrote:
| I'm not sure what the 'obvious result' is.
| rpmisms wrote:
| Massive spending as people flock in to get healthcare.
| It's (sadly) not financially feasible.
| aklemm wrote:
| That assumes the immigrants don't become part of the tax-
| paying economy, which they have a great record of doing.
| rpmisms wrote:
| Will they become high earners? The vast majority of taxes
| are paid by high earners and the wealthy, with those
| making under ~$43,600 a year--50% of Americans--paying
| just 3% of income taxes. (Source:
| https://www.heritage.org/taxes/commentary/1-chart-how-
| much-t...)
| brimble wrote:
| Existing Medicare funding comes (mostly) from payroll
| taxes, not income tax, and the two work very differently.
|
| It'd be more informative to look at who's funding
| healthcare now, including the private portions. I doubt
| very much that the bottom 50% are only covering 3% of
| that.
| toqy wrote:
| Maybe? Certainly it must be easier to attain higher
| income if you're legally allowed to be and work in the
| country.
| e40 wrote:
| Or "forgive all student loans" ... (I believe we should
| immediately reset the interest rates to 0 or some slightly
| larger nominal value, and immediately close all loans that
| have paid more than the original principle) ... but I don't
| know how this works to just forgive all of them.
| rpmisms wrote:
| Yeah, it's an economic absurdity. I agree with you, your
| proposal is very fair.
| TomSwirly wrote:
| > Yeah, it's an economic absurdity.
|
| Again, can you show us the numbers? "A guy claimed it was
| so on the Internet" isn't really useful later as a
| source.
| rpmisms wrote:
| Sure. According to https://studentloanhero.com/student-
| loan-debt-statistics/, there's $1.75t in outstanding
| student loan debt in the US. You _can_ just print the
| money and contribute to the huge inflation the Fed is
| already wrangling, but that 's a very short-sighted move.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| The problem with forgiving the loans is not economic. It
| would be trivial to do, and the economic consequences
| probably positive.
|
| It is a moral hazard. First, it amounts to a giveaway to
| people aren't necessarily all that sympathetic -- people
| who can afford to go to college at all, even if they
| borrowed money to do it. Remember how much of the
| population couldn't even get _that far_. Second, any kind
| of student debt jubilee without first reforming the
| system just invites every future student to take as many
| loans as possible with the expectation that they too will
| have their debt forgiven.
| Thrymr wrote:
| Sure we could. We "forgive" lots of debts in bankruptcy
| proceedings already, but student loans have a high bar
| discharge in bankruptcy. Historically debt forgiveness
| has a long history, as David Graeber and others have
| shown:
|
| https://novaramedia.com/2021/08/30/david-graeber-was-
| right-a...
| darkarmani wrote:
| > amnesty for illegal immigrants. It sounds nice, until you
| think about the obvious result.
|
| You mean because of the sizable labor black market would
| shrivel up and suddenly all of these laborers would be able
| to collect on benefits on the taxes they've paid on the
| system? there is a good question there.
|
| What is the approximate size of benefits that are getting
| funded but lie unclaimed by black market labor?
| rpmisms wrote:
| Don't take me out of context and then demand I defend a
| strawman. I clearly referred to the combination of
| amnesty and public healthcare as expensive, not one or
| the other. The bottom 50% of the country by income, which
| by-and-large black market labor falls under, pay less
| than 3% of federal taxes. That's not going to fund very
| much.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| It seems like the natural conclusion is that the US
| health system is inadequate to the task of providing
| health care for every citizen. Some portion of the
| population has to do without.
|
| That sounds uncharitable, yes. But the same contingent
| that claims we cannot feasibly support universal
| healthcare due to the bottom 50% being essentially
| leeches on society happens to be the same people who
| insist that we cannot improve income for the bottom 50%
| because the free market is speaking.
| munificent wrote:
| One of the defining properties of liberals and, even more,
| progressives is _idealism_. The idea that you set your sights
| on a destination that is unattainable due to the vagaries of
| reality rather settle for status quo and incrementalism.
|
| There is an adaptive and maladaptive side to that psychology.
|
| The adaptive side is that all plans tend to work out at less
| than 100%. If you aspire to something just past your
| destination, you may actually reach where you originally
| wanted to go. If you aim right for it, you'll fall short.
| Also, reality doesn't always make it clear where the real
| boundaries are. Often you can accomplish more than is
| apparently possible if you have the courage to try.
|
| The maladaptive side is considering any policy too coupled to
| reality as stinking of compromise and defeatism, or as a
| designed-to-fail Trojan horse from the other side. Any idea
| that might actually be feasible instead becomes suspect _by
| virtue of its feasibility_. The only goals you feel
| comfortable holding in your heart are ones that never risk
| getting sullied by any actual incremental progress.
|
| I think progressives in the past used to be better at keeping
| their eyes on the future while getting their hands dirty with
| today's work. But, perhaps because of decades of horror shows
| like the War in Iraq, climate change, rising inequality,
| corporate take-over of culture, and political polarization, I
| see less of the latter. There's a sort of fatalism of
| prefering to die a martyr with hands unstained by sin than
| possibly staving off death by consorting with the enemy.
| aklemm wrote:
| It seems to me the fatalism comes from the game-theory side
| of it; when your enemy has no ideals except beating you,
| his diabolical tactics really undermine morale.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> One of the defining properties of liberals and, even
| more, progressives is idealism._
|
| If you mean idealism as a way of conducting your personal
| life, I don't think it has anything to do with any
| particular political persuasion.
|
| If you mean idealism as a political philosophy, while I
| agree this is a defining property of progressives, for
| liberals, at least the classical liberals that were the
| original referent of the term, no. (Today "liberal" pretty
| much means the same thing politically as "progressive", but
| that wasn't always the case.) Classical Enlightenment
| liberalism was highly suspicious of idealism as a guiding
| principle of politics and public policy, because it
| recognized the limitations of humans. We are simply not
| smart enough to come up with useful idealism on the scale
| of a country. Every time we try, it causes far more
| problems than it solves. Classical liberals preferred to
| let institutions on a larger scale evolve from the bottom
| up, as people exercised their individual freedom of choice
| on a smaller scale and were held accountable by the people
| they interacted with.
| TomSwirly wrote:
| > possibly staving off death by consorting with the enemy.
|
| The Democrats have tried to "consort with the enemy" for
| three decades now, and all that happens is that the
| Republicans move further to the right and laugh at them.
| aklemm wrote:
| Exactly. One prize of playing diabolically is you get to
| apply a double standard to your opponent. Works great for
| them.
| munificent wrote:
| _> Works great for them._
|
| For a while. It's easy to win by playing the villain in a
| single round prison's dilemma, but less so when iterated.
| [deleted]
| munificent wrote:
| This is the iterated prisoner's dilemma of modern US
| politics.
|
| If you compromise and cooperate with the other party,
| some fraction of time you will make progress, and some
| fraction of time you'll get screwed because they're
| cooperation was a bad-faith trap.
|
| It's certainly the case that at least since New Gingrich
| the odds of the former have grown much higher when
| Democratic politicians try to work with Republicans.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Newt Gingrich
|
| I think history will look back and see that Newt Gingrich
| shares a disproportionately large share of the blame for
| the tribal politics we are experiencing now. He wasn't
| first, but he was _effective_.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I think history will look back and see that Newt
| Gingrich shares a disproportionately large share of the
| blame for the tribal politics we are experiencing now.
|
| Much as I loath Gingrich, I think that the blame for
| transformation of political culture that he has gotten
| really from day one of his speakership is overblown, and
| that the two main factors are:
|
| (1) the reversion to the normal alignment of partisan and
| ideological divides as the long era of the overlapping
| realignments of the post-Depression era (New Deal and
| Civil Rights) and,
|
| (2) Clinton's political triangulation strategy reducing
| opportunity for partisan differentiation on a wide range
| of high-saliency policy issues, driving a focus on
| personal and culture war issues as well as a rightward
| policy shift to re-enable differentiation on those issues
| (which itself required relying on personal and cultural
| identity politics heavily.)
| ubermonkey wrote:
| He was pretty funny until the mid-90s, and then seemed to just
| get cranky. I honestly hadn't given him a thought in years.
| trts wrote:
| Although he was mainly conservative, O'Rourke was a popular
| iconoclast with respect to both major U.S. political parties.
| That you could read him in the Washington Post and also find him
| on an NPR show like Wait, Wait, Don't Tell me points to a time
| seemingly in the distant past when the U.S. wasn't so politically
| entrenched and polarized. If you didn't agree with what he said,
| it was still easy to enjoy his writing and find truth in it.
|
| Not sure there is any comparable figure today that comes to mind.
|
| Last week I enjoyed listening to a rebroadcast of his appearance
| on James Altucher's podcast:
| https://jamesaltucher.com/podcast/pj-orourke/
| tzs wrote:
| Here's a transcript from one of his appearances on "Wait, Wait,
| Don't Tell Me" giving his opinion on the 2016 candidates:
|
| > I have a little announcement to make. I mean my whole purpose
| in life basically is to offend everyone who listens to NPR. No
| matter what position they take on anything like I'm on the
| other side of it you know.
|
| > I'm voting for Hillary.
|
| > I am endorsing Hillary and all her lies and all her empty
| promises. I am endorsing Hillary. The second worse thing that
| could happen to this country, but it's she's way behind in
| second place you know.
|
| > I mean she's wrong about absolutely everything but she's
| wrong within normal parameters.
| shagie wrote:
| From back then...
|
| the news article:
| https://www.npr.org/2016/05/09/477339063/conservative-
| author...
|
| the episode: https://www.npr.org/2016/05/07/477085149/whos-
| bill-this-time - its about 3 minutes in.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| > I mean she's wrong about absolutely everything but she's
| wrong within normal parameters.
|
| I don't know why but I just love that line. It really
| captures a mood/mentality from that moment.
| busyant wrote:
| Not sure if you've read it, but his bit about how _God is a
| Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat_ is great.
|
| And this endorsement is coming from a latte' sipping out-
| of-touch east coast liberal.
|
| edit: you can find the full bit here:
| http://www.paulburns.com/Quotes/pj.shtml
| JasonFruit wrote:
| I'd say he also encapsulated the appeal of Trump: he's wrong,
| sure -- they're _all_ wrong -- but at least he 's a different
| kind of wrong. People thought they'd give it a shot, because
| how could it be worse? I'm honestly not sure if it was or
| not, even yet.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| I mean, to the first part, yes, but why aren't you sure it
| was worse? Do you really want to be ruled by a facist
| dictatorship in the USA, which is what we'd now have if
| Trump had a second term? We may yet have that under someone
| else, but Biden bought us a couple of years, at least.
|
| Or do you just not see the actual danger here and think
| Trump was a fairly decent guy who's just a bad/corrupt real
| estate huckster as opposed to a sociopathic grifter?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > how could it be worse? I'm honestly not sure if it was or
| not, even yet.
|
| By showing us that it is all lies by lying about literally
| _everything_ , we will become wiser? By demonstrating that
| our democracy is weak by attempting to topple it, we will
| become stronger?
|
| It sounds like some kind of Tough Love dream. I don't care
| for it, though, I think draining the swamp is an admirable
| idea so long as filling it back up with the sewer isn't the
| second part of that plan. I'm not convinced the path to a
| better country requires that we destroy it first.
| consumer451 wrote:
| One of the dumbed-down lessons I had re-solidified over
| those years and choices is that _change is not always
| good._
|
| Which I now realize is a bit ironic, considering who I
| learned it from.
| Arete314159 wrote:
| I'm pretty sure if Covid had happened during a Hillary
| Clinton administration, she wouldn't have been stealing PPE
| and test supplies from state governors and stuff like that.
|
| Pretty sure 100's of thousands of people wouldn't have
| died.
|
| Pretty sure she would have sanctioned Russia a lot harder,
| to try to, oh, dissuade them from invading Ukraine.
| kbelder wrote:
| Don't think that a Clinton presidency would have nudged
| needle one way or the other in regards to Covid. The
| _only_ thing we did that had a real impact was get the
| vaccines, and that would not have been any quicker with
| Clinton.
| ghaff wrote:
| There would presumably been less chaos and drama. Maybe;
| the Trump supporters would still have been out there. But
| there isn't a lot to suggest outcomes would have been a
| lot different.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| You're getting downvoted, clearly, but I think you're
| more right than wrong. I still think the feds would have
| screwed up the response and just as many people would
| have died. But the spats with governors likely would not
| have happened. And she's certainly far more of a hawk
| than Trump, so I expect you're right that she'd have been
| more aggressive towards Russia. Not sure if it would have
| dissuaded them from invading Ukraine, though, Putin is
| pretty crazy.
| stickfigure wrote:
| > Not sure there is any comparable figure today that comes to
| mind.
|
| The obit already mentioned the late great Christopher Hitchens.
|
| In his (frequent) funnier moments, I think Scott Alexander
| channels the same daemon.
| klysm wrote:
| > iconoclast
|
| That's a new word for me, does it carry any specific
| connotation?
| oliveshell wrote:
| It used to mean someone who literally destroyed icons-- as in
| statues and things that folks would worship.
|
| Nowadays it mostly refers to _"A person who attacks cherished
| beliefs or institutions"_. [1]
|
| It connotes that someone isn't afraid to loudly voice a
| (potentially) minority or unpopular opinion. See also 'shit-
| stirrer', 'skeptic'.
|
| It's also in the title of a classic Simpsons episode. [2]
|
| [1] https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/iconoclast
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_the_Iconoclast
| rodgerd wrote:
| Attacking icons; the classic iconoclasts wanted to destroy
| sacred church imagery as a distraction from the proper
| worship of god.
|
| In O'Rourke's case it meant that while saying that he was a
| republican and having a go at cyclists and fat women and
| other "safe" targets, he was also happy to rip into Reagan
| for supporting Marcos against the peaceful Yellow Revolution,
| or his seminal essay on the war on drugs, "The Whiffle Ball
| Life", where he pointed out that the people selling the war
| could always be sure that they or their kids would never
| suffer any serious consequence for their own drug use, but
| that it would be borne by black teens and young men.
| hirundo wrote:
| He was a butcher of sacred cows.
| zerocrates wrote:
| Not to laser in too much on something that's not key to your
| point but, are you saying that it's notable that as a
| conservative he was in those places, or to indicate a
| significant gulf between the political leanings of the
| Washington Post and NPR? Because I, and I think most people,
| would slot both outlets in a pretty similar place.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| >> Although he was mainly conservative
|
| I agree this is how he was classified on the modern spectrum
| but I think he was really a classic liberal, a pre-Peter Thiel
| libertarian without all the distracting noise. He's a hard
| person to fit cleanly into any single bucket, which is a good
| thing that isn't received well in our current binary
| environment.
|
| "There is only one basic human right: the right to do as you
| please, without causing others harm. With it comes our only
| basic human duty: the duty to accept the consequences of our
| actions."
|
| We're pretty good at the former, and almost universally ignore
| the latter.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| atlantas wrote:
| It's mostly old school moderate liberals who call
| themselves classical liberals. Because today's loudest self
| described liberals have abandoned core principles like free
| speech. So the moderate among us have to make this
| distinction.
|
| Calling us conservative or right wing is a way to other us,
| to kick us out of the tribe. It's purification. See the
| endless torrent of hate being directed at Bill Maher lately
| for maintaining liberal values. I've seen it hundreds of
| times on Twitter, "I'm so done with him! He's not one of
| us."
| ajross wrote:
| There's a very O'Rourke style quip in there too: the term
| "Classical Liberal" is an attempt to explain something with
| a label that is too complicated (or... often too
| inconveniently controversial) to do with an argument.
|
| To wit: someone who calls themselves a classical liberal is
| doing the same thing other people do when they tell you
| their pronouns.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| That's a very interesting comparison... I'll have to give
| it more thought. Thank you!
| gojomo wrote:
| Note also: 'classical liberal' has been an attempt to
| clarify/brand a certain viewpoint for decades, as the US
| label of 'liberal' has drifted from what it previously
| meant.
|
| So I suspect your observation about the "last few years"
| is more a reflection of the evolution of your specific
| info-environment, & rhetoric consumption, than a broader
| trend.
|
| For example, Google books show it rising from nothing
| before the 1930s 'New Deal' era (of massive new
| government economic interventions), to a steep growth in
| the 1980s (Reaganism etc), starting to plateau in the
| 20X0s:
|
| https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=classical+l
| ibe...
|
| Search trends show interest in finding out what it is
| roughly stable since 2004:
|
| https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&
| q=%...
|
| In the late 1800s, 'liberal' overwhelmingly meant in
| favor of free trade, less government involvement in
| running or regulating private enterprises, & free speech
| - not especially "liberal" policies in present US
| politics. (Though, in late 20thC, US 'liberals' were
| still among the strongest free-speech advocates.)
|
| But in the UK & some very-left circles, 'liberal' still
| has some of those meanings - compared to more radical
| leftism, for sure - but is often labelled (or slurred) as
| 'neoliberal'.
| rpmisms wrote:
| The GOP is not Libertarian on policy. Classical liberals
| are. You almost definitely prefer the CL stance to the GOP
| stance on almost every issue, and would therefore be well-
| served to encourage this movement.
|
| Your reaction to it springs from a lack of knowledge about
| it. Calling the difference "1 or 2 policies" is reductive
| and ignorant.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| My apologies for having a different view than you on how
| it is applied? You may be technically correct, but that
| is not, at least in my experience, how people use it. And
| that is all I'm talking about. How it is used, how people
| wield the term. So maybe cool it with the ad hominems?
| rpmisms wrote:
| I'm not attacking you personally, but I do see how I was
| too harsh, please forgive me. I'm simply saying that your
| opinion isn't fully formed and you're slinging mud at an
| ideology you don't understand. Classical liberalism is a
| relatively mature system, and claiming that it's barely
| real--simply because you don't get it--is silly.
| dlivingston wrote:
| I think parent's point is that, whatever "classical
| liberalism" means formally and historically, the label is
| typically used _today_ by people thought of as run-of-
| the-mill Conservatives (i.e., Jordan Peterson, Dave
| Rubin, Brett Weinstein, etc.).
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Bingo
| hash872 wrote:
| He was militantly anti-gay rights and anti-gay marriage. I'm
| not familiar with the rest of his conservative views, but I
| don't find much iconoclastic or libertarian in there- he was
| a standard-issue Republican in the GWB era
| hunterb123 wrote:
| Democrats were commonly anti gay marriage as well. Obama
| was anti-gay marriage in 2008.
|
| But I believe you're wrong about his view on that anyway.
| aerostable_slug wrote:
| He was pro-gay marriage:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhTge9k1gmQ
|
| And pro-gay rights:
|
| > I'm so conservative that I approve of San Francisco City
| Hall marriages, adoption by same-sex couples, and New
| Hampshire's recently ordained Episcopal bishop. Gays want
| to get married, have children, and go to church. Next
| they'll be advocating school vouchers, boycotting HBO, and
| voting Republican.
|
| -- "I Agree With Me" (July/August 2004)
|
| Are you sure you're referring to the same P.J. O'Rourke?
| ghaff wrote:
| It's also entirely possible to be pro-gay marriage in
| 2004 and anti in the 1980s. Certainly a _ton_ of people
| fit that description. That said, I 've probably read most
| of his books and I don't remember him talking about gay
| rights one way or the other though who knows what
| stereotypes he wrote about that simply didn't register
| 25+ years ago?
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| rootusrootus wrote:
| He indicated repeatedly that he believed the bit about
| individualism and human rights applied to today's
| conservatives. I find his writing delightful and amusing,
| certainly, but he definitely fits squarely into the current
| political tribal definitions. Though as much as he tried to
| be satirical about it, he definitely saw his own side through
| much rosier glasses than he saw the left.
| wyclif wrote:
| He was hard to classify because he was equal parts
| libertarian and libertine.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| I only ever saw him on Bill Maher's show, but would enjoy the
| show so much more when he was on it. I always told myself that I
| needed to go check out more of his work and never did. My loss.
| Aside from some of the pieces already linked in the thread are
| there any worth reading that stand out? RIP.
| ghaff wrote:
| The mentions on this thread are a pretty good list. It's been a
| while since I read though. I just took a couple off my shelf to
| re-read.
| bigbillheck wrote:
| I fell off the O'Rourke fan train back in the early 00s when I
| was flipping thru his 'Enemies List' in a bookstore and came to
| the realization that if the B-52s were his enemy then I was one
| too.
|
| Did O'Rourke ever say anything about 'cancel culture'? Because
| that book is an excellent example.
| tux1968 wrote:
| Is it an excellent example of 'cancel culture', though?
| Disliking something, and considering it your enemy, isn't the
| same as cancelling something. Did he ever try to stop one of
| their concerts, or demand that nobody else listen to them, or
| get their management to drop them?
| victor106 wrote:
| I heard PJ talk in a show about having a three party system in
| the US. And this is what he had to say.
|
| "Our big and sloppy political system keeps America away from
| abstract political theorists. Away from abstract political theory
| is a good place to be. Our compromised and compromising system
| with its messey conflicts and fitful bipartisanship keeps
| governments close to real life. Because in reality we all contain
| within ourselves elements of the democrat and republican. We are
| conservatives when we catch the kids smoking pot and we are quite
| liberal when we catch ourselves doing it. No one ever says oh
| goodie when its time to pay the taxes and no one ever turns down
| a government benefit. Abondining the two party system would mean
| abondining a great truth. The truth that we are all of two minds
| about politics Greater certainity in our political system would
| mean more politics, more arguments, more strife we dont need that
| we got enough..."
| ncmncm wrote:
| Sounds articulate, plausible, and just so, so wrong.
|
| Other countries are not stuck with our system. We are stuck
| with it, but that is not a reason to come to like it. We have
| to find ways to work around being stuck with it. Pretending it
| is OK actively interferes with that.
| mabub24 wrote:
| Yeah, I think most people look at the endless 1v1 party
| sparring of America's political system and just see a recipe
| for unending revenge and bitterness.
|
| Most parliamentary systems, or multi-party systems, do not
| have the same amounts of longstanding political polarization
| that has come to grip America, where every issue _must_ be
| divided along party lines or you 're a "traitor to the
| cause".
| MontagFTB wrote:
| This is a great quote - do you have a link to a source?
| robotresearcher wrote:
| https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/two-party-
| syst...
|
| at 1h29m in transcript
| alphabetting wrote:
| One incredible writer doing a sendoff for another. RIP Mr
| O'Rourke
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Such an incredible writer.
|
| _JournalismJobs.com: Why have conservative media outlets like
| The Weekly Standard and Fox News Channel become more popular in
| the past few years?
|
| Matt Labash: Because they feed the rage. We bring the pain to
| the liberal media. I say that mockingly, but it's true
| somewhat. We come with a strong point of view and people like
| point of view journalism. While all these hand-wringing Freedom
| Forum types talk about objectivity, the conservative media
| likes to rap the liberal media on the knuckles for not being
| objective. We've created this cottage industry in which it pays
| to be un-objective. It pays to be subjective as much as
| possible. It's a great way to have your cake and eat it too.
| Criticize other people for not being objective. Be as
| subjective as you want. It's a great little racket. I'm glad we
| found it actually._
|
| Source: Journalismjobs.com interview from 2005, archived at
| https://zfacts.com/zfacts.com/metaPage/lib/Weekly_Standard_M...
| nineplay wrote:
| When I was a young lass I read "Holidays in Hell" over and over
| again. His complaint that Europe had no real ice cubes and if you
| asked for Scotch on the Rocks they gave you "the crumbling
| leftover from some Lilliputian puddle freeze"[1] still lives in
| my head. I didn't always agree with him politically, then and
| now, but his writing and his person transcend politics.
|
| [1] Fortunately I was able to find the exact quote on Google
| Angostura wrote:
| Loved that book. I remember him complaining that European
| countries were 'stoo small to swing a cat, without it passing
| through customs' and that Korean dog soup was remarkably
| palatable 'when you consider what a hot, wet dog smells like'.
| faster wrote:
| I remember reading "Modern Manners" and laughing so hard. The
| first edition was so extreme that the working was softened in
| later versions. "Dating is a social engagement with the threat
| of sex at its conclusion."
| deltarholamda wrote:
| >I didn't always agree with him politically, then and now, but
| his writing and his person transcend politics
|
| His intro to "Republican Party Reptile" more or less said (this
| is from memory) that his politics fit more into the Republican
| mold, but that he wasn't particularly happy about that, because
| he also liked having fun. It's hard to cubbyhole P.J., and he
| preferred it that way.
|
| He had a way of turning a phrase that made you go, "yeah, I
| wish I came up with that." I have to viciously edit anything I
| write because if I'm not paying attention I will blithely rip
| off something of his without thinking about it.
| tom-thistime wrote:
| I thought 'Parliament of Whores,' 'Give War a Chance,' and
| 'Holidays in Hell' were hilarious. EDIT: I read these books
| around 1990.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| The funniest things are often the most true things.
| barrkel wrote:
| I bought Holidays in Hell on the strength of mentions since his
| death, and it is tough going and dated to start with - it's
| just a series of national stereotypes played for cheap laughs
| that made me wince rather than smile.
|
| Hopefully it'll get better.
| buescher wrote:
| You probably wouldn't enjoy his "Foreigners Around The World"
| in National Lampoon from 1976 either.
| ghaff wrote:
| I haven't looked at a National Lampoon in many years. But
| I'm guessing that a lot of modern audiences would find a
| lot to object to during the magazine's heyday. Of course, a
| lot of its humor was always pretty sophomoric but in its
| heyday it was probably a lot more acceptable to say "I
| probably shouldn't be laughing at this but it's really
| funny anyway."
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > "I probably shouldn't be laughing at this but it's
| really funny anyway."
|
| Part of me feels fairly uncomfortable with this idea.
| Humor is such a complicated emotion, but lately we seem
| to try to distill it to a single interpretation, shallow,
| derisive, and then proclaim what it's okay to laugh about
| or not.
| ghaff wrote:
| There's also a strong component of enforcing the right
| not to be offended. That's always existed to some degree
| but lately there's a much stronger sense of it.
| nineplay wrote:
| I loved the book but the humor may have gotten stale in the
| last 30 years. I hope it picks up for you!
| tiahura wrote:
| Although it's from a different time, Parliament of Whores
| should be required reading in High School government class.
| Some of its lessons about sausage making and log rolling would
| greatly behoove developing minds of all political persuasions.
| kwertyoowiyop wrote:
| Very nicely written. Mr. O'Rourke's politics don't match mine but
| he was damn funny and kudos to him for taking a swing at all
| those who deserve it. Parliament of Whores should be required
| reading in high school.
| W-Stool wrote:
| Anyone who is interested in P.J.'s earlier work should look at
| his contributions to the late, great National Lampoon, where at
| one time he was editor. His piece "Foreigners Around the World"
| is completely outrageous and certainly NOT politically correct.
| Still to this day I consider it the funniest thing I have ever
| read.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| And in only 40 years, it became the GOP's foreign policy
| platform! Truly a man ahead of his time.
| pklausler wrote:
| I nearly agree, but have to give top honors to OC & Stiggs,
| also from the Nat'l Lampoon.
| maybelsyrup wrote:
| A good, alternative view on the guy:
|
| https://twitter.com/mgerber937/status/1494060745335660547
|
| I never found him that funny. And I don't say that just because
| he was un-PC, or racist, or sexist -- though he was those things
| -- but because he didn't have _good jokes_ , which is the only
| thing that matters in comedy:
|
| > The Chinese have decided to import money instead of things they
| can immediately enjoy -- my black Lab would make quite a stir
| fry.
|
| This is hack, open-mic-nite-at-the-Sheraton stuff. Yawn.
|
| I get that for people of a certain age (and sex and skin color)
| this was really cutting-edge, and part of the formative
| experiences of finding one's own sense of humor in the world, but
| its time was long past even when these jokes were best-sellers.
| It's me-me-me boomer stuff that doesn't work _as comedy_ , and I
| think that's what ultimately sinks the guy's legacy.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Yes. If you read carefully, nothing he says is even slightly
| funny. Some people like it because he would say petty things
| about people they didn't like. I don't like Hillary much more
| than he did, but what he would say was never anything
| substantial about what she said or did, just things he wanted
| to believe about her personally.
| lurquer wrote:
| > Yes. If you read carefully, nothing he says is even
| slightly funny.
|
| Let me fix it for you:
|
| > Yes. If you read carefully, nothing he says is even
| slightly funny ... to me.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Let me fix it for you:
|
| > Yes. If you _actually do_ read carefully, nothing he says
| is even slightly funny.
|
| It is easy to confuse snark with humor if you don't like
| who the snark is about. There were other people at the time
| who actually were consistently funny. Put them side by side
| and the difference gets stark.
| prepend wrote:
| > racist, or sexist --- though he was those things --
|
| Those are pretty serious accusations and seems odd of you to so
| cavalierly throw them out.
|
| I'm not super knowledgeable about O'Rourke, but I've seen him
| around on tv shows and opinion pieces for a few decades and
| don't think he's sexist or racist.
|
| If you're going to make such statements, back them up a big.
| [deleted]
| kbelder wrote:
| I would like to reach a point in our society where an
| unfounded accusation is viewed as reprehensible as the
| accusation itself.
|
| Calling somebody a racist, casually, without any proof or
| even evidence, is contemptable.
| enneff wrote:
| O'Rourke has written hundreds of thousands of words that
| promote racist ideas. Of course people will always debate
| whether making racist jokes make one a racist, but the
| sheer volume of his work is surely evidence of a kind.
| stickfigure wrote:
| Anyone can cherrypick one line, quote it out of context, and
| decide it's not funny. If you squint hard enough you might even
| find something to feel outraged about. Does that make you feel
| good?
|
| I've read a number of PJ's books and genuinely laughed out loud
| more times than I can count. Your comment, on the other hand,
| is exceptionally dull.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| Real classy of you. If you didn't enjoy his work, maybe don't
| comment on his death.
|
| The not so subtle racism / sexism accusation plug (I disagree),
| segued into slamming of his work during his death is
| despicable. The ageism was cherry on top.
|
| Opinions are fine, but it's my opinion that you should save the
| negativity at this time, unless it's a ruthless dictator.
|
| I flagged your post and hopefully this comment thread gets
| nuked. It's a time of mourning, not a time of slander.
| enneff wrote:
| If you're a prolific writer then the occasion of your death
| will inevitably be a time for the public to reflect on your
| life's work. He was intentionally antagonistic, so it's
| actually a sign of respect, not the opposite, that people
| continue to engage with his ideas after he is gone.
| rideontime wrote:
| You disagree? Is that not an accurate quote?
| hunterb123 wrote:
| I don't view the quote as racist.
|
| Nor is this the time or place for such accusations.
| enneff wrote:
| Lol how is "ha ha Chinese eat dogs" not racist. It's
| playing on the racist stereotype that asian people eat
| dogs. (It is true that in some parts of Asia they eat
| dogs but not in China.)
| hunterb123 wrote:
| Do you view Mike Judge as a racist as well? KOTH joked
| about Kahn eating dogs.
|
| I don't think joking about stereotypes is racist. It's
| poking fun at it.
|
| Just because you reference a stereotype doesn't mean you
| view your race as superior or another as inferior.
| [deleted]
| rideontime wrote:
| That's your opinion, and you're free to express it and
| vote accordingly. But flagging it for moderator
| intervention because you find it personally distasteful
| seems like going a bit too far. (In my opinion.)
| hunterb123 wrote:
| It's a slander and inappropriate at this time. But yes
| it's my opinion that it breaks the rules.
|
| It introduced needless toxicity.
| lazaruzLong wrote:
| This obituary/remembrance is an amazing piece of writing.
| jbellis wrote:
| I've seen a lot of authors I respect say how great PJ was, but
| satire tends to go stale. If I wanted to read him today for the
| first time without nostalgia-tinted glasses, what should I start
| with? I was not able to find such a list on Google.
| wyclif wrote:
| I'd start with _Parliament of Whores_ or _Holidays in Hell_. It
| 's not as well known, but _Modern Manners_ is a real howler
| with more laughs per page than just about any book I can think
| of, and is the perfect night table book because you can read
| short snippets of it right before bed.
| zeruch wrote:
| PJ was part of my holy trinity of American political satirists
| when I was in high school/college (PJ, Hunter S Thompson, Molly
| Ivins)* and to this day I have yet to encounter any current
| satirists who CONSISTENTLY come close. Part of it I suspect is
| that our political terrain is such a goat rodeo, and that the
| kind of caustic humor these folks espoused (often thumbing their
| noses at any number of conventions) that today would get them
| promptly dragged, but their insights into the zeitgeist was at
| the time, intensely engrossing.
|
| * I also revered Twain and Mencken, but PJ/HST/MI were
| contemporaries and in my time, which carried a more visceral
| stamp to them.
| B1FF_PSUVM wrote:
| Add a topping of Gore Vidal.
| twiddling wrote:
| I have been delving into Vidal recently. The documentary on
| Buckley and Vidal from the '68 conventions is also a great
| watch.
| nineplay wrote:
| > the kind of caustic humor these folks espoused (often
| thumbing their noses at any number of conventions) that today
| would get them promptly dragged
|
| I think it's the opposite actually. I think 'satirists' now are
| expected to be so extreme that the only think people think is
| funny is "the other side is composed of dribbling morons".
| Humor that suggests that the people with different political
| views may have feelings and brains is completely unacceptable.
| zeruch wrote:
| I mean their style of humor often touched on tropes and used
| verbage that would now be considered...problematic. Case in
| point, I once got into an argument with someone over Hunter S
| Thompsons use of the word "queer"...I couldn't get the person
| to understand that 1) HST wrote and came from a different
| era, and even for that era, that 2) his use of the word was
| itself peculiar and intentionally used towards the outsized
| persona he broadcast through "gonzo journalism" and you had
| to read it in context to remotely follow along.
|
| They simply wouldn't buy into the idea that people from "the
| past" would have different views and that you can't try to
| understand them absent that context. Otherwise everything
| since before 2005 is likely "wrong" somehow (I'm being
| horribly simplistic, but you get the idea).
|
| It's like when I hear a lot of views right now about the CIS
| region, from people who have no recollection of the Cold War,
| or think the Cold War "was stupid". As someone who lived
| through the Cold War, I might even agree it was stupid, but I
| also understand that when I was 10-15 I was living IN it
| realtime, not pondering it decades after the fact.
| patrec wrote:
| > I think it's the opposite actually.
|
| Do a web search for O'Rourke's "Foreigners around the world"
| and report back.
|
| > Humor that suggests that the people with different
| political views may have feelings and brains is completely
| unacceptable.
|
| I think this may be a case of politically polarization
| widening as the range of allowable humor narrows. What would
| be an example of a joke that would have been career ending
| for an edgy American comedian or satirist 40 years ago, but
| not now?
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| This is probably the most famous example:
|
| http://cbldf.org/about-us/case-files/obscenity-case-
| files/pe...
| tclancy wrote:
| _Parliament of Whores_ was assigned reading in my high school
| polisci class and I was a fan from then on though our politics
| diverged along the way. There's a terrific doc about Molly
| Ivins on HBOMax currently!
| dogman144 wrote:
| You might enjoy Joan Didion per this >but their insights into
| the zeitgeist was at the time, intensely engrossing
| timoth3y wrote:
| Stephen Colbert in his Colbert Report days was certainly in the
| same league.
|
| Enjoyed by both liberals and conservatives who managed to take
| away very different messages.
| specialist wrote:
| Somehow, satire has degenerated into snark. It's lazy. It's
| mean. It poisons the well (of public discourse).
|
| Two quick examples are thestranger.com (under the leadership of
| editor Dan Savage) and Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Whatever point,
| perhaps even meritorious, they're trying make, it's buried
| under sarcasm and insults.
|
| Absolutely exhausting.
|
| Maybe this cycle started with TV. All the slapfights. Gore
| Vidal v William F. Buckley Jr. Shows like Crossfire.
| ncmncm wrote:
| O'Rourke led the way into snark. Remember he was contemporary
| with George Carlin and Richard Pryor, both consistently,
| actually funny. He was just mean-spirited.
| pklausler wrote:
| Charlie Pierce (now writing for Esquire) may fit the bill for
| you.
| mabub24 wrote:
| Pierce can get some good ones off, but I find his writing
| often lacks the laconic elegance or sheer surrealism of some
| of PJ or Thompson's writing. Sometimes he veers into old-man-
| yells-at-cloud territory, and too be fair it feels like most
| political commentary from a certain generation has succumbed
| to that amidst and post Trump.
| rpmisms wrote:
| I spent my tween years reading an assortment of his work.
| Absolutely brilliant, and didn't think what he was told to. He
| was a formative influence on me, and I appreciate the impact he
| had on the world. Rest in peace, you glorious troll.
| major505 wrote:
| "Always read something that will make you look good if you die in
| the middle of it."
| lazyeye wrote:
| His politics dont match mine but....(thats all I want everybody
| to know).
| gojomo wrote:
| Can't be too careful!
| Arubis wrote:
| From TFA, an outstanding quote in its own right:
|
| > Good writers make you want to read, but great writers make you
| want to write.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-03-02 23:00 UTC)