Doug: America!

Dear Reader,

So today, I'm going to toot my own horn here for a little bit. International readers are going to be pissed, I'm pretty sure our total readership right now consists of about eight people though, so latecomers get no consideration.

Michael Phelps won his eighth Olympic gold medal about an hour ago. I know I was down on medals on my last post, but basically what it boils down to is that Phelps is the best swimmer in the world, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't need all those shiny necklaces to tell him that. Not that he doesn't like them of course, I certainly would. That being said, Phelps is not what we are talking about tonight. Phelps is merely the opening evidence that I offer to back up my next statement.

America is the best.

I know, I know, even if it's true (which of course it is) it's still a pretty dick thing to say to all those other places that call themselves countries, but are really just places with borders that wish they were America. Guess what? I'm a dick.

Basically, America is responsible for the most awesome things in the past century. There is no significant human accomplishment in recent times that America has not been in on. I'll take us through a quick timeline.

Early 1900's. The First World War breaks out because Austria-Hungary has difficulty dealing with the fact that Serbian nationalists are really good at terrorism. Points to Austria for starting the very first War on Terror. How's that working out for you? Powers align, favors are called in, and in about half a year all of Europe is sitting in trenches wondering what the fuck happened. A British reporter asked Winston Churchill, (who was a minor political figure at the time) "How did WE get involved in this?" Churchill replies with: "I have no idea."

Meanwhile, the Allies (Brits) are getting their collective assholes reamed by the Central Powers (Germans). In desperation, the Brits fake a telegram by the Germans to the Mexicans saying that if the Mexicans attack America, the Germans will back their shit up. The Brits then arrange for us to intercept the telegram. We get our collective rage on towards the Hun, enter the war, and mess them up in a big way. We turn the war around, and put the Germans and the other Central Powers in the kind of position that African third world shit holes don't want to be in.

Yeah, we kick that much ass.

1930's. So, we have a bad first quarter in this game. To be fair, the world economy was failing as well, we just caught it the worst. Overall though, I think Europe fails us once again by letting a manic depressive former art student take over Austria, Czechoslovakia, and The Sudetenland. By the end of the decade, what was 20 years ago the most powerful united military force in the world is now shitting it's collective pants at the thought of said art student deciding he wants more territory.

1940's. At the beginning of this decade The Axis powers have the Allies (not the USA yet.) by the balls and are heating up the wires. France is overrun (no surprises there), Russia's in pretty bad shape, and the Brits are fighting a losing air war for the skies over THEIR OWN COUNTRY. I'd like to take this time to point out that the skies over America have never even been CONTESTED, much less fought over. In fact, we've never even lost territory, sometimes we get so tired of owning places that we just GIVE THEM BACK though. Like the Philippines.

Long story short, America finally enters the War, beats the Axis like a bad puppy. No real contest even.

I'm gonna shorten the history lessons to a few dates and facts, just so we can move this along.

1945-89 America and Russia get into a not quite shooting war over who has the biggest and baddest toys. We do of course, big boys like big toys, and we like ours radioactive.

1950's The French get tired of fighting for their territory, so we step in to stop those filthy commies. North Korea gets trashed. UN steps in and tells us to calm the Hell down sometime around 1951. First and LAST time we listen to THEM on a serious issue.

1960's Nobody does sex, drugs, and rock and roll quite as good as we do. While we can't take credit for the Beatles, Queen or the Stones, We can say that almost all of their surviving members live in the States.

1964 JFK says every one is equal, and when JFK speaks, we listen.

1968 An assassin shoots Rev. Martin Luther King, killing him. An attempt to divide us brings us together like never before.

1969 In the midst of all our partying and fighting we still manage to land a man on the moon. Yeah, that's how we roll.

1963-73 Once again, we are called in to clean up the French's mess. This is getting tiresome, next we'll be trying to take back Paris from the Germans again. Although the South Vietnamese eventually lost to the North commies, Russian documents revealed after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union reveal that trying to fund this colossal cluster fuck was the straw that broke the Soviet's financial back. In other words, South Vietnam fell, but it was losing one battle to win the war. Incidentally, the United States never lost a battle in the entire Vietnam war. VC and NVA were outclassed and outgunned, what was lacking was home support.

1989 Gorbie throws in the towel, the Soviet Union breaks up, and we win the Cold War by sheer production power. Outstanding, where do we go from here?

2001 After a decade of prosperity, peace in the United States is shattered by the first successful active attack on our home soil for more than a hundred years. A bunch of third world monkeys in caves have just declared war by killing a bunch of unarmed civilians in a surprise attack. Yep, they're making a statement all right. We make one right back and send them packing back to their holes.

2003 Good o'l W decides we need to take down a dictator his dad spanked a decade earlier, I can understand a grudge, but really, wouldn't an assassination team have done better? We go in and beat the living daylights out of the Iraqi army. No surprise. What no one wants to admit is the fact that we're running out of oil, and someone in power thinks this will get us more of it. The most important thing to take away from this is the fact that when we run out of resources, we don't negotiate for a thing, we just take. We have that kind of power. Now, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely too, but it also absolutely rocks as well.

We wrap up the century and begin a new one as the most prosperous country on the planet. We've also got the best military, and the highest standard of living. Our people are as safe as they're going to get without turning ourselves into a police state, and they're mostly happy too.

It's 2008 now and we're still going strong. Just look at the Olympics. This is a competition that puts all the world's athletes together and says "Who's the best?" Well, I gotta tell you, we're the best. At this precise moment we lead for the most medals, our closest rival being China, who's paltry 49 is nothing to our 57. They lead in gold medals, 27-17, but not for long. We got that handled.

That raises a good point about the United States though. I want you, Dear Reader, to describe an American, just in your head. Got it? Good.

For some of you this will be easy. Tall white guy, brown hair, blue eyes, skinny, and wealthy. To those of you that thought this I will say this, you aren't very imaginative, are you?

One of the things I really like about America is the fact that if you get fifty of us in a room and ask us all where our ancestors are from you'll get some pretty interesting answers. Some fairly obvious ones are places like Italy, England, Germany, Scotland, Ireland, Mexico, Africa via the South. Not obvious ones are places like Egypt, Japan, China, Vietnam, Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, even Iraq.

Then ask them what religion they are. Well let's see, we've got the big one, Christianity, but we've also got Judaism, Buddhism, Shintoism, Muslim, Hindu, Pagan, We'll even let you worship Satan if you feel like it.

They won't be the same color either.

If you ask their opinions on one issue, you will get 50 different answers.

Ask what their jobs are. This guy trades stocks. This guy builds fences, This lady's unemployed, this one's a single mom. This woman is the CEO of a company. This guy is a senator. This guy builds roads. This little girl wants to be president when she grows up.

And she will be.

A lot of what I said in here is sarcastic, a bitter response to a World that consistently calls for our blood. But I will say this, no other country is as diverse as we. And that is what makes us different.

WE. The word is so simple. Two letters. But ask an American to speak of his country, and they will start off with this word. WE. We are a unit, a family of faces that are different colors. A brotherhood of ideas so different and yet so similar.

It's not our military might, nor our penchant for winning medals, nor our technological superiority, nor our democratic process that makes us superior. It is our people, our melting pot, that makes us better. We are America, and our differences, and our acceptance of those differences in each other is what makes us great, and my opinion, the best.
-Doug

"I'm a lead farmer Motherfucker!"
-Robert Downey Jr.
Tropic Thunder