Dude, Where's My Country_ - Michael Moore [80]
• Drugs are bad. They fuck you up, slow you down, and ruin your daily existence. Even though Nancy Reagan can kiss my ass, you really should just say no.
• Men and women are different. We are not the same gender. Do I have to show you the drawings? We are conditioned, whether through nature or society, to have our own peculiar quirks and desires and habits. The trick is how to make sure that those quirks are not too annoying to the other gender. For instance, very few women pull out a gun and shoot someone on the street. The chance that a woman will mug you tonight on the way home from work is somewhere around nil. That is a quirk specific to my gender. Likewise, very few men could give a shit about making the bed. Why make the bed? Who is going to see it? What are we doing, protecting the sheets from something we don’t want them to see during the day while we’re at work?
• It’s really a bad idea to have sex before you’re eighteen. Okay, maybe I’m just jealous because I had to wait until I was thirty-two. Nonetheless, the price to pay for teenage sex is pretty high—unwanted pregnancy, disease, and ending up with one ear bigger than the other because it’s always cocked toward the front door in case the parents come home early. Who needs this? And, if possible, no one these days should have a baby until they are well into their twenties or thirties. There is practically no way, in our serf-based economy, for you to pull this off without a lot of pain and suffering.
• MTV sucks. Watching dumb-ass images of women, violence, and The Real World actors who have seen one too many episodes of The Real World themselves is the worst possible way to spend an afternoon. You’d be better off having teenage sex and then reading a book together.
• Granola is bad for you. It is filled with sugar and fat. One study found that many brands of breakfast granola are higher per serving in saturated fat and sugar than five chocolate chip cookies or one slice of orange-carrot cake. Vegetarianism is unhealthy. Humans need protein, and lots of it. Put down those sprouts and pick up a T-bone!
• The sun is good for you. Your skin needs at least ten minutes of direct sunlight a day for a much-needed shot of Vitamin D. Quit slapping all that sunblock over your kids. If you really are concerned about UV rays and skin cancer, then ask yourself, “When was the last time I attended a Greenpeace meeting in order to help make things better?”
• People who commit violent crimes should be locked up. Dangerous people should not be out on the street. Yes, they should get help. Yes, they should get rehabilitation. Yes, we should look for ways to reduce the root causes of crime. But no one has the right to assault you or rip you off and if you can’t bring yourself to show at least an ounce of outrage against those who would harm you, then you just look like a wimp or a nut to most normal people. In fact, I want to assault you right now.
• Your children do not have a right to privacy and you better pay attention to what they are up to. Right now, as you are reading this, they are doing something. What are they doing? See, you don’t even have a clue! Put down this book and head upstairs immediately!
• Not all unions are good, and, in fact, many of them are just plain lousy. They got their members to sign up for the company’s 401(k) plan, and then—poof!—the money vanished. They adopted right-wing nationalism and turned “Buy USA” into a racist movement. There are two good unions: SEIU (Service Employees International Union) and UE (United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America). Contact them if you want to organize your workplace, or for some general online guidance in how to unionize, check out www.aflcio.org/aboutunions/howto/. If you belong to one of the lazy, ineffective unions who are in bed with management or Bush, then you need to get your