Did We Quit When the Tea-Baggers Bombed Pearl Harbor?

Posted by D. Aristophanes, Sadly, No! at 9:10 AM on August 14, 2009.

Logan Murphy is right that Lawrence O’Donnell was pretty perfect in his interview of cobweb-brained townhall goofball Katy Abram.

Good stuff and of course we need more of it. But it strikes me that all the patient hand-holding of wingnuts through to logical conclusions isn’t gonna cut it if we want to see health care reform actually pass … there just isn’t enough time.

We need a home run message. It needs to turn the tables on these assholes and put them on the defensive for once. And it can’t be wonkish — it’s got to be simple and inspiring, a way to capsulize what the fuck this whole thing is about in a way that can win over the fence-sitters and shut up the obstructionists.

And that message is right there in the numbers, right in front of our faces:

Life expectancy at birth (years)

1. Japan — 82.6
38. USA — 78.2

World Health Organization’s ranking of the world’s health systems (2000)

1. France
37. USA

Then all we need to do is put those numbers into perspective, e.g.:

Now I don’t know why quitters like Sarah Palin and second-raters like Newt Gingrich don’t think Americans are smart enough and tough enough to beat the goddamn French and Japanese on living the longest. But I for one say that we can do it. And if those asswipes don’t fuck it up with their whining and their second-guessing, we’re sure as hell GOING to do it.

Goddammit, this is the country that marched into France and took care of their Nazi problem for ‘em! And now Sarah Palin is telling us that those Frogs are better than us at kicking the shit out of germs and cancer and friggin’ heart disease? The fuck they are! That goddamn Wasilla quitter may be scared of a challenge, but I’ll put my money on real Americans having the stones to square off against a bunch of existential philosophers.

Who’s with me?

This is the country whose president challenged us to play golf on the goddamn moon. And we did it! Did the Japanese play golf on the moon? Don’t make me fucking laugh. And now snivelling pussies like Sean Hannity are just ready to roll over and concede that those same Japanese have almost FIVE FUCKING YEARS more piss-and-vinegar in them than Americans? Alan Shepard would beat Sean Hannity down with a fucking 7-iron if he were alive today. In a full spacesuit. Audie Murphy would take one look at that quivering little sissy and Hannity would be shitting himself out of Rush Limbaugh’s asshole. Fucking Liberace got more legitimate pussy than Hannity, Limbaugh, O’Reilly and Beck combined.

But I digress.

Right now, there’s 37 countries ahead of us on the life expectancy list. And every goddamn one is full of people who are happy to watch a sport that always ends in a tie. I don’t know what major malfunction makes Republicans such crybabies that they’re afraid to man up against FUCKING SOCCER but real Americans like games where SOMEBODY ALWAYS WINS AND SOMEBODY ELSE ALWAYS LOSES. Sports that involve broken necks and bitten-off ears and concussions and knees that bend backwards at sickening angles. Real Americans are in it to win it and they know that being No. 38 in the biggest game of them all IS NOT FUCKING CUTTING IT.

So you can listen to Sarah Palin and Chuck Grassley and James Inhofe and Michelle Malkin and all the rest of the hapless assholes who are apparently content to be second-rate schmucks, just pleased as all hell to be the Washington fucking Generals of the world stage.

Or you can get on board with what America used to be about, what America still ought to be about and goddamit, what America’s gonna be about again pretty goddamn soon. They say we can’t. I say we can. They say we’re doomed to be frail little timid things that cave into death before a bunch of Europeans and Asians and even the fucking Canadians. I say that if we put our minds and our hearts into it, we can have it all and still come out the winner in this contest. I say we’re Americans, goddamit, and we can figure out how to drink and smoke whatever the hell we want and eat all the crappy food we want, and fuck and gamble and party and do tons of blow, and STILL look the Grim Reaper in the eye and tell that morbid douchebag to go fuck himself.

And if you’re a real American, I bet you think that too.

So anyway, that’s the kind of message we need, only a lot shorter and with less ‘fucks’ and probably not the part about doing ‘tons of blow’.

Tagged as: france, life expectancy, health reform, tea-baggers