And ‘Puter chooses freedom.

Generations of immigrants have done so, abandoning their old lives, setting off for America’s blessed shores, believing that America’s foundational ideals would enable them, and if not them then certainly their children, to build better lives.

These brave immigrants believed — knew — that America was the place to be. Anyone could be anything in America if they worked hard enough, unlike at home. In America, they could criticize the government in the streets without fear of government retribution, unlike at home. In America, they could own their own land, farm their own fields, build their own business, unlike at home. And, most importantly to many Jews and Catholics, and more recently Muslims and Falun Gong, practice their chose faiths freely, without government imposition.

Well, no more. Welcome to the tipping point, America. We have a government committed to taking away our fundamental freedoms. Freedoms so basic that they are actually the first freedoms listed in the Bill of Rights, guaranteed by America’s foundation document. Freedoms so revolutionary millions of people voluntarily gave up everything they had and came here because of the promise.

It is time we Americans who have lived here our entire lives, in the cushy materialism and seductive vacancy of our culture, look at America with an immigrant’s eyes. Do we want an America where individual choices that harm no one are subjugated to the opinions of unelected bureaucrats? Hell, no.

America’s guarantees of individual rights and limited government unique in the world, and worth a vigorous defense. Is America perfect? Again, Hell, no. But it’s the best there is. Sure, Canada’s nice, but you can’t have a gun, and your right to speak is dodgy if you’re perceived to be mean to gays or Pakistanis or Muslims. (It’s OK to pile on Jews in Canada, though. They’re not a minority. Or, at least they’re the wrong kind of minority.).

‘Puter’s an absolute ass. He’s hard-headed, opinionated and abrasive. But you know what? ‘Puter’s capable of making his own decisions. And God help the government official who gets in his way. ‘Puter’s already sued his local school district (and won) for impermissibly using government property to support school board candidates with “acceptable” (pro-union) viewpoints. ‘Puter’s not going to be scared away when you come with your Code of Federal Regulations. You’d better come hard, G-Man, because ‘Puter’s dead serious about this, and he will bury you so deep beneath a mountain of pleadings that you’ll retire before you dig out. And you won’t outlast ‘Puter. He’s to ornery to die, and he’d never give you the satisfaction.

Anyhoo, ‘Puter’s been mulling over Secretary Sebelius’ HHS regulations for the last several days. ‘Puter’s come to several conclusions and observations.

1. The Obama Administration walked into a buzzsaw here. Worse, they did so because they are so out of touch with America outside the Beltway and the hallowed fraternity of right-thinking coastal elites they didn’t know it would be a problem. Who could possibly object to making those pointy-headed Catholics, with their sexist, misogynistic, all-male priesthood dressed in quaint costumes, violate their core beliefs? Certainly not right thinking people.

2. The American Catholic Church currently reaps what it has sown post Vatican II. For far too long, Rome and the local bishoprics have allowed Catholics in place of public prominence to misportray Catholic teachings. Even worse, the Church has stood idly by as “Catholic” politicians from Kennedy to Cuomo have treated the Church’s positions on adultery and right-to-life as optional. Worst of all, ‘Puter’s Church has utterly failed to catechize the several generations raised during and immediately after Vatican II, leaving no one to act to protect and to defend the Holy Mother Church.

2a. Much of the priesthood ordained from 1970-1985 are self-loathing Catholics. They don’t like the choice they made, but see no way out. They vote against the Church’s teachings. ‘Puter’s pastor announced in a homily that he voted for pro-abortion Obama. These men are doing a grave disservice to a great institution, both religious and societal, through their sinfulness.

3. A growing minority of Americans, and possibly a majority of all politicians in both parties, are only too happy to treat the Constitution as a set of old-timey recommendations. These suggestions can be ignored without fear, so long as so doing is in service of a Big Idea. Most Big Ideas arise on the left, however, and involve subjugating the individual to the government. The irony is lost on liberals that the one Big Idea that matters, the Constitution, is four-square opposed to their grand schemes.

4. If you don’t understand that the HHS regulations spell a new nadir in government-individual relations, you’ve likely sustained a massive head injury while huffing canned air and mainlining an eight ball. If Obama’s HHS can tell Catholics they must violate a core belief or exit the public arena, there is no meaningful limit on government power. And if you didn’t see this trajectory coming with Obama’s “you participate in a market by refusing to do so” laugh-track of a legal defense of ObamaCare, you’re as blind as Ray Charles.

4a. If Obama can tell Catholics they must provide birth control, it’s a short hop to telling Catholic hospitals they must provide abortions. After all, both are legal, and both are women’s reproductive health needs. This leaves aside the argument that if single women kept their knees together, or engaged in alternate activities, there is absolutely no need for birth control. Dependence on birth control and abortion is dehumanizing. There. ‘Puter’s said it. The Church is correct. Humans have free will, along with conscience and self-control. We can simply refuse to have sex. Yes, it’s difficult, and yes, it’s unpleasant. But the Church’s view celebrates our human dignity. The Obama Administration’s position treats us like instinctively rutting animals with no control. We have to provide abortions and birth control, because women are too stupid or randy to control themselves! No, women are not. They just aren’t required to do so any more. And before you lefties get your panties in a wad, if you’re in fact wearing any you filthy hippies, no, ‘Puter is not arguing for a ban on abortions or on birth control. What he is arguing is that you let ‘Puter and his gosh darned Church act according to their relatively mainstream views and be left the Hell alone, that most cherished of American rights.

4b. Riddle ‘Puter this. If Obama’s HHS can require Catholics to provide birth control, why can’t it then ban minors from receiving Holy Eucharist in both species? For you non-Papists, at a Catholic Mass, we receive bread and wine, which we believe has through God’s miraculous intervention, been transformed literally to the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Now, you may think this stupid fantasy, reenacting a human sacrifice weekly to appease our Sky God, but it’s what we believe. Are you so willing to deify sex that you’re willing to prevent millions of Americans from practicing our faith? The Obama Administration sure seems willing to do so.

That’s all ‘Puter’s got for now. Suffice it to say, it ought to be clear to you that we are in a struggle for America’s future. Turn left, and enter a world where the government slowly and surely subjugates your decision making to its. Or, we can go back to the future, the future where we are all like immigrants, coming to an America ready to keep her promise to protect our rights to choose for ourselves.

‘Puter has made his choice. Make yours.

'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.