Back in the good old days, every American boy took shop class from a grizzled Vietnam veteran with a quick temper and a missing thumb. Shop class was where boys could be men, where the future bro of American learned how to have a near-brush with permanent handicapped status while building a wrought iron bird feeder.
Chicks dig scars and glory is forever. And even though you now work in a cubicle making Excel spreadsheets all day, without shop class and its dozens of deadly power tools, today you’d probably be opening up a fancy yogurt stand and/or traveling to a terrorist training camp in Pakistan.
So I was a bit dismayed when I opened up yesterday’s USA Today (I get it delivered) and saw that the wet underpants brigade is trying to take away the last bastion of American manliness: The completely unsafe table saw.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission is moving toward rulemaking on table saws despite industry plans to voluntarily address the issue of finger amputations.
The Power Tool Institute told CPSC it is working with the standard-setting group UL to develop voluntary table-saw safety rules. The institute, which represents table-saw makers, is opposed to a possible mandate of technology that would stop blades before they slice through fingers or hands.
That’s right, the CPSC. Thy’re that bunch of pantywaisted do-gooders… probably dreamed up by Barney Frank after a Cosmotini-fueled night of America-hating. The whole plan is to pussify America by doing things like making sure there’s no lead in toys and that our nation’s thongs don’t contain fiberglass shavings.
At this point our only hope is that Big Power Tools can stand up to this liberal onslaught. Here’s my favorite part of the article:
CPSC estimates table saws used by hobbyists, shop class students and other consumers amputate an average of 10 fingers a day.
Losing a finger while being screamed at by your shop teacher is a cherished rite of growing up in America. Do we need a bunch of Washington bureaucrat limp-dicks trying to take away our finger-chopping machines of death? Hell no. I AM A REAL AMERICAN. I FIGHT FOR WHAT’S RIGHT FOR EVERY MAN.
(NSFW language in the video)
