Our National Softness

Dear George,

America’s influence in the world is shrinking. By whatever metric you use, political or economic or military, we are not the nation we once were. Both the Beltway and our Punditocracy look for causes, and both miss the point entirely.

The problem is that America has gone soft, but. let us get this clear from the get-go: the softness of which I speak has nothing to do with character, morals or resolve. The problem, I fear, is gastrointestinal.

You see, a successful empire requires one important dynamic: constipation.

You hear me correctly, Big Guy. Show me a man whose gone two weeks without a movement, and I’ll show you a mean motherfucker who can oppress an indigenous people without breaking a sweat.

It’s all documented is Sir Arthur Sitsbalther’s seminal work, The Iron Colon: Colonialism and Constipation in Fifteenth Century Europe, published by Oxford University Press.

Here is the gist of his thesis: When Europe embarked upon its colonial expansion in the fifteenth century, its diet was grain-based. Meat was a rarity and fruits didn’t exist. These people were bound up and loaded for bear.

Unfortunately, there was a gastrointestinal dialectic at work. As Europeans expanded into the tropical climes, more fruit was introduced to their diet. More fruit means more regularity. And the more regular a man is, the softer he becomes, both figuratively and literally. This is what led to Europe’s decline in the twentieth century.

We get the same pattern with the Romans.

Now these guys were empire builders. Everywhere they went they took a stack of two-by-fours and a box of nails. Look at them wrong, and they hung you out to dry.

In the beginning, they travelled on bread and grain. It is an established historical fact that a single two-holer could service an entire legion. The world never stood a chance.

But, look at what happened. The empire spread into the Middle East; dates and figs entered the diet, and before you knew it, hordes of bound-up barbarians were pounding at the gates of Rome.

George, it’s time to bind up the country. That’s the only way we’ll get our mojo back. The nation that doesn’t grunt when it shits will never cut the cheese.

Fruits will be the ruination of America.

Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones