A tribute to P.J. O'Rourke

One of the all-time happy warriors of conservatives was P.J. O'Rourke who died today at age 74.  I've read a big chunk of his bibliography which were always insightful and funny.  A couple years ago, I remember seeing a question (maybe on Reddit) that asked "what 3 books would you recommend to bring somebody around to your way of thinking?"  The three I chose were:

1. The New Testament
2. "Heaven on Earth" by Joshua Muravchik
3. "Parliament of Whores" by P.J. O'Rourke

Here's John Podhoretz: "P.J. O’Rourke was America’s greatest satirist and coolest conservative."

P.J. had bigger game to hunt. In 1991, just a year after his gift to me, he would become the most successful political satirist in America upon the publication of his book “Parliament of Whores.”

The book was and remains an utterly devastating portrait of the US Congress’ mediocrity, mendacity, self-dealing and uselessness — and revealed uncomfortable truths about the way Washington worked that the DC press corps refused to acknowledge or portray. There have been hundreds, thousands of imitations in the decades since. None has come close.

"Parliament of Whores" included a favorite quote of mine:

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

He would later score a #1 bestseller again with "Give War a Chance" with my second-favorite quote:

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.

In case you didn't know, he was (likely) paraphrasing T.S. Eliot:

“Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm; but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.”

One of the best economic books I've ever read is P.J. O'Rourke's "Eat the Rich" where he reviewed economic systems that work versus those that don't.  I'll always remember in a chapter called "How to make everything out of nothing" about Hong Kong.  There's nothing there - no arable land, no resources - but it became one of the richest places on Earth.  How did this happen?  According to O'Rourke, it's because when the British were charge, they basically told the people there "just don't kill each other":

How a peaceful, uncrowded place with ample wherewithal stays poor is hard to explain. How a conflict-ridden, grossly over-populated place with no resources whatsoever gets rich is simple. The British colonial government turned Hong Kong into an economic miracle by doing nothing.

Farewell, P.J.  You'll be missed.

P.J. O'Rourke's Parliament of Whores should be required reading in courses in American government and civics.

— Ed Whelan (@EdWhelanEPPC) February 15, 2022