Countless manufacturing industries have died slow and painful deaths in America. The auto industry dried up. The clothing industries moved to Bangladesh. Yet we—the strong and the proud—can hold our heads up high and say to the world, "Excuse me, I'm on the toilet."

On the toilet manufacturing the toilet, that is! (You probably have to really get on there in order to ensure quality control.) This, then, is how the grand American empire shall reshape itself: not with guns, nor with butter, but with... a "modest" increase in toilet manufacturing in American factories, most of which are foreign-owned. Well, that's something, at least. The Japanese may own the company, but god damn it, it's American hands that prepare the product to receive your bowel movements. The Wall Street Journal, in a story that we imagine was written just for us, reports:

The work is demanding, requiring muscles to lift bowls and tanks, as well as a delicate touch to smooth surfaces.

"You need the strength of a football player and the hands of a sculptor," Manfield's Mr. Morando said as workers in muscle shirts hoisted newly baked porcelain on a recent afternoon.

I don't want to know how many American manufacturing jobs have been lost in the past decade. I don't want to know how wrecked our national finances are, or how low the world's opinion of us is. All I want is reassurance that proud, strong Americans—people who harbored childhood dreams of playing in the NFL—are out there, every day, hoisting freshly baked toilets, by hand.

Those bastards overseas can take everything from us. But they'll never take our poop.

[Photo: Flickr]