I feel like I woke up in some second-rate “Twilight Zone” episode. I’m still the same but everything around me seems to be completely freaking ridiculous! Is there some kind of moratorium on punishing murderous, baby-killing teenagers just because they are English? Has this country gone completely mental?

While we are rightly outraged by the current trend in outrageous high school shootings, we just let Mary Poppins’ evil twin, Louise Woodward, prance on out of prison and into the loving arms of her freakshow supporters and demented countrymen who believe with absolute conviction that it was okay for her to kill this kid because she didn’t like her job.

That entire country was just so shocked and outraged that our backwards American justice system could find their precious English Rose guilty of snapping a baby’s neck. It wasn’t because killing babies is okay in England, it is because they honestly don’t believe it is a crime to kill the chronically non-English. Look at their record for atrocities in Argentina sometime if you don’t believe me.

She wasn’t even charged with 1st degree murder, and THAT was all the mercy she deserved! The English wouldn’t have been shocked and outraged if she had eaten that kid like a starving coyote. Unless of course she had failed to wipe her mouth and clear away the tea service when she was done.

Her blighted little town didn’t love her enough to bring her home because she was so miserable — but let her kill a kid and she turns into the greatest English hero since The Scarlet Pimpernell. That sounds about par for the course when you consider the history of the British Empire; in their eyes it was probably just bad form that she didn’t stick the Union Jack in the Eappen’s front yard first.

I suppose she could have just given the kid a blanket infected with smallpox or taken the kid as a prisoner of war and then shot him. So we should probably support her for being a hands-on kind-of-girl. She probably represents a variety of “can do” spirit the older generation likes to see in English youth. You too can travel around the world and do some ultra-violence and come home famous! The history of the British Empire in a nutshell.

Let’s face it, the only real differences between the Third Reich and the British Empire is that Britannia just gets better PR. There are all sorts of countries that the English have just popped into for a spot of tea and couple hundred years of fascist dictatorship and genocide.

But who knows. Maybe they are right. Maybe Wacky Woody isn’t guilty. I mean, with a steady diet of English food all of her life, she probably went nuts when she came here and had something that wasn’t boiled silly. Maybe she had a piece of barbecue that wasn’t gray, and her mind just snapped. Not guilty by reason of an unbelievable taste sensation, your honor. It was like a party in her mouth, and someone had to die.

And what exactly IS the deal with that judge? What is he, some kind of pathetic anglophile who thinks that the British are so sophisticated and civilized that it is okay for them to murder our children? So what, the posh ones talk like pretty little girls, so it’s okay for them to hire on as professional childcare givers and then go on a rampage?

I guess it is, if your judge is fan of Masterpiece Theater. I bet that guy never misses and episode of Are You Being Served? Probably thinks it’s funny and erudite, too.

The problem with most American anglophiles is that they have never actually met an Englishman. They base all of their opinions on reruns of Monty Python and Dr. Who.

I think anglophilia should be deemed an illness. It is undoubtedly a mental condition akin to lycanthropy or necrophilia. The only possible cure would have to involve long sessions of psychotherapy combined with intensive electro-shock therapy, preferably with a car battery, to those faulty areas of the brain. Either that or to the nipples. We need a cure … NOW!

But I kid the English; they’re great. Honestly. I really admire them deeply for all they have done to the world. They have done more for population control worldwide than any other five countries. If it weren’t for them, there would be millions and millions more people living on this planet who aren’t now.

And if it weren’t for English contributions to the arts, we wouldn’t be able to see these movies over and over again about how hard it is to express your emotions to other people when you are British.

I also appreciate their engineering feats and their contributions to space travel. (I think we bought some monkeys from them once, right?)

And forget French cuisine. Give me boiled cabbage any day — bon appetit!

And without their football hooligans, the world would not have a constant reminder of the depths to which people can sink over the most trivial matters.

So in honor of Screwy Louise and her funky compatriots, I think this year’s Independence Day celebrations should be all about getting back to the basics. I think it is high time we opened up a whole new can of whoop-ass on these people.

The last time, we were totally outnumbered and we STILL beat them mercilessly with nothing more than some squirrel guns, fierce determination and the French! We took their little redcoat, tea-taxing, sailor-conscripting, wig-wearing, stick-in-the-butt hides and sent them back to Blighty to face the ultimate humiliation for an Englishman: having your ass kicked by someone who ISN’T English. We could really hand it to them this time!

Let’s send a message they didn’t seem to get the first couple of times we rolled over them.

The benefits would far outweigh the negative. We would improve relations with most of the planet. Plus, think of the one-liners we could come up with THIS time: Yankee doodle kay ay, m*therf*cker! Tread on this! Give me liberty or give me death? I don’t think so!

When did the celebration of our hard-earned freedom get reduced to the conspicuous consumption of beer, barbecue, potato salad and pop-bottle rockets anyway?

I think that for a long time now we have gotten as far away from the true meaning of the Fourth of July as we have from the true meaning of Christmas.

We lost our way with regard to this most important American landmark, but it isn’t too late.

And I think that now is as good a time as any to rekindle the Spirit of ’76 inside each and every one of us by unleashing some good, old-fashioned American carnage, hot and spicy Texas-style! YEEEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAA!!!!

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Greg Jerrett is a graduate student in English from Council Bluffs.