“Presumably, had he known this was coming, he would have sat his ass back down and shut up.”

Megan McArdle, on Patrick Henry, on modern-day Americans:

One shudders to consider that when Patrick Henry stood up in St. John’s Church and declared “Give me Liberty, or give me Death!”, he was offering to exchange his life for a freedom that would then be passed down people like this . . . people who would gleefully toss that freedom away with both hands if, by so doing, they might protect themselves from the harrowing predations of . . . a cheap plastic toy.

Megan may not be as fabulously-named as Veronique de Rugy, but she does tend to be more quotable.

UPDATE - Paco names this his “Blog Post Title of the Week.” Please note that this blog post title is a Megan McArdle quote. Please also note, however, that I was clever enough to use that quote as a title.