Brazil just doesn’t get it. Or at least they get it too often, and in immoral ways. Either way, because they get it and because of the way that they get it, they’ve proven that they just don’t get it and therefore they’re not going to get it.

What I’m saying is that those Brazilians have actually turned down $40 million in AIDS-fighting money from the US because it comes with the condition that the government denounce prostitution.

Brazil says it sees these conditions as “not based on scientific evidence” and use “biblical principles” rather than rationalism.

Fine. Listen up, Brazil, for I am about to clue you in:

You suck. You don’t get it. You’re this close to joining the New, Improved Axis of Evil.

See, here in America we understand that our values are the Microsoft Windows of morality. Sure, there may be other systems out there. But unless you make sure you’re compatible, you don’t get to play. Tolerated prostitution in your country is a deal-breaker, because it’s incompatible with our system, which works perfectly.

Prostitution’s simply not on the menu around here. It’s criminal. So targeting “health” campaigns towards criminals is a non-starter. Get it? We’re fighting epidemics by making it clear that criminals deserve what they get. Here in America, you’re rolling the dice if you engage in prostitution, so don’t come crying to us if you get AIDS because you weren’t properly educated and got paid for sex. Or if you paid for sex. Or were married to someone who paid for sex. Or were the child of someone who was married to someone who paid someone for sex. Being conceived by a woman whose husband had unsafe sex with a prostitute is high-risk behavior, and most American fetuses now know better than to get involved with that sort of thing.

What’s more, our zero-tolerance is WORKING. We don’t have all the stats about “increases” or “decreases” in actual “numbers,” but we know this: Recent respectable “guesstimates” indicate that less than one in every 20 American women is currently employed as a prostitute. That’s less than 5%. Rounding off, that means that 100% of our citizenry are NOT PROSTITUTES. That’s right, read it and weep, Brazil - statistically speaking, we have no hookers here. How’s life lookin’ at the Carnival now, huh?

But that’s not the road you’ve chosen to take, is it? No, you’ve decided to acknowledge that prostitution exists and try to educate these criminals to prevent the spread of disease. Well shucks, we’d love to help you fight AIDS, but not if you’re going to go around spreading the idea that these fallen women (and their clients and their clients’ present and future wives and their clients’ present and future wives’ children and etc.) can go on plying their unclean wares and expect to live. Nope. Not in our world. Do that and you’d might as well encourage illegal drug users to use clean needles. Might as well just hand ‘em the smack while you’re at it, give it right out in the 7th grade classrooms. Hey, that’s a great idea - why don’t we give every 13 year-old boy in America a syringe full of “H” and a whore! Yeah, we’ll post federal employees nearby to hand out condoms and fresh needles as our offspring slake their filthy lusts upon their government-provided painted slatterns. What an utterly fantastic idea!

Just in case you Brazilians are too busy trying to get your daughters into the best state-run Whore Academies to have invented sarcasm yet, let us put it another way: Either you tell your country’s adults under what conditions they can and can’t exchange their bodily fluids, or you’re stuck with AIDS. That’s what freedom’s all about. You can look it up.

And don’t give us any of that “greater good” bull hockey. We know all about that. That’s why we’re in the Middle East, trading, cooperating, and aiding regimes who officially support the subjugation and disenfranchisement of women, for example. It’s a hard compromise, but it might just save some lives. And the Bible doesn’t forbid a little judicious subjugation or even a beating now and then. We personally don’t allow the beatings any more, but hey, “judge not,” as the Book says.

But if you’re asking us to look the other way while you allow your women and men to flagrantly disregard the Book that our nation was founded upon, don’t be surprised if the checks don’t arrive. Maybe those kind of shenanigans flew in the 90’s, but they don’t anymore. Not one bit. Let us point you to the part of our Constitution where Jesus told the prostitute that she had it comin’. 35th Amendment or something, but take our word for it, it’s in there.

Again, we’re not saying we’re better than you. We just have more money and a superior system of morality. It’s up to you, though. We can help you die less, if you’d only listen to reason. If not, our hands are tied.

Your pal,

America