peebee's review
2.0
Kind of weird to read a (what is admittedly a well written, for the form) right wing screed from the mid 90's today. LOTS of stuff that would go over like a fart in church, i.e. constantly tying abortion to black people (Fun fact, actually worked at an abortion clinic, VERY high percentage of white people there. Solid majority.) throwing the homeless under the bus as a bunch of crack addicts, and a wierd, overwhelming obsession with Gore and Hillary. I guess it's nice to be reassured that the inability of a Republican to discuss anything without tying it into either how free market principles have made it good, or the boogeyman dujour has made it bad/wants to take it away isn't new, i.e Soros and Obama, but it is funny how we seem not to talk about Gore's omnipotent liberal meddling anymore (which as far as I can tell from this book, anyway, seems to have been writing a book, and passing laws that most Americans were in favor of at the time. Free speech and representative democracy you don't agree with: the cause of all the right's troubles.
Lots of bad analogies and false equivalencies, for instance, you don't want the GOVERNMENT cleaning up toxic waste, since THEY were the ones DUMPING in the 50's. You know, along with all the rest of society because we had our heads up our asses. And I'm sure the PJ O Rourkes of the time, who are now so outraged at the government's poor stewardship or the earth, were sniping at Rachel Carson and the rest as a bunch of loonies blowing things out of proportion (oh that's right, they still are). Also something about how an EPA regulation on chemicals in pressure treated wood was going to cost something like 5 trillion dollars, or the entire US debt at the time, except it was amortized over like a million years, so I don't actually know what the fuck he's even talking about. Makes me glad to live in the days of Wikipedia, where no one gets to say shit like that with out sources or immediately being fact-checked into the cheapseats.
Anyway, when he blunders into a topic determined to show how our stupid government is at fault, and actually FINDS something? His bit on the US Forest Service is dead on, although the real problem is Congress fucking with its funding, and I'm not sure how eliminating the department is easier than earmarking them guaranteed funds. Anyway, I'm sure if reforming it became a political issue the Republicans, himself included, would find some reason why thats a horrible idea, and it's just a stalking horse for taking away your freedoms, and putting us all in Agenda 21 concentration camps.
Also he uses "Dachsund" as a comedic image 3 times in 3 different essays in the same book. I shit you not. They were all written to be part of a book, this isn't like he has some favorite word that crops up once a year that's just concentrated in this sample of his writing. I'll overlook the shoddy politics and math and science and logic, this is a book about how everyone would be better off without any kind of society, but you're a damn humorist. The word "Dachsund" is like the word "cheese" or "monkey", not really all that funny, though I guess he can claim that the internet hadn't flogged to death any of comedy's low hanging fruit yet.
Anyway, I actually got all the way through it, which is I guess a testament to the fact that it's better written than that Ann Coulter one I tried to read, and threw down in disgust before I got through the introduction. That woman, man. Mean as a snake and twice as thin. Or is it the other way around?
And one more goddamn thing. Just having been a hippie doesn't make the principles you now hold more valid. You, like most boomers, were then and are now and will die a self centered little shit. Young self centered little shits would rather smoke fuck and listen to music than die in a rice paddy (although you are pretty upfront about that being your motivation, and rats off to ya, at least until I find a piece of yours in favor of Iraq. I know it's out there, I just have to work up the disgust to find it.), *edit - close enough, the WSJ article is behind a paywall.*and now that you're an old rich self centered shithead, it's only logical that you'd not want to share it with any of those crack heads and black ladies getting abortions. That whole "Young Republicans have no heart and Old Democrats have no brain" is bullshit. At least since Reagan, i.e. my entire life, the Republican party has been about mismanaging the public funds so their cronies, Contras, and The Ayatollah somehow (HOW THE FUCK DOES THE PARTY THAT GOT CAUGHT SELLING GUNS TO THE AYATOLLAH FUCKING KHOMEINI GET OFF HAVING THE "GIT TUFF ON TERRORISM" HIGH GROUND CEDED TO THEM BY DEFAULT)?, could get paid, and whipping up racehate sexism and homophobia as a smokescreen. Fuck you, PJ O'Rourke. Maybe I'll start bitching more about taxes when I have money to tax, but I probably won't have a problem with blacks - whoops, I meant poor, jeez it really is easy to say one when you mean the other, isn't it - getting welfare, or gays getting married, or women being able to abort rape pregnancies. Because I'm not a shithead, and I actually believe that America, while it *IS NOT* the greatest country in the world, (because that's a stupid thing to say and there's no way to measure that, except GDP, and if you think you can do it that way, you're a real asshole) it certainly is able to provide food, housing, shelter, and medical care for the indigent, and can create opportunity enough that we can allow as many Mexicans as want to, to come here. Didn't realize how much I hated you until that sentence or two I wanted to write about your crazy pressure treated wood numbers turned into 5000 words, but hey.
Lots of bad analogies and false equivalencies, for instance, you don't want the GOVERNMENT cleaning up toxic waste, since THEY were the ones DUMPING in the 50's. You know, along with all the rest of society because we had our heads up our asses. And I'm sure the PJ O Rourkes of the time, who are now so outraged at the government's poor stewardship or the earth, were sniping at Rachel Carson and the rest as a bunch of loonies blowing things out of proportion (oh that's right, they still are). Also something about how an EPA regulation on chemicals in pressure treated wood was going to cost something like 5 trillion dollars, or the entire US debt at the time, except it was amortized over like a million years, so I don't actually know what the fuck he's even talking about. Makes me glad to live in the days of Wikipedia, where no one gets to say shit like that with out sources or immediately being fact-checked into the cheapseats.
Anyway, when he blunders into a topic determined to show how our stupid government is at fault, and actually FINDS something? His bit on the US Forest Service is dead on, although the real problem is Congress fucking with its funding, and I'm not sure how eliminating the department is easier than earmarking them guaranteed funds. Anyway, I'm sure if reforming it became a political issue the Republicans, himself included, would find some reason why thats a horrible idea, and it's just a stalking horse for taking away your freedoms, and putting us all in Agenda 21 concentration camps.
Also he uses "Dachsund" as a comedic image 3 times in 3 different essays in the same book. I shit you not. They were all written to be part of a book, this isn't like he has some favorite word that crops up once a year that's just concentrated in this sample of his writing. I'll overlook the shoddy politics and math and science and logic, this is a book about how everyone would be better off without any kind of society, but you're a damn humorist. The word "Dachsund" is like the word "cheese" or "monkey", not really all that funny, though I guess he can claim that the internet hadn't flogged to death any of comedy's low hanging fruit yet.
Anyway, I actually got all the way through it, which is I guess a testament to the fact that it's better written than that Ann Coulter one I tried to read, and threw down in disgust before I got through the introduction. That woman, man. Mean as a snake and twice as thin. Or is it the other way around?
And one more goddamn thing. Just having been a hippie doesn't make the principles you now hold more valid. You, like most boomers, were then and are now and will die a self centered little shit. Young self centered little shits would rather smoke fuck and listen to music than die in a rice paddy (although you are pretty upfront about that being your motivation, and rats off to ya, at least until I find a piece of yours in favor of Iraq. I know it's out there, I just have to work up the disgust to find it.), *edit - close enough, the WSJ article is behind a paywall.*and now that you're an old rich self centered shithead, it's only logical that you'd not want to share it with any of those crack heads and black ladies getting abortions. That whole "Young Republicans have no heart and Old Democrats have no brain" is bullshit. At least since Reagan, i.e. my entire life, the Republican party has been about mismanaging the public funds so their cronies, Contras, and The Ayatollah somehow (HOW THE FUCK DOES THE PARTY THAT GOT CAUGHT SELLING GUNS TO THE AYATOLLAH FUCKING KHOMEINI GET OFF HAVING THE "GIT TUFF ON TERRORISM" HIGH GROUND CEDED TO THEM BY DEFAULT)?, could get paid, and whipping up racehate sexism and homophobia as a smokescreen. Fuck you, PJ O'Rourke. Maybe I'll start bitching more about taxes when I have money to tax, but I probably won't have a problem with blacks - whoops, I meant poor, jeez it really is easy to say one when you mean the other, isn't it - getting welfare, or gays getting married, or women being able to abort rape pregnancies. Because I'm not a shithead, and I actually believe that America, while it *IS NOT* the greatest country in the world, (because that's a stupid thing to say and there's no way to measure that, except GDP, and if you think you can do it that way, you're a real asshole) it certainly is able to provide food, housing, shelter, and medical care for the indigent, and can create opportunity enough that we can allow as many Mexicans as want to, to come here. Didn't realize how much I hated you until that sentence or two I wanted to write about your crazy pressure treated wood numbers turned into 5000 words, but hey.
megami's review
4.0
I am a vegetarian. I disapprove of the death penalty. I am a feminist . You could even say I am a liberal. Yet, I defy all stereotyping, because I love the writing of P J O'Rourke. Yes, his writing is biased (show me writing that isn't) Yes, he can be bombastic. But if you want an informed and entertaining read on the important issues facing the world today, you could not go past this man as a great starting point. Love or loathe the individual, you have to admire the writer. Well done again, Mr O'Rourke
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