With apologies to President Lincoln, ‘Puter thinks his Gettysburg Address could use a bit of updating:

… that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom— and that government of the children, by the children, for the children, shall not perish from the earth.

There. That’s better. And for more reflective of our nation’s current state.

What’s that you say? Who are you calling children? Well, here’s a quick list of nominal adults whom ‘Puter considers children:

1. The 36% of tax filers (not all Americans, mind you) who pay no income tax whatsoever, and in fact net money back from the government.

2. The 1.4 million Americans who have been sucking at the unemployment benefit teat for more than 99 weeks. Jebus, have some dignity and get a job – any job. After two years, you’re either lazy or unemployable due to some personal defect.

3. The five percent (5%) of Americans receiving housing assistance (not counting those living in the projects).

4. The 40 million Americans receiving food stamps.

5. The 57 million Americans on Medicaid. Not to mention the 46.5 million Americans on Medicare, for a total of nearly one-third of the United State’s population on the dole.

Nota bene, the numbers may add up to more than the actual number of Americans as many children find themselves in one or more of ‘Puter’s categories of the dependent.

Nota even bene-er, ‘Puter is leaving out the truly worthy dependents, those who cannot take care of themselves, such as the profoundly mentally retarded, the frail elderly, the physically disabled. ‘Puter does not expect those who cannot take care of themselves to do so. Everyone else, however, is on ‘Puter’s list.

The folks ‘Puter lists above are free riders, consuming more than they contribute, voting themselves increased benefits on the back of their productive countrymen. Maintaining the fiction that those who are wards of the state should have the same say in government as those who take care of themselves is destroying us. See, for example, ‘Puter’s state of New York, where public sector unions continue to use taxpayer funds to elect politicians who have bankrupted the state in their mad dash to reward their union masters with ever-higher salaries and benefits, consequences be damned.

And yes, ‘Puter knows that we all benefit collectively from certain governmental programs. National defense, interstate highways and interstate commerce spring immediately to ‘Puter’s mind. But it’s apples and oranges, people. ‘Puter’s talking those who derive their indivdual sustenance from the government, not those who utilize the government’s collective benefits. There’s a world of difference.

So what’s the answer? Continue to tolerate a social contract where the takers are quickly outnumbering the makers, and in so doing will be able to vote themselves rich in perpetuity? Well, at least until the giant Ponzi scheme coumes tumbling down, anyway. Or do we reexamine the rights and duties of citizens, and rewrite our social contract?

Do we weight the votes of net contributors more heavily than those of net consumers? Do we treat wards of the state differently, more like children? For example, as a parent, ‘Puter can consent to a police search of his child’s room, even if his child does not. Since taxpayers are paying for certain people’s houses (rendering the occupants child-like in their dependency), can we presume consent for a police search of those houses, or at least a lower evidentiary showing before a warrant issues? If the occupants don’t like it, move. Do something differently. Become less dependent.

‘Puter believes the answer lies in making dependency less, not more, comfortable. In so doing, ‘Puter believes the government should encourage the transition from dependency to self-sufficiency, perhaps even by offering cash rewards. But ‘Puter doesn’t claim to have all, or even some, of the right answers. ‘Puter’s simply offering a discussion topic for the day.

'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.