Peej Blogging

An amusing characterization of libertarians and some thoughts on the nature of "rights" in this WSJ weekend piece about P.J. O'Rourke:

It's a bit odd to hear P.J. O'Rourke--who is always calling attention to the fraudulence of earnestness and its Siamese twin, sanctimony--talk about morality. But his is almost no morality at all, a non-morality, in that it demands nothing: The only basic human right, he says, is "the right to do as you damn well please" and take the consequences. He is not, however, a true libertarian. They're "too logical," he says. "It's a failed but admirable mission. They keep making these suicide attacks on principle, Kamikaze raids on the aircraft carrier of government. . . . Libertarians suffer the same problem that Smith runs into in the last book of 'Wealth of Nations,' which was a pretty considerable failure. He tries to make proscriptions for government that fit his rationalist philosophical and moral logic. Everything comes apart. He's self-evidently wrong, wrong by his own reasoning. The problem with politics is that philosophy and morality are never really options.

"The important thing," he continues, "is negative rights: freedom from. But politics is all about positive rights: What're you going to give me? In a democracy it's always vibrating back and forth. People want the government to do everything for them, then when they see that it sucks, they want the government to let them take charge, and when that doesn't work, they want the government to come back and fix all the problems that they themselves caused when they took charge." There's a kind of separation of church and state, Mr. O'Rourke contends: "You simply cannot put your ideas into action."

I'm about halfway through his latest book, On The Wealth of Nations (which might also be called Adam Smith for Dummies). As hard as it is to admit, I have to say that nothing here has shaken my opinion that Peej peaked as a writer in the mid 90's with All The Trouble In The World. The WSJ article talks about his transformation from young smartass to, er, middle-aged smartass and a recognition of the changing viewpoint and necessary stylistic shift is perfectly valid. However, I still don't think that Peej has found his Grumpy Old Man voice just yet. Something is still missing - perhaps by the end of the book I'll have figured out exactly what it is.