P.J. O’Rourke, irreverent author and commentator, dies at 74

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Pinkerton: RIP P.J. O’Rourke, Warrior Against the Woke

So long as people value freedom—including the freedom to be funny and to laugh—P.J. O’Rourke will have a place in the pantheon.

www.breitbart.com

excerpts:

“Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.” So wrote P.J. O’Rourke in his 1991 bestseller, Parliament of Whores. That was the essential O’Rourke: funny, irreverent, libertarian

Three decades ago, Parliament of Whores was about more than just the U.S. Congress; it was a takedown of the whole federal apparatus. As O’Rourke wrote, “The three branches of government number considerably more than three and are not, in any sense, ‘branches’ since that would imply that there is something they are all attached to besides self-aggrandizement and our pocketbooks.” And he added of the two political parties, “The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then they get elected and prove it.”

Yet O’Rourke was much more than just a skewerer of Big Government. He also emerged as a sharp critic of liberalism as a whole, fearful at the thought that it was reshaping our culture, even our civilization.

In O’Rourke’s lifetime, it was liberalism, not conservatism, that was winning the Gramscian battle for hegemony in our institutions. And so O’Rourke went on the attack, oftentimes dropping the guise of sly humor and instead picking up an un-velveted hammer. As he wrote in another of his books, Give War a Chance (1992): “At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child—miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats.”

 

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PJ's grandmother: are you a Democrat?

PJ: no, i'm a communist!

PJ's grandmother: well, as long as you're not a Democrat, it's ok



PJ on the Tea Party: anything that angers (NYT writer) Frank Rich, i'm in favor of!

 

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PJ: i hate the internet, I used to be an author, now I'm a content provider and the content is free... the internet was invented by academics and the military: communists and fascists!

 

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"if you're gonna be a smartass, you have to be smart, otherwise you're just an ass" - PJ O'Rourke

 

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Lol Myriad joys of cocaine. Summoning the ghost of PJ O’Rourke.

 

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"Obama brought out my libertarian streak"

"i'm scared of the damn size of the thing", PJ on the rise of big government

PJ sounds off on the baby boom generation vs Gen X in this extended interview and later takes questions from the audience

 

[Mac1958]

Here are more of his quotes that rubbed your asses raw:

"The principal feature of American liberalism is sanctimoniousness. By loudly denouncing all bad things — war and hunger and date rape — liberals testify to their own terrific goodness. More important, they promote themselves to membership in a self-selecting elite of those who care deeply about such things.... It's a kind of natural aristocracy, and the wonderful thing about this aristocracy is that you don't have to be brave, smart, strong or even lucky to join it, you just have to be liberal."

"If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free."

What in the world does this have to do with my post?

 

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He still had so much pomposity left to deflate, idiocy to mock, and humbuggery to lampoon. Just look at the material he had to work with

 

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How P.J. O’Rourke Became Republican

Over the years, I watched a fast-driving Maoist turn into his own kind of conservative icon.

www.politico.com

excerpts:

any sign of authority made P.J. O’Rourke grit his teeth — or, if one were in reach of his foot, stomp on a gas pedal. I learned this the hard way when we were driving around Panama City in 1987, as demonstrations against Manuel Noriega — the military dictator Panamanians referred to unaffectionately as Pineapple Face — were growing in size and intensity. We were, as the journalistic lingo of Central America at the time had it, looking for some bang-bang, and P.J., who was at the wheel of the car, was getting impatient at our lack of success.

So when a uniformed Panamanian cop standing at an intersection raised a hand-held stop sign, P.J. snorted in gringo contempt. “What’s he gonna do, chase me on foot?” he hooted as we blew by the angry policeman. My reply — “Ummm, P.J….”, which would be repeated many times over the next 20 minutes or so — was interrupted by the blare of a siren from a motorcycle-mounted cop, who was radioing for reinforcements. We were soon followed by three of them as P.J., channeling his not-so-inner Bullitt, went careening around city streets at 60 mph.

O’Rourke offered his observations about everything from 18th-century mercantilism to the etiquette of food fights, but the foundation of all his work was: Mind your own business and leave me alone. “There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please,” P.J. wrote. “And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.”

P.J., in a published “letter from the editor,” ridiculed “a certain fancy-pants educational institution” as a place where students “spent four years clasping their books to their chests with both hands, drinking Pink Ladies and learning how to ride sidesaddle.” The staff retaliated with humiliating pranks like maintaining a stony and total silence when a PBS camera crew came to film an editorial meeting. P.J.’s favorite editorial instruction became, “Go eat a bowl of suck.”

 

[tahuyaman]

The man was brilliant.

P.J. O’Rourke, RIP - The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator | USA News and Politics

P.J. O’Rourke's full name was Patrick Jake O’Rourke. It was so like P.J. to obscure the coolest middle name out there.

spectator.org

 

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more from politico:

He was, I think, the first member of the Baby Boomer chattering class to turn on his own generation, for its vacuity (“The 1960s was an era of big thoughts. And yet, amazingly, each of these thoughts could fit on a T-shirt.”) and its preening self-regard (“We are the generation that changed everything. Of all the eras and epochs of Americans, ours is the one that made the biggest impression — on ourselves.”).

it’s also possible that he influenced the Republicans more than we think. In his book Holidays in Hell, a collection of his Rolling Stone foreign coverage, P.J. thanked a long list of reporters who helped him out in his slogs through the developing world. He lovingly referred to them as “shithole specialists.” Remind you of anybody?