When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?

by George Carlin

You can’t shut me up; you can’t dumb me down.

I find it discouraging—and a bit depressing—when I notice the unequal treatment afforded by the media to UFO believers on the one hand, and on the other, to those who believe in an invisible supreme being who inhabits the sky.

About five thousand years ago, a bunch of religious and political hustlers got together to figure out how they could control people and keep them in line. They knew people were basically stupid and would believe anything they were told, so these guys announced that God—God personally—had given one of them a list of ten commandments that he wanted everyone to follow. They claimed the whole thing took place on a mountaintop, when no one else was around.

THOU SHALT NOT KILL. Murder. The Fifth Commandment. But, if you give it a little thought, you realize that religion has never really had a problem with murder. Not really. More people have been killed in the name of God than for any other reason.

A wedding is another one of those good deals women get: The man “takes a wife,” the woman is “given away,” her family pays for the whole thing, and everyone stands around hoping she gets pregnant immediately.

The new model is so much better: She “gets a fuckin’ job so she can be bringin’ somethin’ in.” But, somehow, she still winds up being an unpaid, in-family domestic servant—after she gets home from the job. You know, the job? Where she gets paid less than men for the same work, does not rise beyond a certain level in the company and gets harassed all day long by some oversexed moron with a lump in his pants.

Here’s another physical treat for females: periods! Cramping, bloating and bleeding five days a month. Fifteen percent of the time. And you can add the time spent with premenstrual syndrome. PMS. Men gave it that name. If women had named it, it would be called “My several days of shrieking and crying and depression, just before my several days of bleeding, cramping and bloating.” Men don’t quite see it from that angle. Men experience PMS as a problem for them.

And I’ve noticed Americans have a problem with reality; they prefer to avoid the truth and not look it in the eye. I think it’s one of the consequences of being fat and prosperous and too comfortable.

Excess children waste our natural resources. If this society wants me to conserve energy, it had better get some of these child-worshipping religious fanatics to stop having five, six or seven babies. When they do that, I’ll start turning off the lights.

Michael Jackson missed his calling. If he had become a Catholic priest, he could’ve spent thirty or forty years blowing all the little boys he wanted, and no one would have said a word.

I was reading a fitness magazine that had an article about cross-training, and I realized this would have been a good idea for Jesus.

You know what would have been a smart thing to do in these developing countries that need electricity? To have tried large-scale experiments with alternative energy sources: solar, wind, geothermal, etc. We could have tested and tried to perfect these technologies on a large scale in places that need it. That would have been smart. That’s why we didn’t do it.

Whores and drugs are available at all hours.”

And even though I’m willing to cut the wheelchair people some slack, I’m not so easy on the cane folks. I’m convinced most of these jokers with canes don’t really need them. And once again it’s the old people, tryin’ to gain sympathy and get to the front of the line. It’s

Systems, facilities, spaces, centers and venues: They’re all words to keep an eye on in today’s atmosphere of increasing self-importance.

Political correctness is America’s newest form of intolerance, and it is especially pernicious because it comes disguised as tolerance. It presents itself as fairness, yet attempts to restrict and control people’s language with strict codes and rigid rules. I’m not sure that’s the way to fight discrimination. I’m not sure silencing people or forcing them to alter their speech is the best method for solving problems that go much deeper than speech.

“As long as we can’t cure these people, let’s give their condition a more positive name, and maybe it will distract everyone.”

These allegedly well-intentioned people have strayed so far from reality that it will not be a surprise for me to someday hear a rape victim referred to as an unwilling sperm recipient.

So, stupid. It’s important to face one thing about stupidity: We can’t get away from it. It’s all around us. It doesn’t take a team of professional investigators to discover that there are stupid people in the world. Their presence (and its effects) speaks for itself. But where do these stupid people come from? Well, they come from American schools.

Your comfort zone is not the same as your zone of privacy.

“I’m taking responsibility for my actions.” How novel! Imagine; taking responsibility. He says it as though it were a recently developed technique.

So, citizens; a question. Do you think it’s at all possible that these politicians whose judgment is so faulty that they actually believe they’re serving the nation might be expected to indulge occasionally in some, oh, I don’t know, exaggerated patriotism? Hah? Whaddya think? Maybe? Hah?

And don’t forget all those freedom-loving people around the world who look to us as a beacon of hope. Those, I assume, would be the ones we haven’t bombed lately. And you’d also better be ready to be reminded, over and over, that you live in a country that somehow fancies itself leader of the free world. Got that? Leader of the free world. I don’t know when we’re going to retire that stupid shit, but personally, I’ve heard it quite long enough.

Here are some more jingoistic variations you need to be on the lookout for: The greatest nation on Earth; the greatest nation in the history of the world; and the most powerful nation on the face of the Earth. That last one is usually thrown in just before we bomb a bunch of brown people. Which is every couple of years.

Regarding public Christmas displays: At some point, someone who worked at Rockefeller Center must have said, “Boys, I have a great idea for Christmas. Let’s kill a beautiful tree that’s been alive for seventy-five years and bring it to New York City. We’ll stand it up in Rockefeller Plaza and conceal its natural beauty by hanging shiny, repulsive, man-made objects on it, and let it stand there slowly dying for several weeks while simpleminded children stare at it

“Is Bruno a sadist?” “Beats me.”

All patriarchal societies are either preparing for war, at war, or recovering from war.

I’d like to point out that during the twentieth century, white, God-fearing, predominately Christian Europe produced Lenin, Stalin, Franco, Hitler and Mussolini.

If you vote once, you’re considered a good citizen. If you vote twice, you face four years in jail.

Also, I never say, “A merry Christmas to you and yours.” I don’t like the possibilities suggested by that use of the possessive pronoun yours. One never knows when the other person may be a slave owner. I certainly wouldn’t want to encourage that sort of behavior.

“How may I direct your call?” Jesus, everyone wants to direct; it’s not just actors anymore.

Pardon me for pointing this out, folks, but stock traders, clerks, receptionists, cooks, waiters and building maintenance people in the World Trade Center didn’t die for their country. They died because they went to work. Not one of them would have shown up for work that day if you had told them they would die as a result. Try to get your heroes straight.

These anti-war demonstrators are really unimpressive people. They’re against war? How groundbreaking; what a courageous stand. Listen, angry asshole, pick something difficult. Like religion.

power outage. We used to say power failure, but I guess Americans don’t like to admit failure—even when it’s manifest.

A lot of gay men stay in the closet because they’re interested in fashion.

no one listens, standards have fallen, everyone’s fatter, lines are longer, traffic’s worse, kids are dumber and the air is dirty.

Do you know why it is that when a rancher fucks a sheep he does it at the edge of a cliff? It’s so the sheep will push back.

Whenever I hear about someone who “died for the flag,” I always wonder about his real motives. And then I remember, Oh yeah, they shoot deserters.

I don’t like ass kissers, flag wavers