While adjusting to his ADHD medication (Strattera, for those of you keeping score at home), ‘Puter came across this Eugene Robinson column in the Washington Post.

Mr. Robinson claims the Democrats should harness the “economic justice” concerns allegedly at the heart of the Occupy Wall Street ass-hatted protests and ride them to victory in 2012. Mr. Robinson’s column is prominently dotted with calls for justice and fairness. Read the column, if you will, but ‘Puter’s larger point is only tangentially related to it.

Imagine the United States economy as a National Football League matchup for the ages, be it a Steelers-Cowboys showdown in the 1970s, a Green Bay-Kansas City shootout in the 1960s, or whatever matchup you think is teh awsum. Next, imagine the government as the officials calling the game. Fans in the stands are equally divided between conservatives supporting one team and liberals cheering on the other. The game is closely fought, right down to the wire. As time runs out, the losing team punches the ball across the goal line for a winning touchdown. Or does it? The play is under review. The game is now in the hands of the referees.

How do the referees decide? In the conservative view, the referees determine the correct rule and apply it in a fair and impartial manner, discounting any prior bad acts of both teams (cheap shots, unsportsmanlike conduct, etc.), regardless of which side application of the rule favors. In the liberal view, the officials should take into account past history (cheap shots, unsportsmanlike conduct, etc.), determine the outcome, and if the outcome does not appropriately award the historically slighted party, ignore the rule and determine the outcome in favor of the more deserving party. We wouldn’t tolerate the liberal position for one second in professional athletics. Why would we tolerate it in our government, which is far more important to our daily lives?

‘Puter’s beaten this drum for years now. But it’s about danged time people awoke and listened. We are at the crossroads in America. We can opt for the liberal option, where the government looks at our economy and chooses winners and losers based on fashionable elitist sentiment of the moment, or we can take the conservative approach where the government only impartially enforces the rules enacted by Congress, regardless of outcome.

If we choose the liberal approach, where notions of social and economic justice are the government’s lodestar, be forewarned. We are damning our children to a life far worse than ours. They will not have the opportunity to advance on merit that we had. If you think special interests sway the government now, just wait until we admit that the only way to succeed is to curry government favor, laws be damned. It’s an easy, slippery slope to third-rate world status, a la Greece.

‘Puter’s not a big fan of our current nominally conservative presidential candidates, but ‘Puter’s fairly certain that all of them agree on one thing. The government shouldn’t game the rules to achieve a certain result. And ‘Puter knows for certain that the current occupant of the White House has no problem cheating to get the result he wants.

So, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Vote in 2012 for whoever stumbles into the Republican nomination, whether you think they are the spawn of Satan or not. It’ll be better than we have now.

'Puter

Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.

’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.

The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.

His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.

He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.

Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.

‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.