Liberals count on us not to notice the at first small restrictions of our liberties. Once we’re securely bound, that’s when they’ll come for our core freedoms. Also, Czar has a Mickey Mouse BDSM fetish.

‘Puter’s been reading his favorite left of center deep thinkers as they grapple with last Friday’s massacre in Aurora, Colorado. ‘Puter expected the hard Left’s gun-grabbing reflex to emerge, and he wasn’t disappointed.

Here’s the Washington Post’s editorial board lamenting that Americans are morons who refuse to acknowledge that common sense (i.e., the Washington Post’s editorial board’s opinion) mandates banning “assault rifle[s]” (helpfully undefined by the aforementioned editorial board).

Here’s the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne lamenting that Americans are morons who refuse to acknowledge that common sense (i.e., Mr. Dionne’s opinion) mandates banning the NRA and enacting “carefully tailored laws aimed at keeping guns out of the wrong hands” (helpfully undefined by Mr. Dionne).

Here’s the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson lamenting that Americans are morons who refuse to acknowledge that common sense (i.e., Mr. Robinson’s opinion) mandates immediately banning all “assault weapons” (helpfully undefined by Mr. Robinson).

Here’s the New York Times’ editorial board lamenting that Americans are morons who refuse to acknowledge that common sense (i.e., the New York Times’ editorial board’s opinion) mandates enacting “[s]ensible restrictions on ammunition and clips” (helpfully undefined by the aforementioned editorial board).

You can read each of the linked columns and editorials if you wish, though you probably already know what they say.  But ‘Puter’s not here today to defend our Second Amendment rights. He’s done plenty of that recently in this space, for example, here and here. 

While plowing through the authors’ baseless allegations, prepackaged prescriptions and unacknowledged biases, ‘Puter realized the actual source of his consternation.  It’s not that liberals are wrong-headed, fact-ignoring suck-monkeys on all things firearms related, though that is certainly true.  It’s that no matter the problem, no matter how large or how small, liberals’ solutions always — always — involve less freedom for you.

Don’t believe ‘Puter?  Think ‘Puter’s full of crap?  Here’s a few examples for you.

Mayor Michael “Nanny” Bloomberg in New York City thinks kids are fat.  Therefore, he initiates a ban on sugary drinks in sizes greater than 16 ounces. 

Students are having a tough time repaying their student loans. No problem.  President Obama suggests we forgive the debt and screw the creditors, hindering everyone’s ability to borrow in the future.

Some really sick people have a tough time finding insurers to cover them. Congressional Democrats and President Obama decide that to cover the few, everyone now must buy health insurance whether they want it or not.

Otherwise law-abiding citizens who enjoy cooking and distributing crystal meth use Sudafed in their well-maintained and totally OSHA compliant laboratories. Now we all have to stand in line to see a pharmacist who dutifully inscribes our name and driver’s license information in a book so we can purchase a legal, over the counter medication.

Drunk drivers caused 10,839 deaths in the entire United States in 2009. Of these deaths, 181 nationwide were of children 14 or younger. Naturally, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration decides to attempt to force automakers to include ignition interlock devices on every new vehicle, which would increase the cost of every car by nearly $1,000.00.  And since children are dying by the millions each year in drunk driving accidents, New York State passes Leandra’s Law, elevating drunk driving with a minor under 16 in your car to a felony.

‘Puter could spend the remainder of his life detailing the myriad ways liberals solve their problems by restricting your freedom. Rather than ranting and raving as is his custom, ‘Puter quietly and calmly asks you to consider the following question:

Are you willing to trade your freedom for the illusion of safety?

That’s the real question.  That’s the unspoken bargain behind every major policy advanced by American liberals.  Give up your freedom, let us run your life, and we’ll make sure you’re safe. We promise.

“We’ll protect you from those mean old insurance companies, just give up your right to choose to purchase insurance.  It’s just a small right, and you weren’t using it anyway. You’ll hardly notice it’s gone.”

“Sure, we can keep you safe from crazy people with guns.  Just give up your Second Amendment rights.  What if they try to burn the theater down with gasoline? If that happens, we’ll still protect you.  Just give up your right to purchase gasoline on the open market.  We’ll make sure you have enough. Our new federal Petroleum Product Distribution Network will allot you just the right amount. And don’t call it rationing.”

It’s a sucker’s bet, the Left’s bargain.  No one and no government can fully protect you from the world’s vagaries.  It’s a mean, cold, hard place full of bad people who do bad things with great frequency. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.

Freedom is risky.  We risk random shootings because we believe it is more important that people have the right to choose to own and to use firearms of all shapes and sizes, whetehr for self-protection or merely to keep he government honest.  We risk the return of once-vanquished diseases because we believe it more important that people have the right to refuse vaccinations for valid religious reasons.  We risk our lives every day, simply by getting out of bed.  We risk horrible consequences to individuals and groups of individuals because the alternative is worse.  What’s the alternative?

Why, the alternative is exactly what liberals are offering you.  A bleak existence in a world where government eventually controls your every move, from what you eat to what you watch on television to what size house you are permitted build to the permitted wattage of incandescent light bulbs you may use.

Make no mistake.  Liberals aren’t promising you safety and security out of the goodness of their hearts.  Not at all.  Liberals promise you safety and security in return for power.  Power over you, power over me, power over religious institutions, power over corporations, power over all.  Power only possible if you bargain away your rights.  Liberals will not be happy until they control every single aspect of your life, because they know better than you do how you ought to live your life.

Sure, you may think the backwoods Appalachian hillbillies who fill their infants’s baby bottles with Mountain Dew, watch NASCAR and live in ramshackle trailers cobbled together with corrugated tin and duct tape are too dumb to breed and must be stopped, but it’s not your life, is it?  And sure, ‘Puter thinks that Manhattanites and Hollywooders who have children they treat like fashion accessories, to be raised by nannies without any parental input, and trotted out only for photo opportunities for Oscars publicity or the New York Times society page photo shoot are asshats who should be brought up on charges, but it’s not his life, is it?

If you don’t want someone else dictating your life choices to you, then you shouldn’t be so quick to cram your life choice preferences down someone else’s throat, should you? 

And if you insist on using the government as a means to force your personal preferences on free, self-supporting men and women, then you’re nothing more than a tyrant, a dictator, a liberal fascist. ‘Puter’s got no use for you, and will fight you tooth and nail, to his last breath. 

Personal freedom and individual rights are that important. They are so important we took up arms to throw of a monarchy in order to protect those freedoms and rights.  Our rights and freedoms are so important, the brightest minds of their time spent years debating how best to protect them, finally agreeing on a Constitution.  These rights and freedoms are so important that men and women give their lives every day protecting them for us. 

Yet far too many of us are willing to trade our rights and freedoms to liberal know-it-alls for the mere illusion of safety. You folks can take your mess of pottage, your magic beans, your emperor’s new clothes and be gone.  You’ve proven yourself unworthy of our American heritage, purchased at great cost with the blood of many. The blood of the slaves, brought here in bondage, who helped build our nation.  The blood of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who died defending our nation.  The blood of presidents and politicians gunned down while serving our nation.  The blood of gays and Blacks and Hispanics and Catholics and Jews and women killed for having the unmitigated gall to insist on their God given rights as human beings and as Americans. Get out! Get out of ‘Puter’s sight before he pukes, you cowards!

‘Puter’s certain some of his readers are shaking their heads, muttering that ‘Puter’s finally gone off the deep end, drunk the Kool-Aid and become one of those Tea Bagger weirdos who cling bitterly to guns and God.  Maybe so.  But before you write ‘Puter off, do him this one last favor.  Answer this question for him. 

If you’re not free to choose what size soda you should drink, are you really free at all?

'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.