I Blame England for Everything (A Defense of America)
Every Saturday we let some of our favorite writers fill in for us. Today, a man named John Devore offers a spirited defense of America. Mr. Devore has written and edited for Maxim and other magazines (which are like the internet, but on paper and with skinnier pornography). These day he is splitting the difference between magazine and online pornography with his weekly Right Wing Pinko column for Playboy.com.
The entire world blames everything on the United States of America, and frankly, I'm sick of it. To quote the great American poet Billy Joel, "We didn't start the fire." It's not like we invented the AK-47, or death squads, or the Vespa. All of you foreign people with your weird food, and ancient civilizations may be hundreds of years older than the United States of Awesome, but for the second half of the 20th Century none of that mattered because we were the ones keeping score.
4-0 USA: Washington's underground dick is bigger than your entire "masterpiece."
But lately our president can't seem to stop apologizing to the global community on our behalf. And why? Because we created some sweet, future real estate deals in the Middle East, or because we gave some terrorists "freedom tickles," or are y'all pissed off because we have an itty-bitty cash flow problem? We're good for it, bro. It might be fashionable to wantonly vilify America, especially in other countries like France, or Harvard. But I'm here to stand up for my country, and spread the blame a little. Specifically, I blame all the world's problems on England. Maybe spread isn't the right word here.
We're not sure how to feel about your so-called "muffins."
And not simply because you are pasty, crook-toothed island people with translucent hides and arched eyebrows. That's just one of the many reasons we cast you as Nazis in all our World War II movies.
For too long, we've been taking the blame for things that you either did worse than us, or are directly responsible for ...
Everything You Hate About America? Thank England
Yeah, I get that America screwed up a few continents across the last couple of centuries. I understand why today the entire Western world is pinching a rage loaf about our alleged, so-called "torturing" of evil people. But to quote a 1980s anti-drug PSA, the only moral compass that makes sense in these troubled times:
Back when America was a sparkle in millions of ethnically and geographically segregated eyes, England was trolling the oceans in rickety old boats lashing the bubble and squeak out of their own chinless deckhands. That cranky drunk Winston Churchill--you know, the dude who looked at the world like it was one huge game of RISK--once said "The only traditions of the Royal Navy are rum, sodomy and the lash."
"Seriously guys, quit it with the gay shit."
But you weren't satisfied with your happy little inbred circle jerk of weird sadism. You had to sew a super strand of that shit right into the fabric of our national identity. I'm talking of course about the Pilgrims: the only group of people in known history to ever be kicked out of a country for just generally creeping everyone out. Being too sexually repressed for England is like being too fatass for America--but the Pilgrims pulled it off. Thanks for sending your Scientologists over to our side of the Atlantic.
Working out great guys!
Just Because You Have Better Technology Doesn't Mean You Have To Be A Dick About It
Since Russia stepped to America's shit in the 50s, we've been sitting on enough nukes to turn the planet Earth into Nevada. But instead, we've focused our technological superiority on giving the world amazing innovations such as Atari, Steve Jobs and Twinkies.
Compare that to England. Bully for inventing the industrial revolution, Blokes. Who wouldn't want to be part of an army of disposable orphans, run by criminals in a city that was basically a giant meat grinder of humanity?
You used your technological superiority to go out exploring. But did you have to colonize, subjugate and molest every country you "discovered"? I personally haven't forgotten that time my forefathers, unwashed redneck malcontents that they were, had to kick your fancy-pants Empire off our shores. I'd probably be eating your crumpets today if y'all hadn't been such uppity swinging dicks about taxing us within an inch of our lives. And for what? So you could fight another war with France? Why don't you and France get it over with and just fuck?
The American Revolution looked kind of like this.
England Marked Its Territory By Pissing All Over the World
You weren't just fucking up the countries you "started" either. The popular perception of the Iraq War is that we somehow bullied you in. But you've been smacking down Arabs since pre-WWII. And you didn't stop there. Remember how you'd kick it pimpwise in the middle of Africa like you invented it? Think America's bad at winning hearts and minds? Imagine you're a sweating Zulu warrior cresting a dune, and in the distance you see a bunch of sickly honkies wearing poncey pith helmets and covered head to toe in baboons-ass-red wool jackets in 100 degree weather. Sipping piping hot tea! That must have been fucking terrifying.
"Can't wait to get some tea up in me."
Don't even get me started on the tea. You stole that from the Orient, then made it your staple beverage. By the way it's actually called China. Had been for a long time when you gave it your little nickname.
But it was never about the tea as much as it was continent-envy. There you were, the most powerful nation on the globe, stuck on a tiny island that gets pissed on 300 days of the year. India? Africa? If it was a giant landmass, you were going to park a small army of accountants in the middle of it, and politely inform all the bothersome brown inhabitants that you like two lumps, and to hurry it up, pip, pip!
Think American Culture's Dumb?
Maybe McDonald's isn't the height of culinary innovation (again, that would be the Twinkie). Maybe we did spend the last couple of decades flooding the globe with action movies starring steroid-fueled human cartoons.
But let's talk about England's version of culture. Huzzah to The Rolling Stones for having listened to American blues. Shakespeare is your one irrefutable claim to cultural legitimacy. At this point, I'd like to mention that nobody at the time knew what Shakespeare was talking about. He wrote his plays, whose plots he ripped off, using words that he was pretty much making up on the spot. Of course he looks like a genius now. You let him make up half of your damn language off the top of his head.
Just making shit up.
I could go on a tangent about how your national cuisine is boiled kidney and peas with a dash of self-loathing, but I'd like to strike a personal note. I've worked for the English before. I know for a fact that the only things the English respond to is beer, more beer and then either buggery or street brawling. And that's just during work hours. I worked for all sorts of Brits from all of the social stratum:
These are your options.
1. The rectally collapsed posh.
2. The insecure, backstabbing middle class whose only goal in life is to get invited anywhere leather covers chairs.
3. And of course, the psychotic hooligans, which bleed into the upper two tiers whenever there's a game on.
All they ever did was talk about soccer, fight about soccer and watch soccer drunk. They'd watch games at 10 in the morning, stumble into work drunk and proceed to insult everyone. You can take the lad out of England, but you can't take the haughty, imperialist alcoholic out of the lad.
The subtle differences between American and British children.
Wow. I feel better. Who's next? What are you looking at Guatemala? You think you're above it all?
Go read John Devore's weekly Right Wing Pinko column for Playboy.com.
