Well George, it’s that time of year again. Sleigh bells
ring. Are you listening? When I think of
you at this time of year, I can’t help but recall my favorite seat cushion, “Dear
Santa, I can explain.” You have a lot of explaining to do this year, and Santa
won’t be happy. Perhaps that’s ok with you – after all, there are a lot of
desperate people in mid-winter looking for heat, and selling coal by the lump
could be quite profitable. And besides, your model for behavior, Ebenezer,
never used to think much of Christmas either. Nevertheless, we worry about you.
Some of what you did this year could have been sheer absent
mindedness. For example, when you were busy chastising dentists for enforcing
dentistry practices the way doctors do, you called it an abridgment of freedom
as the evil economic practice of “rent seeking.” The fact that you support rent
seeking all the time when corporations do it must surely just have slipped your
mind. And the increasing gun volleys outside your windows from the freedom to
keep and bear arms you so strongly support must be so far away – you live in
the quiet part of town, after all – that you just haven’t noticed yet. I’m sure
Santa will understand. He can’t be too happy though that Christmas has become the
biggest gun buying time of year: it frightens the children, and some of them
miss their parents terribly. Besides, coming down that chimney has become a
real hazard.
Santa must have notes on his list though about some of the
other things you did this year. Your continuing full-throated opposition to
raising the minimum wage is a lot closer to the old Ebenezer than it is to
Christmas Present. How do the children get presents? They can’t all come down
the chimney. And your opposition to the Justice Department’s insistence on a
rule in Wisconsin that would require all schools to provide adequate facilities
for disabled children must have upset Tiny Tim.
Your criticism of young women on college campuses who had been
raped, for enjoying playing the victim, will really require fast talking when
Santa arrives. Everyone noticed that one. However, you are good at fast
talking. Even Santa may admire the way
you managed to support your opposition to Obama’s action to prevent children
from being separated from their parents in the name of enforcing immigration law.
You claimed Obama’s action upset “a planetary balance akin to that of the solar
system” between legislative and executive powers. You really know how to
transcend reality! But Santa may not be fooled. That balance wasn’t making his job
any easier.
So, all in all, it hasn’t been a good year George. I know you hate to be tethered to mere
reality, but try looking around you at what’s actually going on in the world and it
may give you some ideas of how to do better next year. Perhaps Santa can
arrange a visit from Christmas Future. Have a glass of syllabub and think about
it. Merry Christmas!
