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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 Washin

by trts 5y ago

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/ https://jamesaltucher.com/podcast/pj-orourke/

zeruch 5y ago
"Not sure there is any comparable figure today that comes to mind." There isn't. Every single one of that breed is gone (from the conservative to the liberal, because there is no replacement for Molly Ivins either). The closest we have are a few UK public intellectuals/satirists (e.g. Stephen Fry, Ian Hislop) but even they aren't quite the same animal. There are writers of a certain quality that are massively entertaining and brilliant, like Cintra Wilson (Her book on the national Fame-virus epidemic, "A Massive Swelling" is essential), but her focus isn't just on political satire, so it's still not quite the same.
tzs 5y ago
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 5y ago
  From back then... the news article: https://www.npr.org/2016/05/09/477339063/conservative-author-pj-orourke-reluctantly-backs-clinton https://www.npr.org/2016/05/09/477339063/conservative-author... the episode: https://www.npr.org/2016/05/07/477085149/whos-bill-this-time https://www.npr.org/2016/05/07/477085149/whos-bill-this-time - its about 3 minutes in.
- Forgeties79 5y ago
  > 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 5y ago
    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 http://www.paulburns.com/Quotes/pj.shtml
- JasonFruit 5y ago
  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.
  - rootusrootus 5y ago
    > 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 5y ago
      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.
      - kbenson 5y ago
        I subscribe to the idea that people become more conservative as they get older because they've seen all the times change has resulted in worse outcomes, and have lost faith that change will result in something better, so would rather stick with what they know and have spent decades learning to work with than mix it up some more. Life beating pessimism into people until they are jaded. On the flip side, you have the young who are optimistic enough to think that things will only get better because so many people are hoping to make things better, and with that backing how could it get worse? This progression might be greater or lesser in some people, or even go in reverse. Regardless, I suspect somewhere in the middle of this is where we usually should be. Where people want change but are cautious because they've seen good intentions backfire and movements be subverted, but also when they haven't become so jaded as to not want change for the sake of not having to deal with it anymore, even when it's important issues that help a lot of people. That I view myself at where I describe as a good spot in this progression is probably informed by a non-negligible amount of subconscious bias on my part.
- mbg721 5y ago
  If your population is NPR listeners in 2016, that isn't exactly an unbiased sample of the US political spectrum.
- WaxedChewbacca 5y ago
klysm 5y ago
> iconoclast That’s a new word for me, does it carry any specific connotation?
- oliveshell 5y ago
  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 https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/iconoclast [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_the_Iconoclast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_the_Iconoclast
- hirundo 5y ago
  He was a butcher of sacred cows.
- rodgerd 5y ago
  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.
skeeter2020 5y ago
>> 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.
- wyclif 5y ago
  He was hard to classify because he was equal parts libertarian and libertine.
- Forgeties79 5y ago
  [flagged]
  - rpmisms 5y ago
    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.
    - Forgeties79 5y ago
      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 5y ago
        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.
stickfigure 5y ago
> 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.
zerocrates 5y ago
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.

by trts 5y ago

zeruch 5y ago

"Not sure there is any comparable figure today that comes to mind." There isn't. Every single one of that breed is gone (from the conservative to the liberal, because there is no replacement for Molly Ivins either). The closest we have are a few UK public intellectuals/satirists (e.g. Stephen Fry, Ian Hislop) but even they aren't quite the same animal. There are writers of a certain quality that are massively entertaining and brilliant, like Cintra Wilson (Her book on the national Fame-virus epidemic, "A Massive Swelling" is essential), but her focus isn't just on political satire, so it's still not quite the same.

tzs 5y ago

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 5y ago
From back then... the news article: https://www.npr.org/2016/05/09/477339063/conservative-author-pj-orourke-reluctantly-backs-clinton https://www.npr.org/2016/05/09/477339063/conservative-author... the episode: https://www.npr.org/2016/05/07/477085149/whos-bill-this-time https://www.npr.org/2016/05/07/477085149/whos-bill-this-time - its about 3 minutes in.
Forgeties79 5y ago
> 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 5y ago
  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 http://www.paulburns.com/Quotes/pj.shtml
JasonFruit 5y ago
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.
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  > 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 5y ago
    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.
    - kbenson 5y ago
      I subscribe to the idea that people become more conservative as they get older because they've seen all the times change has resulted in worse outcomes, and have lost faith that change will result in something better, so would rather stick with what they know and have spent decades learning to work with than mix it up some more. Life beating pessimism into people until they are jaded. On the flip side, you have the young who are optimistic enough to think that things will only get better because so many people are hoping to make things better, and with that backing how could it get worse? This progression might be greater or lesser in some people, or even go in reverse. Regardless, I suspect somewhere in the middle of this is where we usually should be. Where people want change but are cautious because they've seen good intentions backfire and movements be subverted, but also when they haven't become so jaded as to not want change for the sake of not having to deal with it anymore, even when it's important issues that help a lot of people. That I view myself at where I describe as a good spot in this progression is probably informed by a non-negligible amount of subconscious bias on my part.
mbg721 5y ago
If your population is NPR listeners in 2016, that isn't exactly an unbiased sample of the US political spectrum.
WaxedChewbacca 5y ago

klysm 5y ago

> iconoclast That’s a new word for me, does it carry any specific connotation?

oliveshell 5y ago
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 https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/iconoclast [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_the_Iconoclast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_the_Iconoclast
hirundo 5y ago
He was a butcher of sacred cows.
rodgerd 5y ago
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.

skeeter2020 5y ago

>> 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.

wyclif 5y ago
He was hard to classify because he was equal parts libertarian and libertine.
Forgeties79 5y ago
[flagged]
- rpmisms 5y ago
  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.
  - Forgeties79 5y ago
    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 5y ago
      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.

stickfigure 5y ago

> 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.

zerocrates 5y ago

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.