The two things that people will always be able to do is get bored, and complain. (The nearly infinite abillity to blame others is just a special kind of complaining, I think.) And a special fact about complaining that has fascinated me recently is how it is always possible to complain, with all complaints at least sounding reasonable.
Consider, just for example, the ever-amusing world of the US federal government's foreign policy:
If the US government gives aid money to a government whose leaders are considered oppressive, then it's "aiding an oppressive régime."
If the US government instead gives aid money to non-governmental agencies in that country, then it's "subverting the government's authority".
If the US government gives aid money to the rebel de-facto government in some part of the country, it's "destabilizing the central national government" and otherwise interfering with sovereign affairs.
If the US government does nothing at all, it's "standing idly by".
All of the scare-quoted criticisms above sound quite valid, and that fact quite trickily obscures the important question: what is the best thing to do?
Possible correlate: if one's reaction is basically the same in all possible situations (e.g., complaining uninsightfully), then does this in some sense make the reaction vapid / vacuous / meaningless?
Does trying to heed the details of the complaints lead to wise fine-tuning of the approach? Or just muddling of it?
Complaining is easy since you don't have to either build the 'problem' or solve it you can just kick back with a beer and run the world from your couch with the TV remote. It's even easier to complain though these days with the war not war, daily shootings and an attorney general who spends $8k of our tax dollars to cover up a boobie on a art deco statue of justice. It's like an all you can eat food bar for the liberal curmudgeon.
