Failure Is The Only Option

SCENE:  At the Minnesota State Capitol.  Mitch BERG, laptop in hand, is walking between the House and Senate chambers when he encounters Dorbert AARONSON, chairman of the group “Gun Owners of Minnesota”, a non-profit incorporated in Des Moines, Iowa.

AARONSON:  Excuse me – do you know the way to the Minnesota state capitol?

BERG:  Er – you’re in it.

AARONSON:  Ah.  Sorry.  I just got into Des Moines,

BERG:  Saint Paul.

AARONSON:  Right.  Saint  Paul.  I”m here for a hearing on a gun rights bill.

BERG:  Ah. So am I.  The Constitutional Carry bill.

AARONSON:  Yeah.  We’re supporting the bill that we drew up.  It requires immediate dropping of all firearms regulations.

BERG:   Wow.  Who’s carrying it?

AARONSON:   Nobody has the balls to carry this bill!

BERG:   Wow.  So how’s it ever going to pass?

AARONSON:  It’s not supposed to pass.   It’s supposed to educate the voters.

BERG:   Educate them…that the way to change policy and win freedom is to demand things that are politically impossible?

AARONSON:   You have to have the courage to demand the impossible, and nothing less!  It’s called the Politics of Confrontation, and we are masters of it!

BERG:  Masters of…what?  What bills are you behind the passage of?

AARONSON:   We passed “Shall Issue” carry permitting in 2003…

BERG:  No, you didn’t.  That was GOCRA!

AARONSON:   We passed the Capitol Carry, Silencers, the prohibition against confiscating guns after natural disasters…

BERG:   All of those were the result of GOCRA, MNGOPAC and the MNGOC.  Your group had nothing to do with any of those!

AARONSON:  We educated voters to demand nothing less than everything!

BERG:  But by demanding things that can not ever pass, you open the door for our rights to be further

AARONSON:   Anything less than everything is nothing, and anyone who settles for anything less than everything is a complete sell-out!

BERG:   You mean the legislators bringing the bills today…?

AARONSON:   Sellouts!  Cowards!   Worthless collaborationists!

BERG: So in other words, you and your group are focused exclusively on things that can only be reached incrementally – and you reject incrementalism.  Which means the goals can never be reached.

AARONSON:  Only by people who are worthy!

BERG:  Huh.  But if it can never be reached, and you keep fundraising forever on the issue…

AARONSON:  Pretty sweet deal, huh?

BERG:   Huh.  Yes.  Yes it is.

AARONSON:  See this watch?  It’s a Rolex, wrapped around another Rolex.

BERG:  Pretty cool.

And SCENE.

(NOTE:  Any similarities between the fictional character above and the Iowa-based “Minnesota Gun Rights” are purely coincidental, and probably unintentional.  Honest).