Liberty is an inherently offensive lifestyle. Living in a free society guarantees that each one of us will see our most cherished principles and beliefs questioned and in some cases mocked. That psychic discomfort is the price we pay for basic civic peace. It's worth it. It's a pragmatic principle. Defend everyone else's rights, because if you don't there is no one to defend yours. -- MaxedOutMama

I don't just want gun rights... I want individual liberty, a culture of self-reliance....I want the whole bloody thing. -- Kim du Toit

The most glaring example of the cognitive dissonance on the left is the concept that human beings are inherently good, yet at the same time cannot be trusted with any kind of weapon, unless the magic fairy dust of government authority gets sprinkled upon them.-- Moshe Ben-David

The cult of the left believes that it is engaged in a great apocalyptic battle with corporations and industrialists for the ownership of the unthinking masses. Its acolytes see themselves as the individuals who have been "liberated" to think for themselves. They make choices. You however are just a member of the unthinking masses. You are not really a person, but only respond to the agendas of your corporate overlords. If you eat too much, it's because corporations make you eat. If you kill, it's because corporations encourage you to buy guns. You are not an individual. You are a social problem. -- Sultan Knish

All politics in this country now is just dress rehearsal for civil war. -- Billy Beck

Monday, January 04, 2010

Quote of the Day - Working Edition

Quote of the Day - Working Edition
We've declared war on work. As a society - all of us. It's a civil war, it's a cold war, really. We didn't set out to do it, and we didn't twist our mustache in some Machiavellian way, but we've done it. And we've waged this war on at least four fronts. Certainly in Hollywood. The way we portray working people on TV? It's laughable. If there's a plumber, he's 300 pounds and he has a giant butt-crack, admit it. You've seen it all the time, that's what plumbers look like, right? We turn 'em into heroes or we turn 'em into punchlines. That's what TV does. We try hard on Dirty Jobs not to do that, which is why I do the work and I don't cheat.

We've waged this war on Madison Avenue. So many of the commercials that come out there in the way of a message, what's really being said? Life would be better if you could work a little less. If you didn't have to work so hard. If you could get home a little earlier, if you could retire a little faster, if you could punch out a little sooner. It's all in there, over and over, again and again.

Washington? I can't even begin to talk about the deals and policies in place that affect the bottom-line reality of the available jobs 'cause I don't really know. I just know that that's a front in this war.

And right here, guys; Silicon Valley. How many people have an iPhone on 'em right now? How many people have their Blackberries? We're plugged in, we're connected. I would never suggest for a second that something bad has come out of the tech revolution. Good grief, not to this crowd. But I would suggest that innovation without imitation is a complete waste of time. And nobody celebrates imitation the way Dirty Jobs guys know it has to be done. Your iPhone without those people making the same interface, the same circuitry, the same board over and over - all that, that's what makes it equally as possible as the genius that goes inside of it.

And so we've got this new tool box. Our tools today don't look like shovels and picks, they look like the stuff we walk around with. And so the collective effect of all of that has been this marginalization of lots and lots of jobs.

Mike Rowe from his speech at TED.
And I'm reminded of this old, old joke:
5,000 years ago, Moses said:
"Load up your camels, pick up your shovels, mount your asses,
and I will lead you to the promised land."

5,000 years later, Franklin D. Roosevelt said:
"Lay down your shovels, sit on your asses, light up a Camel,
this IS the promised land."

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