Shot in the Dark

Last Gleaming

SCENE:  Mitch BERG is shopping for chainsaw chains at MENARDS.  He sees Garth MULLER, a professional golf pro and Vice Chair for Ideological Purity at the Minnesota 5th CD Libertarian Party.  He is dressed head to toe in Minnesota Vikings wear.  

MULLER:  Hey, Merg!  People who pledge allegiance to Skycloth before football games are no better than Nazis who sieg-heiled along with Hitler.

BERG:  “Pledge allegiance to Skycloth?  What are you talking about?”

MULLER:  The American flag, and the miltaristic ritual of standing for the national anthem before NFL games.

BERG:  Before what?

MULLER:  NFL games.

BERG:  That’s what I thought you said.  I don’t stand to pledge allegiance to the government.  I do it out of respect for what this nation is supposed to be about.  And other than some community opprobium, there’s really no consequence for not standing for the anthem.

MULLER:  But all the fuss about Kapernick and the other people taking a knee…

BERG:  I don’t really care.  Let ’em.  It costs nobody anything.

But – that team you support?

MULLER:  Go Vikes!

BERG:  Yeah – if I decide not to pay my part of the taxes for “The People’s Stadium”, and carry the protest on long enough, men with guns will beat down my door and take the money.  To pay for your recreation, sixteen Sundays a year.

So – “Skycloth”, consequence-free observance of an ideal.

Your NFL game?  My money being taken from me by force.  Which is either theft or slavery.

MULLER:  But…

BERG:  I know.  Principle.

And SCENE.

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Comments

6 responses to “Last Gleaming”

  1. BradC Avatar
    BradC

    …Garth MULLER….

    LOLOLOLOLOL!!!! 😀 😀 😀

  2. Mr. D Avatar
    Mr. D

    The Vikings gear was a nice touch.

  3. Bill C Avatar
    Bill C

    …Garth MULLER….

    LOLOLOLOLOL!!!! 😀 😀 😀

    His alter ego unfriended me after I expressed my contempt for the first Mpls BLM freeway blocking, whenever that was, protesting someone who made the wrong decisions and caught a bullet for their choices. I was “endorsing invalid and unconstitutional government violence” or some such puffery.

    Sigh. I too had a stretch where I played purity tests. 20 years ago. I messaged him and wished him and his cohort, the alter ego of Stephanie Marie ANNAN, adieu and best wishes living in their purity wallpapered castles while the rest of us live in pragmatic reality.

  4. Bento Guzman Avatar
    Bento Guzman

    Their is far less difference between Libertarians and Marxists than neither the Libertarians or the Marxists are willing to admit.

  5. Mitch Berg Avatar
    Mitch Berg

    BG,

    Not in terms of ideological nuts and bolts, so much.

    But in terms of how much both systems depend on magical thinking, yes.

  6. Bento Guzman Avatar
    Bento Guzman

    Both Marxists and Libertarians believe that morality is another word for economics. In fact, everything is another word for economics.

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