Fleming - Punch your inner hippie: cut your hair, get a job, and make America awesome again

To Buttercup and Frankie, two good reminders that I cant be
a whiny hippie.

First, Id like to thank my lovely and talented wife, who edited the first draft of the book and gave me great feedback and who is always supportive and puts up with my crazed mood swings when Im in Pretentious Writer Mode. Thanks to my mom and dad, who taught me good values and a strong work ethic, some of which stuck. Thanks to Adam Bellow and the entire HarperCollins team for giving me the opportunity to see what my writing is like when its longer than a blog post or a tweet. Thanks to my beta-readers Harvey, Basil, and Charlie. Thanks to Glenn Reynolds, Jonah Goldberg, Rick Moran, John Siniff, Mark Cunningham, Bill Whittle, John Hawkins, Rachel Lucas, and all the others who encouraged me along the way in my political humor career. And a special thanks to all the readers of my blog, IMAO, for all the support throughout the years. Though we havent yet nuked the moon, weve struck fear in its heart.

I also want to thank the Founding Fathers, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Ronald Reagan, and Mr. T, who made this great country and all the opportunity its provided me. And finally, thanks to God, without Whom the earth would be without form, and void, and there would be little to write about.

Its dangerous to go alone! Take this.

old man giving a small child a lethal weapon

In the long, long ago, the frontiersman pushed the boundaries of this country. He set off by himself into the unknown, heading west. No government was there to help him, and he had no guarantee of food or shelterand certainly not safety. He was truly on his own in the wilderness. Think of what went through his mind when, while exploring some woods, he heard a low growl and turned to see a mountain lion standing next to him, ready to pounce. He couldnt call the police or animal control for help, and there was no hospital to treat his wounds. What do you think the frontiersman did? Scream? Run? Fall down and cry?

Of course not. Instead, he simply punched that stupid mountain lion right in the face. Sure, he had a rifle, but ammo was scarce out there, and he needed to save it for real threats, like angry native people who had a more legitimate claim to the land. The frontiersman was an Americana real Americanand there was no way some putty-tat would be a threat to him. And after that mountain lion ran off crying with a broken nose, the frontiersman chopped down a bunch of trees, fastened them together to build a crude Walmart, and then sold goods to other frontiersmen and became rich.

The average American in days of yore.

Those were just things Americans did back then: punch wildlife and build businesses. These people were true innovatorsthe kind of people who saw a raccoon and thought hat. And they didnt have any of the advantages we have today, like computers or the Internet or cell phonesa text message back then had to be sent by horseyet nothing could stop them. And when they encountered a problem, they dealt with it in the most direct way possible: a punch to the face.

Now, let me ask you a question: Are you like the frontiersman?

No, youre not. Right now, youre just sitting there reading a book like some doof. But thats okay; you dont know how to be that type of American yet. Youre more like the mountain lion after its chance encounter with a frontiersman: confused. A little scared. Somewhat dizzy. But dont worry; this book will help you even better than a wake-up punch to the face.

Dont you want to meet your full potential as an American? Instead of being someone who cowers from adversity, do you want to be someone who will put a grizzly bear in a headlock and throw it through a plate glass window? Someone who could have a dollar one day and a multinational corporation the next? Someone who will see a rocket, see a car, and say, I should make a rocket car!?

Of course you do; thats the American everyone wants to be. And meeting your full potential as an American means youll easily be able to:

Create a business

Master your finances

Attract the opposite sex

Build the perfect plate of nachos

Get lots of Twitter followers

Strangle two communists at once

Collect all the Triforce pieces in Legend of Zelda

Make cool YouTube videos of explosions

Get other countries to fear you

It may sound too good to be true, but Americans like that used to be the norm, and you can be like that as well.

So why do some people succeed and meet their full potential as Americans, and others, given the same opportunities and advantages, just suck? Why do some Americans create corporations, invent advanced technologies, and have Internet memes written about how awesome they are while other people in the same country are just blobs sitting on couches, staring at screens, and munching prepackaged foodstuffs?

Theres a simple answer, but to understand it, we have to look at why great civilizations fall. Is the United States itself in decline now? Some would say so. Look at what America was in the past: We chased out the British, became the most powerful nation in the world, defeated the Nazis, invented nuclear weapons, and landed on the moon. And what have we done lately? Well, our phones get new features every year.

Look at what Americans were able to achieve in the past when they had relatively little, then think of what they could do with our technology and advantages. By the end of the year, there would be giant robots stomping through the cities of our enemies, even the poorest citizens would have jetpacks and laser guns, and wed have an ultralibertarian moon colony. So why arent we doing that? What happened to our country that the highest an American ever aims to achieve now is beating the next level in Candy Crush?

Ill tell you why: hippies.

Whiny, smelly hippies who do nothing but sit around and whine, expecting everyone else to do the work for them. They are the bane of civilization.

And what can you do with hippies? Can you reason with them? Of course not, because whining isnt real speech and cant be refuted with reason. So what can you do with them? Theres only one thing that can be done: Yell, Shut up, hippie! and punch them in the face like a common mountain lion. Now, have you ever heard about hippies living during the time of the frontiersman? Of course not; back then a hippie couldnt even fully open his mouth before getting punched. Thats because it was an innate value instilled in Americans that hippies must be punched. It started when we punched those hippie British, with their silly tie-dyed coats and love of higher taxes, and continued as we punched the Soviets because of all their collectivist ideals and the round fur hipster hats they wore. And its why America became the greatest country in the world.

But at some point we lost that inborn knowledge that hippies must be punched. Americans became lazier and started to feel more entitled. Morality declined. Childhood obesity skyrocketed. Vampires started sparkling. The very soul of our country started to weaken. And today, everywhere you look, hippies are walking around, whining and spouting nonsense, and no one has the decency to punch them in the face to help them end that behavior.

So what does that mean? We need to all run around punching every hippie we see? Maybe. But will that achieve anything? Probably... but not enough to get our country back to where it was. Just go ahead and try it. Go out and punch a bunch of hippies. Ill wait.