Second World?...It could be worse.

If anyone understands how liberating it can be to work under lowered expectations, it's George W. Bush. As a lifelong C student, Bush has had a lot of time to kick back and snort coke, get wasted or whatever he wanted to do.

But what to do when one takes over the reins of the largest national economy in the world as well as the most powerful military? Simple.

I had some friends in college -- and I won't name any names -- who wanted an intramural sports championship t-shirt worse than just about anything. The problem was that they were average athletes at best and weren't willing to really bust their asses to earn their shirts. But they came up with an ingenious plan. Why not sandbag the first few games of the new intramural volleyball season so they would be placed in a lower skill level? Then they could turn it on and win the championship without a problem -- lowering the bar as it were.

That brings us back to our current situation. Who wants the tremendous burden of being a first-world country? Not Bush. Why not sandbag it a little and then, hey, no one will be disappointed in us when we are neck-deep in debt, have serious poverty and disease problems, can't stop attacking other countries, etc.

Rest assured, Bush and Co. are hard at work attaining this less taxing status.

When one first thinks of the second and third world, poverty and disease come to mind. Check and check! Everyone knows we've added millions of Americans to the ranks of the destitute, but we can't stop there! As long as stem-cell research and sex education continue to be an option in this country, we'll never be able to sell ourselves as second-world, or someday, God willing, third-world. Take heart though. Bush's buddies in Texas are working on getting any mention of contraception out of school textbooks, so pretty soon we'll have AIDS and VD rates as high as any African country!

What else is keeping us from attaining second-world status? State-run news network? Got that. Dubious electoral process? Check. Confusing of church and state? Check. Not doing too bad so far.

But look people. There's no safety net in the second and third world. So get used to the fact that Social Security, Medicare and health insurance are just going to have to be the sacrifices we make in order to finally be free of our irksome role as a 'beacon to the world'.

The sooner you deal with that, the sooner we can take the final important steps like completely privatizing water, power and all of our other basic survival needs, and dismantling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac so that shelter only goes to those who really EARN it.

I can tell that there are some of you out there who aren't up with the program -- but everyone has to pitch in for us to reach our goal. So let's face it, somebody has to be the oppressed class deprived of basic rights...sorry gays and lesbians.

But just think what fun we'll have once we don't have to worry abut living up to the expectations of the rest of the first world!