PJ O'Rourke's Parliament of Whores

[swamp]

Is anyone familiar with the book?

The basic premise is that "Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy, the whores are us."

Everyone wants, wants, wants from the government, but nobody wants to pay for it, but somehow the wants win out, and the cost is not sustainable and will eventually kill the society.

Thoughts?

[thyme4change]

I'm not familiar with the book, but I do have some thoughts.

1) PJ O'Rourke is hilarious.

2) A whore is a decent business model - service for money. What he describes is more of a leech.

[swamp]

Jun 30, 2011 10:46:17 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

PJ O'Rourke is hilarious.

[pepper112765]

Prostitutes have sex for money. Fair exchange, no robbery. The difference between whore and prositute from a poster on answerbags.com

Prostitute is the one who does it for money.

Whore is the one who does it for personal gain etc. and is usually already committed.

I think he is spot-on.

[floridayankee]

Jun 30, 2011 10:40:10 GMT -5 swamp said:

Everyone wants, wants, wants from the government, but nobody wants to pay for it, but somehow the wants win out, and the cost is not sustainable and will eventually kill the society.

Thoughts?

Don't know about you, but I thought of Greece.....and the short time span before we become them.

[bubblyandblue]

Sort of ties in with first post

"Getting something for nothing

The great sore spot in our modern commercial life is found on the speculative side. Under present laws, which foster and encourage speculation, business life is largely a gamble, and to “get something for nothing” is too often considered the keynote to “success”. The great fortunes of today are nearly all speculative fortunes; and the ambitious young man just starting out in life thinks far less of producing or rendering service than he does of “putting it over” on the other fellow. This may seem a broad statement to some: but thirty years of business life in the heart of American commercial activity convinces me that it is absolutely true.
If, however, the speculative incentive in modern commercial life were eliminated, and no man could become rich or successful unless he gave “value received” and rendered service for service, then indeed a profound change would have been brought in our whole commercial system, and it would be a change which no honest man would regret.- John Moody, Wall Street Publisher, and President of Moody’s Investors’ Service. Dated 1924"

[thyme4change]

Whore is the one who does it for personal gain etc.

Yes, but usually the whore gives something up. I mean - you don't think Hef got a little action from all those blondes living there? That wasn't charity, that was give and take.

People want something from the government, but they don't want to give anything back.

[jkapp]

Jun 30, 2011 10:46:17 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

I'm not familiar with the book, but I do have some thoughts.

1) PJ O'Rourke is hilarious.

2) A whore is a decent business model - service for money. What he describes is more of a leech.

Or an example of an extortion racket...pay us this money and nothing bad will happen

[safeharbor37]

Anyone interested in P. J. O;Rourke should read: "Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut".

I was shown into a seminar room and placed on a hard chair facing a conference table behind which sat five or six middle-aged worthies with notepads. I remember only one of the questions.
Worthy: Which literary critic has had the most profound influence on your thinking?
Me: ...
I could not think of the name of a single literary critic. Not Roland Barthes, not James Crowe Ransom, not even R. P. Blackmur, from whom I cribbed my entire junior thesis on Henry James.
Me: Henry David Thoreau.
Worthies:(more or less in unison): Henry David Thoreau wasn't a literary critic.
Me: His whole life was an act of literary criticism.
Well, it was 1969. Bullshit was an intellectual mainstay of the era. And I became a Woodrow Wilson fellow.