A Modest Proposal: The First Dead Baby Joke

I often cringe at a dead baby joke, but Jonathon Swift's A Modest Proposal is far from the shock value that often accompany's such jokes.
His proposal, Swift tells us, is based on careful analysis with the hopes of bettering his fellow irish citizens. By using newborns as a delicacy, not only will the Irish economy boom, overcrowding will decrease and local chefs will be able to perfect the cooked baby so that the finest of gentlemen will visit their establishment.
The idea of harvesting newborns as a source of food, thus a source of money, sounds ridiculous. It is ridiculous. But what makes this source of satire work is the amount of perceived thought that Swift has put into the proposal. Swift makes six points to defend his proposal: first, it will decrease the amount of papists in the country. Second, the poor will have something valuable of their own. Third, money not being spent on the children will go into the economy, fourth, the irish will no longer have to spend money on their children after their first year of life. Fifth, the food will bring great custom to taverns. Sixth, his proposal would be a "great inducement to marriage."
I had said before in previous posts that what makes one consider something funny is based on many factors, including culture, age, race, sex, language, experiences. Now while I do not find Swifts proposal funny, I can see how someone in Ireland at the time could. With an understanding of the Irish economy at the time, the overcrowding, perhaps starvation, the proposal could be seen as funny with its over-the-top solution for solving the woes of the Irish people.
As an American, what stands out to me in the proposal is Swifts satire of the American people at the time. In this case, Swifts proposal is also a time capsule that holds the attitudes of some in Europe toward Americans at the time. Swift tells us in his proposal that he learned of cooking a child by an American through an aquaintance of his in London. Here it is the American that is seen as savage and barbaric, an image that is still strong today throughout the world. Even after hundreds of years of Swifts proposal, this negative image of Americans still exists today.