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If government were a product, selling it would be illegal.
P. J. O'Rourke
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote suggests that government services often fall short of quality and efficiency, implying that if these were products, they wouldn't be allowed in the marketplace.

P. J. O'Rourke's quote humorously critiques the inefficiency and lack of quality in government services, implying that if the government were a commercial product, its performance would be so poor that it would be illegal to sell. This statement reflects a common sentiment about the frustrations of dealing with bureaucratic systems that fail to deliver satisfactory results, inviting reflection on the role and effectiveness of government in society.

Themes

GovernmentBureaucracyInefficiencyPoliticsProduct

In practice

Example use cases

During a political debate about government funding, I quoted this to emphasize the need for better management.

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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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