Profiles in Liberty
Left-Leaning Hippie to Libertarian-Luminary P.J. O’Rourke Trent Hill
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Photo courtesy of the Cato Institute
.J. O’Rourke is a satirist, comedic typewriter instead of a computer to comwriter, and author of ill-repute—he pose each and every article or book. He’s would grin at that last part. He delights not a Luddite, he swears; he claims that in the turn of phrase that turns simple working on a computer would simply be writing into caustic wit. It seems comtoo distracting for him to write on. mon for comedians or comedic writers Although O’Rourke in 1996 wrote to have libertarian leanings (something a book entitled Why I Am A Conservative, about the government just makes people there is really no doubting that he is, in laugh), but P.J. O’Rourke could probably fact, a libertarian. On two of the most be called the most obviously libertarian sacrosanct issues that separate conservaof them all. Perhaps it is the comedy of tives from libertarians, P.J. O’Rourke errors that government at all levels is strikes a decidedly libertarian tune. On constantly committing, perhaps it’s the the issue of foreign policy, O’Rourke anti-authoritarian strain that is so comdoes not mince words, “Wherever there’s mon to the Irish, but whatever it is—P.J. injustice, oppression, and suffering, O’Rourke’s writing is imbued with a libAmerica will show up six months late and ertarian strain of thought that is so antibomb the country next to where it’s hapauthoritarian that it makes one chuckle pening.” Without quite as much quipat the hilarious supposition that governping involved, he states it much more ment could possibly take care of us all. plainly when he said, “War is a great O’Rourke was, like many other libasshole magnet.” In one of his bestselling ertarian luminaries and writers, a leftbooks, Parliament of Whores, he claimed, leaning hippie during his student years. “Whatever it is that the government does, However, he soon found himself viewing sensible Americans would prefer that the life through a more libertarian lens in the government do it to somebody else. This P.J. O’Rourke was born in Toledo, Ohio. O’Rourke did his grand tradition of H.L. Mencken. In fact, is the idea behind foreign policy.” It’s funundergraduate work at Miami University, in Ohio, and he is (appropriately) the H.L. Mencken ny, but the old saying is that many a truth earned an M.A. in English at Johns Hopkins University while a Brother of the Alpha Delta Phi Literary Society. Research Fellow at the Cato Institute in was said in jest and in this case—that’s Washington D.C. His accomplishments spot on. O’Rourke criticizes America’s speak for themselves, his writings have been featured in American foreign policy in a way that is humorous, but also gives us some Spectator, Esquire, Vanity Fair, The New Republic, The New York unique insight into the ridiculousness of it. He strips it of the trapTimes Book Review, Parade, Harper’s, Rolling Stone, and the Atlanpings of democracy and liberty and shows it for what it really is. tic. He has brought a libertarian perspective, free from the preachy On the issue of the drug war, Mr. O’Rourke is similarly distone that so many libertarians are guilty of, to literally millions missive of government oversight. He points out how much more of previously unfamiliar readers just by being published in these dangerous government is than smoking marijuana: various publications. O’Rourke was also the managing editor of Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle National Lampoon and received a writing credit for National Lamof the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying poon’s Lemmings, the stage show that helped to launch the profespeople, does not suppress medical research, does not sional careers of John Belushi and Chevy Chase, amongst others. peek in bedroom windows. Even if one takes every reefer Indeed, O’Rourke is probably one of the most widely madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, read humorists working today. He has written sixteen books, with marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far three of those becoming New York Times bestsellers. This incredmore people than marijuana ever could. ible production rate is due to, rather than in spite of, his using a O’Rourke cuts right to the meat of the matter when he says,
34 May 2012