16 And from the moment of your birth, you have always had your own way,
17 And everything else you wanted,
18 Because your parents were born into a time of afamine,
19 And they wanted you to have more than they did,
20 And so they gave it to you,
21 Just like bmy parents gave me everything I ever wanted.
22 And you grew up watching TV,
23 cWhere you learned that every problem anyone ever had could be figured out in just twenty-two minutes,
24 And there was no such thing as a problem that could not be solved,
25 Because this is America,
26 And you were born Americans,
27 And Americans always get their own way,
28 dAnd always win.
29 But then you got to be eighteen years old,
30 And suddenly America asked you to do something it wanted,
31 But you didn't want to,
32 Because who wants to die for a bunch of creepy little egooks in some faraway jungle,
33 When you could be at home having fun,
34 And getting flaid,
35 And having geverything you ever wanted?
CHAPTER 141 Notice that none of this has anything to do with genocide or evil,
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2 Except that one of the greatest things about life,
3 As you will learn, provided you can pay attention for a little while longer,
4 hWhich I have doubts about,
5 Is that there is always a good and virtuous reason for being opposed to doing what you don't want to do.
6 In this case, you did not want to die in some faraway land,
7 And so you discovered iideals.
8 And where did these great ideals come from?
9 jDid they come from your encyclopedic knowledge of history, which you got from Clark Gable and John Wayne and Errol Flynn and Charlton Heston?
10 kDid they come from your vast knowledge of religion, which you got from John Huston and Jeffrey Hunter and Charlton Heston?
11 lDid they come from your deep knowledge of politics and government, which you got in twenty-two minutes a night from Walter Cronkite and Chet Huntley, unless you got it from the sports page?
12 Did they come from your rich experience of culture, which you got from the mThree Stooges and nLucille Ball and oSuperman and pThe Lone Ranger and qEd Sullivan?
13 rDid you get them from each other, through profound conversation that struck deep into the heart of things?
14 Did they come from your intellectual awakening in college, where you learned how to smoke dope and screw like rabbits and cut class and read sCliff Notes and grow beards and give up bathing?
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