I saw Team America: World Police over the weekend. It was a great a movie, no less than what I would expect from the creators of South Park. There was the vulgar humor that made South Park famous, and the satire was pretty goofy and politically incorrect.

And yet, somehow, it managed to be extremely sophisticated. I don't know how they did it, but even with the oral sex jokes and puppet sex scene, the message of the movie ended up being more reasonable than most things you hear in the media today.

Unfortunately, the language was a little too vulgar for me to tell you the exact message, but remove the expletives and you are left with something simple, yet profound -- America is far from perfect, and we mess up a lot, but we can still do good in the world, and we have to try.

Even though we don't always get it right, letting evil run rampant would be a lot worse in the long run.

Most people will walk out of Team America with a few good laughs and something to think about, and maybe even singing some of the songs. Still, there are those who won't be able to get past the political incorrectness and blatant trashing (and blowing up) of celebrity activists like Alec Baldwin or Janeane Garofalo.

My advice to those people is to lighten up.

If you can't see past the satire you'll miss the point of the movie completely. Sure it perpetuates the same old stereotypes that many people work so hard to get rid of, but it does it for a reason. Those stereotypes, and the people that the movie makes fun of, are really funny. Look, we all do stupid stuff.

And politicians, celebrities, activists and other people in the spotlight do some of the stupidest stuff of all. I mean, just look at Sen. John Kerry, riding into the Tonight Show on a motorcycle, or just listen to the stuff that comes out of President Bush's mouth, and don't even get me started on PETA or the NRA. People will say and do almost anything to bring you to their side, and a lot of the time, they mess it up completely.

The messages are often very serious, if not for the general public, then at least for the people promoting them. I'll admit that some of the groups that I agree the most passionately with are some of the worst offenders out there. For example, I am fiercely patriotic, but patriotism doesn't blind me to the fact that America has done some pretty stupid things in its history.

If I couldn't laugh at my country, I don't think I could be as proud of it as I am. The only other option would be to ignore the stupidity. But it's dangerous to pretend like you and the people you support never make a mistake.

We are all human, and we all drop the ball from time to time. Sometimes you just need to lighten up and laugh at yourself. It helps to keep things in perspective, and often brings about astounding moments of clarity.

As I like to say, you can't take anything seriously until you know how to laugh at it. Only then can you see both the good and the bad in equal light.

At times, the mistakes we make have dire consequences -- they can cost people their jobs, their security or even their lives, and that is definitely a solemn matter.

But it doesn't always take Fahrenheit 911 or Fahrenhype 911 to expose those types of mistakes. If it is done with skill and the right amount of tact, marionette puppets may often show us the way.

We could benefit from some marionette puppetry right here at Penn State, too. Maybe the conservatives and right-wingers could stop trying to find a liberal agenda in everything. Maybe the liberals and left-wingers could stop demonizing the conservative viewpoints. Maybe if we stopped shouting at each other, and started listening and laughing together, we would realize that we really aren't all that different after all.

We are all Americans, and we are all trying to create a better world. We just have different opinions on how to do it. Sometimes one side has it right, sometimes the other, but usually it takes a combination of both to promote real and positive change.

We can all be united by our common faults and failings, but only if we can admit that we have faults and failings, and to do that we need to take ourselves just a little bit less seriously.