THE GOOD WORD ACCORDING TO · THE ULTRA-HARRIER
IRA
Harry is challenged to a fightHarry does something really silly
Chapter 26
On another day, Harry was hanging out at a VFW hall in Port Richmond,
2When a young man came up to him and said, “I have heard you on the fradio,
3g“And I get the feeling that you don’t love our country,
4h“And wouldn’t serve it if they asked you to,
5“Which is why I think your head is made of excrement,
6“And why I would like to invite you out into the street to settle it like a man,
7“Instead of a dirty yellow coward.”
8Thereupon did iHarry make a sign to the cameraman to come back out of the cloakroom,
9And pick up his camera,
10So that Harry’s words could be properly recorded.
11When this had been done, Harry said to the young man, I cannot but admire the certainty with which you accost me in this manner,
12And I would indeed enjoy the experience of trading blows with you in a parking lot full of broken glass,
13Where one or the other of us would surely prevail,
14But I would not insult you by fighting with you on behalf of a view that I do not hold,
15Because I defer to no one in my love of the Most Chosen Nation on Earth,
16Which has achieved a pinnacle of freedom never offered to any people in history,
17Namely, the absolute right to be completely self-righteous about refusing to risk one’s life for anything ever,
18Because nowhere else on this globe is it possible to disguise jgarden-variety self-interest as the most exalted moral principle ever divined by mortal man,
19And get away with it completely,
20With the possible exception of Europe, of course, where undisguised cowardice has replaced all the official religions as a unanimous faith.
21But it is only here, in this Most Chosen Nation on Earth, that it is possible to tolerate kpetty tyrannies at a vast distance,
22And warmly congratulate ourselves for the loftiness of a morality which sneers at the primitive millions who seek to make war against mere adespots,
23Who rarely do anything worse than conquer and rape and torture and maim and mutilate and starve and rob and terrorize peoples so benighted that they have failed to learn the most fundamental precepts of bmodern civilization,
24Namely, that war is never an acceptable moral alternative,
25No matter what,
26And that cno principle can ever be worth the sacrifice of a single life,
27Especially if that single life got started in the Most Chosen Nation on Earth.
28And if you think that I am not grateful for this special dispensation from reality, which has so recently been granted me by my country,
29You are wrong,
30For this is the ultimate dvictory of my own generation, to which I belong without apology or excuse,
31And I shall prove that you are wrong by refusing,
32With the uttermost in self-righteous indignation,
33eTo fight you in the parking lot.
34But I would be happy to buy you a drink or three.
35At these words, the youth was entirely mollified,
36And drank with Harry into the wee hours of the morning.
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Chapter 26 / 46