This is an absolute classic. For years I had no idea what this lad was singing and just assumed it was a standard "Nanny State" TV-ad about personal hygiene.
It turns out he's actually singing about taking regular showers because there's a boy he's sweet on and he fancies his chances.
Quite cute, really!
UPDATE: In reply to Uncle Sidney, I actually predict that those hot showers won't be running for much longer. Obama got elected because the Republican Party went bananas. America has of course had Nanny State welfarism just as bad as the rest of the West since the 1930s. In fact if it hadn't been for Uncle Sam paying the lion's share of our defence bills since the War, not to mention bankrolling our welfare project after the War with Marshall Aid, then we wouldn't have been able to afford it anyway. Now of course welfarism has bankrupted even America, so whether America (and Obama) likes it or not the money-tap is going to have to turn off pretty soon.
UPDATE II:Actually America is rotting away because after eight years of President Bush spending like there was no tomorrow the country is now bankrupt.
No one in Britain would seriously contend that we have a higher standard of living here than Americans do. America remains our largest export market (with Germany being our largest import market) and immigration is mostly the same way - despite the fact that it's much more difficult to become an American citizen than it is to become "British".
Babies? Well, if you're talking about Britain then I grant you that infant mortality is slightly lower here than it is in the US. But there are a good dozen or so European countries where it is higher. In Britain, more to the point, the abortion rate per capita is higher than it is in America, despite the fact that Britain's abortion laws are much more stringent. More importantly, the birthrate in America is much higher.
Poverty? America's GDP per capita is higher than anywhere else in the world.
Ignorance? Well, I might grant you that one. But Britain for some reason fell in love with the American educational system (just as we've fallen in love with all of America's horrible culture) and has determinedly tried to make our schools every bit as bad as America's.
There's already been a violent revolution in America. (Google "American Revolutionary War" if you're not sure.) It then spread to Europe in 1789, and thence throughout most of the world. Why do you think the world's so screwed up right now? Answer: Because everyone wants to be like the bloody Yanks.
At the moment America looks as if she's heading into a post-imperial malaise. The problem for rest of the World is that she may very well pull the rest of us down with her.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
How'bout that.
ReplyDeleteBtw, I wouldn't mind having a "Nanny State". We've had official Social Darwinism for over 40 years.
That is to say you're on your own, and if you can't make,...die.
This gave us generations of poverty, and rotted infrastruction, and waves of social chaos. How do you think Obama got elected?
Everybody is desperate here.
Sorry to get political. I'm sure living in a welfare state can be a drag in some ways, but the alternative is worse.
...much worse.
Well you're right up to a point. The problem as always is bad, short sighted management.
ReplyDeleteThe dough is still there at least in the States,...for now. It all depends on how Obama, and the new guys manage this nightmare.
Our infrastucture has to be rebuilt.
The country is rotting away thanks to the republican contempt for public works.
Anyway the real Welfare State never took hold here as it has in northern europe. You guys actually now have a higher standard of living that us.
Your babies don't die like our do. You also have nowhere near our level of poverty, and ignorance.
Anywhere else there'd have been a violent revolution by now.
However we have this thing about Hope, Law, and that Constitution thing. so here we are.
Anyway time will tell.
Do we all devolve into a Brazil-like state with a tiny wealthy class, and a vast hopeless urban peasantry.
Or do we get our country back from the social darwinists.