Big Bird poops on cop cars, supports rape tents, and participates in drum circles. Plus, he’s a tool of the establishment, bought an paid for by corporate bastards HBO. ‘Puter also heard Big Bird hid Osama Bin Laden for years. No way should we fund Big Bird with tax dollars! Good thing we already don’t.

Nicholas Kristof penned this opinion piece in today’s New York Times. ‘Puter agrees with every single item Mr. Kristof espouses with the exception of the underlying point of the entire piece.

Yes, humanities and arts are vitally important to a cohesive and vibrant civilization. No, government does not have to fund humanities and arts for them to exist.

In fact, there are good arguments to be made that government involvement invariably politicizes and poisons the arts.

‘Puter loves the humanities. He attended (and was graduated from, so shut it Mo and Neva) a small, Catholic liberal arts college in New England and received an A.B. in Philosophy. ‘Puter was chairman of the college’s student theater organization for two years, and chairman of the college choir for a year. ‘Puter met Mrs. ‘Puter in the college choir. His work/study job was as lead shop carpenter in the theater department’s scene shop. ‘Puter’s two kids play the following instruments among them: percussion, saxophone, clarinet, flute, and piano.

Music and arts have been vital to ‘Puter’s life and have touched nearly every aspect of his development. ‘Puter has the greatest respect for arts, music, humanities, and for those who produce such works for us. Our lives – all our lives – would be poorer without them.

That said, there is absolutely no reason on God’s green Earth that government needs to fund arts or artists. Mr. Kristof’s argument is “the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Endowment for the Arts, and National Endowment for the Humanities don’t cost that much, so you should be required to keep funding something I enjoy and think is important.”

If we accept Mr. Kristof’s premise (government must fund that which individuals enjoy and are plausibly good for everyone whether or not they use the product produced), then government must fund shooting ranges, abortion clinics, conservative Christian churches, and militant atheist organizations like the ACLU.*

Artists will produce art even if government isn’t paying them. Musicians will keep playing regardless of whether they’re getting paid. The difference is these folks may have to get jobs they don’t particularly enjoy to fund that which they do. You know, like everyone else in America.

The argument that quality would fall off is unavailing. The Medicis and the pope funded some of the greatest artists the world has known. Government didn’t pay the Gershwins or Dr. Seuss or Bob Dylan or Emily Dickinson to produce their art. Artists gonna art, no matter how hard you try to stop them.

And without government involvement, we are likely to see a more robust, less politically dictated art. Artists always seek to please their patrons, even (especially) when government is their patron.

Just as Democrats would rightly object if government funded giant obelisks celebrating Trump’s great victories won in making America great again, Republicans would rightly object if public school teachers were paid to write songs praising Obama’s obvious exceptionalism and awesomeosity.**

Let’s do partially as Mr. Kristof suggests and financially support the arts we love. But let’s also do as ‘Puter suggests and pay for the funding out of our own pockets, cutting out the middlemen and government bureaucrats who skim money off the top.

The arts will survive without the government if the public truly values them, as ‘Puter does.

Trust ‘Puter.

* ‘Puter’s not kidding about the ACLU. The ACLU totally is totally is not full of radical atheist asshats who hate God and guns.

** <’Puter hums “Mmm, Mmm, Mmm, Barack Hussein Obama” to himself until he achieves enlightenment and enters Democrat nirvana, which is basically a never-ending three-way with an oiled up Barney Frank and Maxine Waters in a bathtub filled with Froot Loops and milk and Michelle Obama watches pruriently and the entire thing is live streamed on PBS nationwide>

'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.