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If ever there were a place where people not only tend not to face economic facts, but it's almost their purpose not to face economic facts, it's Washington.
P. J. O'Rourke
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote criticizes the tendency of people in Washington to ignore economic realities.

P. J. O'Rourke highlights a prevalent issue in Washington, where political pressure and personal agendas often lead to a neglect of economic facts and principles. This statement reflects a broader skepticism regarding the motives of politicians and their capacity to confront the truth about economic conditions, suggesting that avoidance of economic reality has become an ingrained practice in the political landscape.

Themes

PoliticsEconomicsTruthWashingtonReality

In practice

Example use cases

During a political debate, to emphasize the importance of facing economic realities.

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Government proposes, bureaucracy disposes. And the bureaucracy must dispose of government proposals by dumping them on us.
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Predicting innovation is something of a self-canceling exercise: the most probable innovations are probably the least innovative.
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I spend my days kneeling in the muck of language, feeling around for gooey verbs, nouns, and modifiers that I can squash together to make a blob of a sentence that bears some likeness to reason and sense.
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Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine.
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The idea of a news broadcast once was to find someone with information and broadcast it. The idea now is to find someone with ignorance and spread it around.
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