Quotes of the Day

From Matt Taibbi, (via Carpetbagger)
And so this is how we got where we are. You get a whole nation full of people who spend 99 percent of their free time worrying about their lawns or their short iron game, you convince them that they know something about something they actually know nothing about, and next thing you know, they're blundering into a 1,000-year blood feud between rival Islamic groups, shooting things left and right in a panic, and thinking that they can make it all right and correct each successive fuckup by "keeping our noses to the grindstone" and "making lemons out of lemonade."

Wow. That’s a far better version of what I wish I had tried to say.

And shit, I liked his ending too, so I’ll quote that:
This isn't a pile of lemons we're dealing with, and there's no way to make it into lemonade. This is the Middle East, a place populated with Muslim people, and we know absolutely nothing about them and have no business being there. There's no horse to get off and no one there is looking for a handout or a hand up. They just want us to get the fuck out of there. How long is it going to take for people to figure this out?

And that’s just too true. Some things can be broken down to catchy phrases and analogies, and some things can’t be. And too often, people forget that the catchy phrases are merely symbols and aren’t the actual problem you’re dealing with. But people don’t really like dealing with problems and learning stuff is hard, so we get bromides and bumperstickers instead. Freedom’s not free. Don’t cut-and-run. Quitters never win. Etc.

So if that’s what they like, I’ve got a new one: Either know what the fuck you’re talking about, or shut the fuck up. Not so catchy, but it’s got the dirty word thing going for it, and everyone loves dirty words.