The US is the strongest, freest, and bestest nation on God’s good green Earth. That mantra embedded itself in Hobbes mind during the first few minutes of US Freedom Forces Basic Training.

Of course, it wasn’t always like this. Back when things were worse and more complicated, and everything was controlled by those ugly elitists, the US was known by some long name like the “United States of America.” But after the Make Everything Simple Law of 2019 passed, everything became simpler— and much, much better. The great citizens of the US no longer had to use their brainpower pronouncing three long and complicated words to declare their nationality. No! That was an elitist thing to do, and the US had no room for dastardly elitists now.

Stroking his unkempt fire-red hair and flicking it out of his eyes, Hobbes stood sandwiched between his two squadmates, facing his squad leader. He was literally sandwiched— an erect, laterally undersized, under-ample human patty inserted in between two amply sized squadmate buns. That was unfortunate for him. His under-ample size meant that he wasn’t as US-ian as the others. Being ample was good. It meant that you were exercising your God-given liberty to eat like a patriotic US-ian.

“Attention!” Hobbes’ squad leader barked with the unrestrained poise of a Chihuahua with its vocal chords ripped out. His name was Tom. His padded green uniform said that. It was padded because after all, the good men of the US Freedom Forces needed nice and comfy uniforms to ensure that they wouldn’t get scrapes when they fell down defending US-ian God-given liberty.

Hobbes snapped his heels together and stood straight. His squadmates, Phil and Bill, attempted to follow. Physically, their barrel-like bodies looked almost identical, manufactured by the same freedom-loving factory. But Phil had short, blonde hair, whereas Bill had long, brown hair. That seemed to be the extent of their physical differences. Dragging their ample legs and firing action potentials through their nerves with all their might, they unfortunately failed to stand at attention. But they didn’t fail! Because in the God-blessed God-protected US, everyone succeeds, because everyone has their God-given liberty.

Tom wheeled around and looked at Phil and Bill, smiling. He noticed that they, as was appropriate to say in respect to US-ian God-given liberty, were “potentially succeeding” at standing at attention.

“Good job!” Tom congratulated the pair. “Good job! You’re potentially succeeding! You two deserve a big pat on the back, but that might hurt you. Here, you get a padded award!”

Tom applied padded golden stripes on Phil and Bill’s padded green uniforms. The stripe now stood alongside the bevy of other stripes that already resided on each of the two’s freedom-preserving garments. It was obvious that they, like any good freedom-loving US-ian, were experts at almost succeeding.

Spying Hobbes’ ramrod-stiff composure, Tom’s facial complexion changed. A frown replaced his half-watermelon smile, and he walked over to face Hobbes.

“Hobbes, are you trying to mock your fellow squadmates? You know that we’re all in this together, right? There is no ‘I’ in ‘squad,’ Hobbes.” Tom gently admonished. His tone suddenly assumed a slight seriousness. “You don’t want to be like one of those disgusting, freedom-hating, fun-hating, elitist Chinese that we’re fighting, do you? Do you?”

Quickly shaking his head, Hobbes assumed a more relaxed position.

“There we go! There we go!” Tom excitedly exclaimed. “Now with our freedom, we can surely defeat those Chinese! Think about the terrible lives they have! They have to ‘learn’ things like….like… ‘the quadratic equation’ or something, and they’re forced to ‘know’ where our great US-ian states are!” He shuddered for dramatic effect, and waved his hands in the air to emphasize the sheer terror of the two elitist anti-freedom factoids that were obviously forcibly rammed down Chinese throats.

“Aren’t you glad to be US-ian!” Tom asked, his eyes burning with a patriotic tingle, though obviously not too brightly or warmly as to cause his squadmates to unnecessarily cringe in discomfort. “Aren’t you glad that we have freedom of brain-using and don’t get elitist thingies rammed down our throats?”

“Yes, Tom!” Phil and Bill responded enthusiastically. Hobbes nodded. He assumed it was the most US-ian thing to do in this situation, for nodding meant that he didn’t have to unnecessarily perform cognition and construct two actual words. Besides, assuming was a great, freedom-loving, God-given liberty-like ideal that all patriotic US-ians held dear and utilized frequently.

“Good, good!” Tom said exuberantly, his arms flapping up and down. “Now let’s go try out some freedom-defending tools so we can protect our God-given liberty!” He led Hobbes’ squad down a paved rubber road to a small clearing with a small rack with several yet-to-be-described implements.

“These,” Tom proudly introduced, “are freedom sticks! They help defend freedom by liberating the un-free Chinese’s brains from their skulls! But be careful! They are dangerous, and we know not to play badly with dangerous things, don’t we?” He wagged his finger in gentle anticipatory admonishment.

“Excuse me, but how do they work? Is there any mechanical—” Hobbes immediately stopped and realized what a stupid, elitist question that he had just started to ask.

Tom shuddered.

“Ugh! Simple words, please! Simple words! Calm down! You are using your brain too much!” Tom said with a slightly stern tone. He turned and picked up one of the freedom sticks. “Here is how you use it.”

He picked the stick up gently, and tapped it on a nearby tree. Then he handed it to Bill.

“Here, you try! I’m not going to force it upon you and make you do rote learning with it like those elitist Chinese do! Be creative! Be US-ian! Let’s see how you use it! I just know you have so much good potential to be a good freedom sticker!” Tom complemented.

Bill took the stick, held it in his two hands, raised it up, and brought it down upon the tree with the overwhelming force of a goose feather impacting a pillow made of soft silk extracted from the metamorphic structures of elitist Chinese silkworms.

“Good! Good! Good!” Tom exclaimed with childlike delight, his arms again flapping. “You are an expert freedom sticker! In fact, you’re the bestest, bestest freedom sticker in our squad! You get to carry the freedom stick into battle!”

Tom smiled at Bill and motioned for him to keep the freedom stick.

“But wait!” Tom said. “You’re all expert freedom stickers too! I just know it! Here! Everyone gets a freedom stick! That way we’ll all feel warm and fuzzy inside like good freedom-loving US-ians should!”

Tom conferred freedom sticks upon both Hobbes and Phil.

And they all proceeded to retreat to their padded, temperature-conditioned beds to get 8 solid hours of sleep. Because US-ians needed to be US-ians sometimes. And Hobbes, Bill, Phil, and Tom were all US-ians. And sleeping 8 solid hours was the US-ian, freedom-loving thing to do. After all, they didn’t want to spend some of those 8 hours “working” like those freedom-hating, liberty-trashing Chinese. That simply wasn’t US-ian.