obama on egypt: "suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away." wait, really? there have been some pretty dramatic attempts that succeeded in repressing some ideas for a very long time. and it's kind of hard to enumerate those ideas that did go away. so if suppressing ideas made them go away, i suppose it might be a good strategy. or: maybe we haven't really really tried, or fully explored the possibilities of made in the usa teargas. this is just one man's opinion, but the ideas that have risen to the top in human history, the irrepressible best our species has to offer, look very very banal and also false. i don't know, reach for something other than the nearest cliche? one thing that will never go away no matter how many elephants you drop on it is 'mere rhetoric,' which i have to say obama habitually uses in place of ideas.