As the fall semester draws to a close, most UT students are looking forward to winter holidays. One of the most popular is Christmas, of which I’m sure you’ve heard. Recently, right-wing pundits have blown a lot of hot air claiming there is a politically correct conspiracy to destroy Christmas by failing to acknowledge it loudly and repeatedly in every street, checkout line, movie theater, public bath, chicken coop and nudist colony from sea to shining sea.
But talking heads like Bill O’Reilly need to focus on a bigger problem: the conspiracy within Christmas. Yes, it’s time someone pointed out the 800 hundred pound elephant in the room, or in this case, the 300 pound jolly holiday icon. Christmas should be canceled immediately, because all evidence points to the inescapable conclusion that Santa Claus is actually Karl Marx.
Let’s examine just a bit of the historical record.
Santa Claus, like Marx, is recognizable by his enormous beard. He dresses from head to toe in red, the color of the Revolution. Apparently of German or Dutch extraction, he was originally known under the anarchist pseudonym “Sinter Klaas.” Acting out of some misguided humanitarian impulse, his principal goal is the redistribution of wealth – not from the bourgeoisie to the proletariat, but from adults to children, the latter well known for contributing nothing whatsoever to the economy.
But the parallels do not stop there. In the span of a single evening, and without ever being detected, Claus manages to travel the entire world. This is a feat so massively complex from both an engineering and intelligence standpoint that it could only be made possible by the assistance of the Kremlin. This explains the vast network of body doubles that Claus uses to formulate his annual strategy.
Among Claus’ known associates is an East German spy referred to by the codename Rudolph, whose deep cover identity is a “flying reindeer” with a mysterious nasal condition. As we all know, reindeer neither fly nor do they glow in the dark, suggesting that Rudolph is actually transporting enriched uranium up his nose. Knowing the pair’s M.O., this material is probably being kept for later delivery to a particularly good child – the ayatollah of Iran, perhaps?
Santa Claus is the leader of a remote collective that produces hand-made goods all year around (though they bear a mysterious resemblance to common consumer goods on delivery.) Like Marx, he spends 364 days engaged in unknown activities while others support him by doing all the work, then he emerges just in time to take all the credit. Showing no regard for private property, he is responsible for countless acts of trespassing and petty theft. Most damning of all, he is fond of chocolate chip cookies and milk, which any historian will tell you were among Marx’s favorite foods.
Clearly, the annual celebration of communism must be stopped. Christmas has been infiltrated at the highest levels and should be suspended immediately pending an investigation by the House Un-American Activities Committee. I urge all of you to Santa-proof your houses with razor wire and duct tape. Do not acknowledge Christmas either in public or in private – Santa’s elves could be anyone!
Fear not: Adam Smith-Claus will soon be here! He will fly through the air on the invisible hand of the market, visiting every child in the world in sequential order based on their parent’s per capita income.
Instead of merely leaving chunks of coal for bad children, Adam Smith-Claus will use a multivariate economic analysis of parents’ income to decide which children get new Hot Wheels and Barbies and which ones will spend a lifetime as coal miners for lack of funds to go to college.
After all, that’s how most of the world does business the other 364 days of the year.