It's about time someone did this (via Seditious Libel): When thinking about the recent turmoil, it's important to remember three things: One, people don't behave like [computer programs/billiard balls/migratory birds], so attempts to treat them as such inevitably look foolish. [Computer programs/Billiard balls/Migratory birds] never suddenly [blow themselves up/shift their course in order to fit with a predetermined set of beliefs/set up a black market for Western DVDs]. Two, [country in question] has spent decades [as a dictatorship closed to the world/being batted back and forth between colonial powers/torn by civil war and ethnic hatred], so a mindset of peace and stability will seem foreign and strange. And three, [hope/freedom/capitalism] is an extraordinarily powerful idea. There's really a tremendous convergence between what people significantly to the left and significantly to the right of Thomas Friedman seem, rightly, to think of him: He manages to write a lot and say relatively little. He reads too much into his own anecdotes and pithy platitudes. And he gives people an excuse to avoid taking sides on difficult issues by instead remarking, "I just find Thomas Friedman invaluable..."