Do you remember America? I do. And it was built on a divide. Not red vs. blue, black vs. white. Or rich vs. poor.

Not saying that stuff didn’t exist, but growing up, that wasn’t the difference I perceived.

Instead, it was the young at heart against the fun police, the “suits,” the “establishment” we might call Big Parent. Us versus them. They might be Big Parent, but we had Big Brother. Or, for what Big Brother would become best-known, we had Jackass.

For a time, every kid in America had a group of older brothers who were all best friends, who treated us like their best friends, who showed us that it was perfectly okay not to come from much, to suck at school, to screw around, to be a little gay sometimes. Who showed us that at the core of friendship is true love, and that sometimes, the greatest expression of this love involves doing dumb things together, to each other, or to have dumb, embarrassing things done to you by them, and finding it deep within yourself to forgive them for it, because they didn't mean it, or mostly because it’s funny.

The real divide across history, not just American, has been those of us with a sense of humor, and those who maybe haven’t ever felt safe enough, or free enough, to open ourselves up to it.

For these and other reasons, I nominate Jackass for its inclusion and preservation within the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress. I want Jackass to be recognized and preserved for future generations of Americans, as a record of who we were, who we are, and what we’re capable of given an afternoon, a couple DV cameras, and a dream.

Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Steve-O, Ryan Dunn (RIP), Chris Pontius, Wee Man, Dave England, Preston Lacy, Danger Ehren, Brandon DiCamillo, the new guys, the whole crew… These are what I call Great Americans.

For decades, they’ve put their minds, bodies, and frequently, their winning tackle on the line, for no reason greater than to make us laugh. True, they may not be George Washington, Ben Franklin, or Martin Luther King, Jr., but neither is the person reading this, and neither am I.

Sometimes, we can raise armies, invent bifocals, or inspire millions of people to strive for a better tomorrow. But for most of us, the best we can do is be brave in the face of danger and the odds, and in the meantime, show the people around us that we care, through our willingness to humiliate ourselves to make them feel, just for a moment, thankful that they’re not in our shoes.

Times are hard. Food is expensive. No matter what side you’re on, it’s getting hard to not feel like the bad guys are winning. And amidst all this, a cohesive national identity has never felt further out of reach.

At the same time, I implore you: rich or poor, young or old, native, generational, immigrant, or otherwise, search this great nation far and wide to try and find a single person who disagrees with the unofficial Jackass motto, the one that, over the last 25 years, millions of us have made their own. The one I think describes perfectly who we are as Americans in just 9 simple words: “If you’re gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough.”

And if you can’t find that person, please, sign this petition.