Children who want to read are going to read. Kids who want to learn to read are going to learn to read. Much more important to teach children to question what they read. Children should be taught to question everything. To question everything they read, everything they hear. Children should be taught to question authority. Parents never teach their children to question authority because parents are authority figures themselves, and they don’t want to undermine their own bullshit inside the household. So, they stroke the kid and the kid strokes them, and they all stroke each other, and they all grow up all fucked up, and they come to shows like this. Kids have to be warned that there’s bullshit coming down the road. That’s the biggest thing you can do for a kid. Tell them what life in this country is about. It’s about a whole lot of bullshit that needs to be detected and avoided. That’s the best thing you can do. No one told me. No one told me a thing like that. I was never warned about any of this. I had to find all of it out for myself. And there are still, as with you probably, a lot of things that you’re expected to believe and accept in America that I personally have a problem with, and I question a lot of these things. I’ll give you an example. I saw a slogan on a guy’s car that said “Proud to be an American.” And I thought, well, what the fuck does that mean? Proud to be an American. You see, I’ve never understood national pride. I’ve never understood ethnic pride. Because I’m Irish, and all four of my grandparents were born in Ireland, so I’m fully Irish. And when I was a kid, I would go to the St. Patrick’s Day parade, and I noticed that they sold a button that said “Proud to be Irish.” And I could never understand that because I knew that on Columbus Day, they sold a different button that said “Proud to be Italian.” Then came black pride and Puerto Rican pride. And I could never understand ethnic or national pride because, to me, pride should be reserved for something you achieve or attain on your own, not something that happens by accident of birth. Being Irish, being Irish isn’t a skill. It’s a fucking genetic accident. You wouldn’t say, “I’m proud to be 5’11”. I’m proud to have a predisposition for colon cancer. So, why the fuck would you be proud to be Irish or proud to be Italian or American or anything?
Hey, if you’re happy with it, that’s fine. Do that. Put that on your car. “Happy to be an American.” Be happy. Don’t be proud. Too much pride as it is. Pride goeth before a fall. Never forget Proverbs, OK? Now, here’s another slogan. Here’s another slogan you run into all the time. “God bless America.” Once again, respectfully, I say to myself, “What the fuck does that mean?” God bless America. Is that a request? Is that a demand? Is that a suggestion? Politicians say it at the end of every speech as if it were some sort of verbal tick that they can’t get rid of. “God bless you and God bless America. God bless you and God bless America.” I guess they figure if they leave it out, someone is going to think they’re bad Americans. Let me tell you a little secret about God, folks. God doesn’t give a flying fuck about America, OK. He doesn’t care. He never cared about this country. He never has. He never will. He doesn’t care about this country any more than he cares about Mongolia, Transylvania, Pittsburgh, the Suez Canal or the North Pole. He simply doesn’t care, OK. He doesn’t care. Listen, good. There are 200 countries in the world now. Do these people honestly think that God is sitting around picking out his favorites? Why would he do that? Why would God have a favorite country? And why would it be America out of all the countries? Because we have the most money? Because he likes our National Anthem? Maybe, it’s because he heard we have 18 delicious flavors of classic Rice-A-Roni. It’s delusional thinking. It’s delusional thinking, and Americans are not alone with this sort of delusions. Military cemeteries around the world are packed with brainwashed, dead soldiers who were convinced God was on their side. America prays for God to destroy our enemies. Our enemies pray for God to destroy us. Somebody is going to be disappointed. Somebody is wasting their fucking time. Could it be everyone? Now, now, if people want to say God bless America, that’s their business. I don’t care. But here’s what I don’t understand. If they say God bless America, presumably they believe in God, and if they do, they must have heard God loved everyone. That’s what he said. He loved everyone, and he loved them equally. So why would these people ask God to do something that went against his own teachings? You know what these God bless America people ought to do? They ought to check with that Jesus fellow they’re so crazy about. They’re always talking about what would Jesus do, what would Jesus do. They don’t want to know so they can do it. They just want to know so they could tell other people to do it. Well, I’ll tell you what Jesus would have done. I’ll tell you what Jesus would have done. He would have got up on the top of the Empire State Building and said, “God bless everyone around the world, forever and ever, until the end of time.” That’s what Jesus would have done, and that’s what these people should do, or else they should admit that God bless America is really just some sort of an empty slogan with no real meaning except for something vague like good luck. Good luck, America. You’re on your own. Which is a little bit closer to the truth.
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