Incontrovertible Proof That Northamericans Are Stupid

Incontrovertible Proof That Citizens of the DisUnited States of Northamerica Are So Sorrowfully, So Sanctimoniously Stupid In 1994, when my DisUnited States of Northamerica’s passport expired, I prepared plans to renounce my citizenship. Months later, I traipsed into the DUS’s consulate in Firenze, Italia and signed three documents realizing my political preferences. I felt relieved and pleased. I had acted to be free. I believed that, as any exdrug addict might, a monkey had been taken off my back. My decision had been long thought out and logical. I had left the DUS on 31 December 1975; and, I have never returned to it since. My self-imposed exile has saddled me with numerous physical and emotional frustrations which I must admit have dowered me with neither crippling obsessions nor hopeless wretchedness. I am frequently asked if I possess any degree of nostalgia for “home,” and to such questioning I respond with an emphatic “no.” Curiosity does niggle me, but what I construe from news reports in the print and electronic media and others from

my satellite dish, I am persuaded to think that my decision to leave the DUS for good was a judicious one. In fact, I understand the DUS much better than I ever did when I lived in it. Glimpsing at the almost eight years I sojourned in Venezuela and the now more than twenty five that I have put away in Italy, I am wont to pat myself on the back for following that adage of David Hume (Knowledge is the assurance arising from the comparison of ideas) which has enthused me unremittingly in my search to find The Truth not only about the DUS, but other enigmas I hap to come across. I have had ups and downs similar to everyone else’s, but I am convinced that my highs and lows have been very much more exciting, and disheartening, than those of the majority of other individuals with whom I tarry and have tarried. More direct observations are to come. I am generally optimistic about myself and my future although less so about most others. I am happy I am not happy. Such is my Life. What qualifies me to label my ex-cohabitants with such crotchety wording? I want to help them! I want to provoke these imbeciles who call themselves “Americans.” I want to abet others to understand them the more. Of course, this hold out is compromised by many acrimonious sensations long ago sublimated into the lower pits of my psyche. The handling of these distant sentiments, luckily, have encouraged me to be steadfast yet not stone-like. I feel exceptionally self-assured about my assessments which have been calculated for many years, with many analyses and even more dissimilarities of ideas. I am grateful for the countless opportunities offered me to compare my own first impressions with those of other peoples and nations not my own but my own. It all has been my doing. What I will relate in this brief essay, sucked out of the accumulated cognitive contents of more than thirty years, must be short but not sweet. My thoughts will evolve from an enormous emotional need, some categorical imperative, that will suggest to me some relief and, hopefully, will spur others to be subjected to some of the same. I have collected oodles of thoughts and notes which could fill volumes. I have referred to the annals of philosophy, 2

economics, philology, psychology, psychoanalysis, poetry, history, sociology and, above all, politics—probably the least exact of all these “disciplines.” I am not an expert in any one of these fields. I simply always went to them to corroborate my own intuitions and, frequently, to find solace with characters with whom I could obtain sympathy. I belong to no school. My “philosophy” is a mosaic of the many viewpoints upon which I have contemplated. I am a writer, a poet. No one knows better than me that I may fail at this endeavour. Nevertheless, I must try. 1. Throughout the world, hundreds upon hundreds of millions of people—perhaps billions—think “Americans” are stupid. I could rest my case alone on this single philosophical tenet: the argument of common consent. But, I will not. 2. “Americans” behave stupidly because they are stupid. As a being is, so it acts. 3. “Americans” are stupid because they are exaggeratedly overconfident—especially so when they interrelate with others. The DUS is a hodgepodge of competing ethnicities that emigrated from horrible states of war, famine, economic tragedy, religious persecution and other sufferings too terrible to bear. For these downtrodden individuals, the DUS functioned as a panacea, a wonderful source of hope. While the émigrés assumed the mantle of “Americanism,” whatever that might mean, they also lugged with them the customs and thinking—even philosophical and religious—of their now very distant homelands. Whether they are German-“American,” Irish-“American,” English-“American,” African-“American,” or Italian-“American,” these racial groups, and the so many others like them, constitute a minestrone of mores that cannot be, any one of them, the dominant national faction in the DUS. There is not a German, Irish person, English subject, African or Italian who will dare deny that his line’s contribution to the development and even prosperity of the DUS was genuinely significant and 3

indispensable. But, none of these conglomerations of human beings, except in folkloric manifestations, would have the cheek to seize the helm which would steer their own nationality’s way on behalf of the DUS. These personalities, callow and irresolute, are “Americans,” and before others they must not only speculate about that indistinct reality which is themselves, they must authenticate their very beings in the guise of a quasination unfulfilled, pugnacious and “virginal” in order to affirm their substantiality and physical existence. Haughtiness, at the ready, is a handy expedient for them —just ask any Department of State foreign affairs’ officer! The ancestors of these individuals are in via d’estinzione in Europe, and in the DUS they, too, according to the United States’ Census Bureau, are losing the population domination they once maintained and enjoyed. 4. “Americans” are stupid because they are pretending, ever so tenaciously, to be that what they are not. All over the world there are representations of some economic, political and/or military sway corresponding to the DUS. For the most part, the properties of “American” holdings are closely guarded, bullet- and bomb-proofed, and “Americans” dwelling in them are often in fear for their lives. With the verve of missionaries, these overseas personnel grin and bear it with a stoicism that saps their vitality. They refuse to accept the fact that more and more recurrently they are thought of as unwanted guests if not intruders. Wherever they go, they strive to make squares out of circles— sometimes with success! But now the winds are blowing from another direction. Still, “Americans” just do not want to go away! They have unrelenting, often rabid, faith in the notion that theirs is the best of all possibilities. Ever so obstinate, they seek to attract, persuade and constrict others to abide by their imperatives. The criterion, the “bottom line,” almost without exception, the one alluded to to interpret the success or failure of the DUS’s policy to extend its rule over foreign nations, is a happily-adverted-to pecuniary achievement which time and again practically always neither considers the living standards and traditions of other peoples nor enquires about establishing binding relationships which might foster respect and admiration for the DisUnited States of Northamerica.

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It has been a veritable simple exercise to demonstrate the stupidity of the “Americans.” It would be unfeasible for anyone to contradict my premises. Yet, I must come clean that explaining “The Why” “Americans” are so stupid remains, at least for me, a greater quandary. I beg you, my dear reader, to relieve me of this encumbrance and put light on “The Why” “Americans” are preposterously stupid. Let us go back in History—to start. Who did the most to cultivate the contemptible trait of stupidity so prominent in the DUS’s DNA? Was it the Neanderthal Man? The Egyptians? The Hittites? Spartans? Babylonians? Romans? Alexander the Great? The Visigoths? Attila? Charlemagne? The Normans? The Mongols ? The Turks? Cromwell? Bonaparte? Bismarck? General Grant? General Lee? Who, may I ask? Or was it rich Chianti wine? German Rhine wine? Dark Irish beer? Pale Dutch beer? French champagne? Russian vodka? Portuguese port? English gin? Scotch whiskey? Canadian whisky? Marijuana? Heroin? Cocaine from Southamerica? Greasy fast food? Medicines from Swiss drug-pushing pharmaceutical companies? I implore you! I beseech you!! I plead with you!!! Please enlighten me. Make my day and tell me why “Americans” are so fabulously stupid. Thank you.

Anthony St. John

7 October 2008 5

Calenzano, Italia

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