Happy Valley was a wonderful place; that's why it was called Happy Valley. The people there were prosperous and, for the most part, content. The climate was sufficiently varied that everyone could live where he felt most comfortable. The few dangerous animals and plants were carefully controlled. There were police and firemen and paramedics and clinics and hospitals to keep the people safe and healthy. The government of Happy Valley would give free food, clothing, housing, education, health care, Viagra, sex change operations, and cell phones to whoever wanted them. Everyone wanted to live in Happy Valley!

Unfortunately, Happy Valley was not big enough for all the people who wanted to move there. So the Happy Valleyians devised a plan to limit their population to an acceptable size. To be allowed to move to Happy Valley, a person had to submit an immigration application. Then he had to wait ten years. After that, he had to prove that he was healthy, able to work, and of good moral character. He had to be able to read, write, speak and understand the Happy Valley language. He had to be able to recite the names of at least the last 44 kings of Happy Valley, explain any of the numerous Happy Valley laws (including penalties for noncompliance) when asked, and to sing the Happy Valley national anthem, including the high notes. Then, a panel of established Happy Valley citizens would vote on whether or not they wanted him in their country and why. Only after they agreed to accept him was he allowed to become a citizen of Happy Valley.

The other way to become a citizen of Happy Valley was to be brought into Happy Valley in a wheelbarrow on one's fourth birthday by one's mother. There were no other requirements. If your mother wheeled you across the border into Happy Valley in a wheelbarrow on the day you turned four, no matter who she was, you automatically became a citizen of Happy Valley forever. Other modes of transportation didn't count, and neither did any other age. You had to be exactly four, and you had to arrive in a wheelbarrow, wheeled by your mom. Orphans, of course, no matter how qualified, were SOL. They had to wait at least ten years, even after they learned all about Happy Valley and how to sing!

If you met those requirements, you automatically became a citizen, regardless of whether or not you ever learned to speak Happy Valleyian, do anything useful, or, in fact, were anything more than a no-good, rotten, low life, scum-sucking worthless sonofabitch. Even if you were convicted of committing terrible crimes, if your mother had brought you into Happy Valley in a wheelbarrow on your fourth birthday, you were allowed to stay.

(Even if you were not a citizen, if you were convicted of a crime, the Happy Valleyians would still give you free food, clothing, housing, education, health care, Viagra, and sex change operations, sometimes for several years, before deporting you, but that's another story.)

Fortunately, the roads into Happy Valley were straight and well paved, there were no border guards, there were DNA analysis facilities all over the place that could prove who your mom was and how old you were within a few minutes, and there was a huge wheelbarrow factory right next to the border!

"He's too damned tall!" some people exclaimed.

"Thirteen percent of all Happy Valleyians are taller than he is," his supporters retorted.

"But he's a Hindu," his detractors insisted. "He worships elephants."

"Hindus don't worship elephants," his friends explained. "And anyway, he's been a registered member of the First Undeniably Charismatic Kingdom of Irrefutable Truth And Long Life for many years. He's a personal friend of their pastor, Jedediah Wong. And even if he is a Hindu, so what? The king can be a Hindu if he wants."

"Oh, yeah?" they responded. "Well, we have it on good authority that he isn't even a citizen, let alone king! One of our guys saw him crossing the border in a car with his dad when he was six! You gotta be four, and you have to be brought in a wheelbarrow by your mom! Hah!"

"So what?" the others repeated. "Princes royal go on state visits all the time. We have his birth certificate and photos certified to have been taken on his fourth birthday of the queen wheeling him across the border in the royal wheelbarrow. There was a big celebration. It was in all the local papers."

"That was probably somebody else's kid," the detractors fired back!

The argument continues to this very day, with no end in sight!

That's why the country is called Happy Valley, not Particularly Intelligent Valley!

One unfortunate day, a crazy man stole his mother's bowling ball, smashed her head with it, and then went to the local school and bashed twenty children and six adults to death. The teachers responsible for protecting those children had only moral rectitude as a defense. It wasn't enough.

"We've got to get rid of bowling balls!" some of the non-bowlers cried, "Especially the military kind! It's just too damned easy for a criminal to get one and murder somebody!"

"How about getting rid of the criminals?" others suggested. "Our prisons are overcrowded as it is! If somebody is going to kill you, he can do it with something besides a bowling ball! Besides, bowling balls are everywhere! Making them illegal won't solve the problem; criminals don't obey the laws!

"Nope!" the anti-bowling ball people retorted. "Getting rid of criminals is WRONG! Bowling balls are BAD! Bowling ball owners are EVIL! They're all CRAZY! The bowling balls have to go!"

Finally the king intervened. "We have to protect our children against the evils of bowling balls," he said. "I have directed the crown prince to look into the matter and propose legislation to make sure criminals don't get their hands on bowling balls! We can't be too careful!"

So the crown prince and his advisors got together and proposed legislation that would make it a crime to give or sell a bowling ball to anyone without the government's certification that he was authorized to have a bowling ball. This potentially gave the government the ability to halt the legal sale or gift of bowling balls to anyone by the simple expedient of misplacing the paperwork, which the proposed law failed somehow to address. The criminals, of course, would still be able to get them by theft or otherwise because criminals don't give a shit about laws. That's why they're criminals! There were plenty to steal; Happy Valley contained more bowling balls than people!

Fortunately, the Happy Valleyians realized in time that the crown prince was an moron and simply ignored him. In addition, they bought so many bowling balls that the bowling ball makers ran out of them and had to hire more people to increase production to meet the demand - just in case!

"Well, we certainly don't want anything like that!" said the king. Why don't we just sell them some food? We've got plenty!"

"It's not that simple, Your Majesty" the prime minister replied. "They don't have any money. The only thing they produce is trinkets and crap, and the tariff on those things is so high nobody in Happy Valley really cares to buy them."

"Trinkets and crap!" the king retorted. "Our people just love that stuff! It should sell like hot cakes here! The solution seems pretty simple; just eliminate the tariffs, give them Most Favored Nation status, and tell the farmers to be prepared for a big jump in demand!"

So the prime minister went away and did as he was told. Sure enough, within a few months, trinkets and crap were pouring into Happy Valley and the Mountain People were buying food like crazy! The farmers of Happy Valley were so hard-pressed to meet the demand for food from the Mountain People that they hired many of them to pick their crops. The little farmers started going bankrupt competing with the huge agribusinesses that had billions to spend on technology research and processing plants and sneaking in illegal Mountain People workers.

The Happy Valley manufacturers were not slow to take advantage of this situation, either. They moved vast industries into the surrounding mountains and hired Mountain People workers for wages a Happy Valley vagrant would have found insulting. They even set up schools for the Mountain People to learn how to do high-tech work. Pretty soon the Mountain People were producing clothing, furniture, color televisions, and Apple computers - all at ridiculously low cost!

One day, the prime minister of Happy Valley visited the king again. "Your Majesty," he said, "We have a serious problem. The Mountain People are outproducing our domestic businesses, and they're selling everything! They're selling cheaper, too, because they don't pay their workers nearly what ours want, and they don't have to meet our workplace standards, either. Some of our citizens are losing their jobs! They're becoming" - the prime minister gave a shudder, - "poor as Mountain People!"

"Well, the solution seems simple enough to me," the king told him." Just pay them not to work. Level the playing field; pay 'em more the poorer they are. Oh, and be sure to pay them extra to for any illegitimate children they produce, too. Those little bastards can really soak up a single mother's resources!"

"But where are going to get the money for all this?" the prime minister wanted to know.

"Taxes!" the king exploded. "Tax the crap out of the rich! They're where money comes from! Good God, man, do I have to think of everything?"

So the prime minister went off to tax the rich and pay people to be poor. The poor began thinking that being poor was a pretty lucrative profession after all, so they spent their time shooting up and fornicating instead of learning a trade or going to school, because they didn't have to do either to make ends meet.

Since the poor didn't think they needed to work, they let the Mountain People into Happy Valley to make money producing the food. All the hard jobs started to be done by Mountain People because the poor Happy Valleyians were dumb as rocks and twice as lazy! Some of the Mountain People just showed up at the farms and factories, looking for work, a good income, and the benefits of living in Happy Valley!

Finally, the poor began to realize that even with all the money, food, clothing, housing, education, health care, Viagra, and sex change operations they were getting free from taxes on the rich, they were still poorer than the hard-working, educated Mountain People, who were making good money by working hard and investing wisely. The problem was, by then the only thing the poor really knew how or were willing to do was bitch about it. "Those goddamn Mountain People are taking our jobs!" they cried! "We want mo' money, at least a living wage, even if we don't do anything!"

One day, the prime minister of Happy Valley visited the king again. "Your Majesty," he said, "We have a serious problem..."

"I believe so, Your Majesty," the prime minister replied thoughtfully. "I take it you are referring to the big fat one with the cigarettes and the fancy..."

"That's the one," the king interrupted. "She said she couldn't afford health insurance."

"That's because she's probably spending too much of her money on food," the prime minister muttered to himself.

"What was that?" The king demanded.

"Uh, I was just thinking that she may be spending money on things that aren't very good," the prime minister hastily responded. "She didn't look very healthy."

"Precisely my point," the king agreed. "There are too many of our people in her situation. Something has to be done!"

"What do you suggest, Your Magesty," the prime minister inquired, rather hesitantly.

"It's obvious, of course!" the king replied. "We have to make health insurance available to everyone."

"Perhaps Your Majesty has been, ah, insufficiently informed," the prime minister ventured carefully. "There are very few of our citizens who truly can't afford health insurance if they want it. We provide those emergency care already, free of charge. Perhaps the others simply have other priorities, like expensive hair styling or jewelry or fake..."

"Balderpucky," the king exploded! I want you to stop shilly-shallying around and fix this! Work up a plan to sign up everybody for health insurance, including providing drugs that they just think make them healthy! Pay the poor to get theirs, and charge the rich extra to make up the difference! If somebody refuses to buy any, make him pay a fine! I want to start seeing results from you instead of hearing excuses!

"B-but won't that provide an incentive f-for risky behaviors?" the prime minister stammered. "If we force health insurance on people, maybe they'll start thinking that it's OK to smoke or abuse cheap prescription drugs or give each other fatal diseases, because they'll be taken care of when they're sick! They think it's OK to drop out of school or get fired from work now because we pay them to do that."

"That's their problem," the king retorted. "Your problem is to make it happen! Do that! - Or do I have to appoint another prime minister?"

"Ah, of course not, Your Majesty," the prime minister replied, regaining his composure. "It shall be done as you command!"

So the prime minister went away and did what the king had said. Pretty soon everybody was buying cut rate health insurance or paying a hefty fine to stay well. And, just as the prime minister had predicted, those whose payments were being subsidized quit worrying about staying healthy because they knew they would be cared for if they got sick - or injured - or pregnant - or baited cops or resisted arrest! They even started taking prescription drugs to make them quit worrying about anything at all!

That is why, to this very day, the kingdom is still known as Happy Valley.

"What is the matter, Your Majesty?" the butler panted as he ran huffing and puffing into the royal bedchamber, pulling on his tail coat and smoothing his rumpled hair.

"What is the matter?! roared the king. "Just listen to that caterwauling outside! What the hell is going on?"

"Oh, those are the underwear demonstrators," the butler responded. "They want more underwear rights. They claim that they're being discriminated against because of their wool underwear."

"Wool underwear?!" the king exclaimed. "Everybody knows that underwear is made of cotton. It's one of our main exports! Wool is itchy and scratchy!"

"Precisely, Your Majesty," the butler agreed. "They feel they're being mistreated because their underwear is uncomfortable. They want government recognition of their right to wear wool underwear, government action to make it as comfortable as cotton underwear and government subsidies for wool production, just like those for cotton."

"That's preposterous!" the king exploded. "Wool comes from sheep! It's naturally the way it is; the same for cotton! Besides, sheep are dirty and smelly and poop all over everything and eat the grass down to the nubbin and obstruct traffic! Cotton just grows! Who gives a damn about their underwear, anyway? It's underwear for Pete's sake! It's their problem! Why don't they just keep it to themselves? It wouldn't be a problem if they did that! Who the hell cares?"

"Well, they feel that their civil rights are being violated," the butler told him. "They want guaranteed equal rights for wool underwear wearers. They make a big thing about showing off their underwear to everybody. All those people outside are demonstrating in their skivvies, for example."

"Oh, damn" the king muttered, putting his feet into his slippers. "It's always something! Sometimes I wish I didn't have this job!"

"Well, perhaps they can find some new uses for sheep," the butler remarked, trying to be helpful.

So things began slowly to change in Happy Valley. People still called it Happy Valley, except for the wool underwear wearers, but sometimes they use a shorter word for "Happy."

"If you hurt a Mountain Person," they chanted, "expect all of your lives to worsen - Justice for Chamaun!"

"What the hell is all this all about?" the king demanded as he entered the chamber.

"Your Majesty," the prime minister whispered timidly, "these Mountain People are protesting police brutality. They claim they're being deliberately targeted by our police officers.

"If you hurt a Mountain Person, expect all of your lives to worsen - Justice for Chamaun!" the people chanted even louder.

"Nonsense," the king responded over the din. "Our police are the most gentle people in Happy Valley, maybe even in the world. They try their best not to hurt anybody they're arresting, and if somebody does get hurt, they take him to the hospital before they take him to jail."

"Sometimes instead of," he added.

"That - that's not what happened to Chamaun Gerko, the prime minister's voice faltered.

"Who the hell is Chamaun Gerko?" the king wanted to know.

"If you hurt a Mountain Person," the chant went on, "expect all of your lives to worsen - Justice for Chamaun!"

"He's a Mountain Person!" the prime minister had to shout to be heard. "He was shot by the police. He died before the paramedics got to him!"

"Why did they shoot him?" the king shouted back.

"They said he had a gun!" the prime minister hollered. "Turns out it was only a smoked Hebrew National all Kosher beef wiener he was pointing at them!"

The king grabbed the prime minister's coat, dragged him into an antechamber, and slammed the door. "What the hell!" the king exclaimed. "How could they make a dumb ass mistake like that?"

"It was dark, Your Majesty," the prime minister muttered, adjusting his cravat and smoothing down his lapels. "Somebody reported that he had a gun. It sure looked like a gun in the body cam video, but it's not all that clear. The police yelled at him about six times to drop his weapon and get on the ground, but he didn't do that. He just kept coming and waving his wiener at them. They said they feared for their lives!" The Mountain People claim that the police officers just executed him. Their words!"

People aren't executed," the king corrected him, "They're killed, murdered, assassinated, eliminated, dispatched, or maybe blown away, but not 'executed." Death sentences are executed!"

"Of course, Your Majesty," the prime minister agreed. "I was merely quoting the Gerko family lawyer. He doesn't impress me as being overly bright!"

"Well, have the police indicted," the king replied thoughtfully. "That's what our criminal courts are for. If they're found guilty of criminal irresponsibilty, they should go to prison. If not, that settles the matter!"

"Already done, Your Majesty," the prime minister replied hurredly. "The jury found them all not guilty, that they acted reasonably, under the circumstances. The royal chief of police said that all along. That's what the protest is all about"

"Well, screw 'em," retorted the king. "If the Mountain People don't like it, they can go back where they came from. Have the police round up all these protesters and throw them out of here!"

"They're not going to like that," the prime minister warned him.

"Like I said," the king remarked as he walked out his private door. "Screw 'em!"

"I have had it!" the king exclaimed. 'I hate this job! Our people have all the collective intelligence of a low grade rock! They're never satisfied no matter what I do for them! I'm going to retire and move the royal family to New Zealand!

"But who will we have to lead us, Your Majesty," the prime minister whined. "Surely you know that we can't govern ourselves!"

"Well, you'll just have to make do or do without," the king replied testily. "Maybe if you get all the people together they can come up with some ideas for a new leader. I sure as hell can't!"

So the prime minister called a convention of as many who could fit into the royal courtyard, which turned out to be not nearly as many as he had expected. Nevertheless, they were extremely vocal:

"We want somebody rich and famous!" some of them shouted. "No more of these log cabin dedicated patriots! Drain the marshland!"

"But somebody like us," others chanted. "Somebody who's as ignorant about government as we are!" Power to the people!

"We vote pro-life!" a few shouted. "Death to the anti-lifers!"

"Somebody who surrounds himself with crooks and con men," some insisted. "Who obeys the law today anyway?"

"And a sexy First Lady with nood pichers on the Internet," others cried. "We don't need any more of these Eleanor Roosevelt types!" Sex sells sensational social success!

Others proclaimed, "Somebody who will tweet whatever we want to hear, even if it changes day to day! No more of this 'truth hurts' nonsense!"

In one corner, a group of people with megaphones was trying to drown out everyone else. "MAKE HAPPY VALLEY GREAT AGAIN," they shouted. "SAVE OUR SOCIETY!"

"Give us what we want now," others screamed. "Let our great grandkids worry about climate change or sea level rise or the national debt!"

"Repeal everything!" some cried. "Burn, Baby, Burn!"

"Keep us safe from Mountain People," others chimed in. "Especially their children! They're all rapists and murderers! Build a wall and pretend they'll pay for it."

So the Happy Valleyians elected a famous celebrity who was as morally and intellectually bankrupt as they were to be king. He built a horribly expensive wall around Happy Valley that impoverished the entire nation and made sure that nobody from outside could get into Happy Valley ever again...

...Which may not be such a bad thing, considering.

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." - Journalist H. L. Mencken, 26 July, 1920