Once upon a time there were two princes. One prince, Martin the Foppish, was plagued by accusations of indiscretions with the peasant women of the countryside. The other prince, Harper the Dastardly, maintained that he would destroy all corruption by throwing huge bags of money at it until it went away.

It came to pass that the people of the kingdom wanted a new ruler to govern them. They held a great tournament that would decide once and for all who would be the king. The first event was an archery contest. Sir Martin, momentarily distracted by the light shining off the head of Lord Layton, managed to repeatedly shoot himself in the foot. Sir Harper fired an arrow that killed several homeless people and single mothers. He quickly hid the evidence behind a bag of gold dubloons and was proclaimed winner of the archery contest.

The second event in the tournament was a joust. Sir Martin mounted his steed backwards and forgot his lance at home. Sir Harper, his golden toupee shining gloriously from atop his jet-black steed, promised to give money to anyone who couldn’t afford a horse so that they could ride around on a donkey cart. “But Sir Harper,” protested the people “Why not just lower the price of horses?” “Sir Martin is a LIAR!” replied sir Harper. “But…” began the people “No!” said Sir Harper. “It’s time for CHANGE! He’s a LIAR!” Sir Harper repeated this phrase until the people were hypnotized out of their foolish well-reasoned objections to easy answers. Sir Harper was proclaimed the winner.

The final event was the most exciting. The two combatants were sequestered in a ring filled with mud. It was declared that the contestant who could throw the most mud at the other man would be the winner. “Finally,” thought Sir Martin “Here is an event I can actually win!” Sir Harper made the first volley, splattering scandalous amounts of mud on Sir Martin’s standard. As Sir Martin was preparing his crushing reponse, a dark shadow appeared over the ring…

A passing Duceppe bird, over 40 furlongs in length and weighing 20 stone had flown overhead and released a dropping so big that it blotted out the sun. The castle archers fired arrows, but the bird was too far out of range to be hit. “Fie!” said Martin. “Once again, Duceppe has shit all over EVERYONE and gotten away with it!” For his failure to mud-sling adequately, Sir Martin was disqualified and relegated to the cruddy side of the kingdom.

“What will you do with your new power, oh great king?” the people asked.

“I will throw big bags of money at all problems that come our way. The more money people have, the more they will agree with me.”

“What if a problem comes along that can’t be solved with bags of money?” asked a wise man.

“If such a problem exists,” said King Harper “I don’t want to know about it… or I’ll just blame it on Sir Martin.”

And so Sir Harper won… and the people lost.