America The Book

[cryowizard]

I'm probably the last person to have ordered this book by Jon Stewart et al, but I do believe it's better late than never.

When the book arrived at work, I have of course indulged in a few pages and started laughing my ass off, rattling my fragile coworkers.

You have got to love these guys. I mean, The Daily Show was always funny (despite them slummin' for Barack these days).

In the intro section on Democracy Before America,  there is a section on Timeline of Democracy with the

following pearls:

1775 BC: Code of Hammurabi radically redefines social contract from "I will kill you" to "I will kill you if you do one of the following 282 things"

1300 BC: God gives Ten Commandments to Israelites, making them His Chosen People and granting them eternal protection under Divine Law. Nothing bad ever happened to Jews again.

776 BC: Greek city-states hold first Olympic Games to show individual achievement can transcend petty nationalism.

772 BC: Second Olympic Games. Corinth boycotts to piss off Sparta.

30 AD: Death penalty debate heats up after controversial execution of alleged "Son of God".

1480 AD: Spanish Inquisition pioneers use of target demographics as focus groups.

Comments

[rkatsyv.livejournal.com]

redefines social contract from "I will kill you"
This is fucking brilliant!!

"776 BC" also made me laugh out loud, "772 BC" is completely superfluous