(SCENE:\u00a0 Mitch BERG is sitting in a book store coffee shop with Adriana TROMP and Jamal BECKETT, two College Republican activists visiting from Wyoming and Texas, respectively.\u00a0 The three are drinking coffee and engrossed in a conversation).\u00a0<\/p>\n
BECKETT:\u00a0 I find that hard to believe.<\/p>\n
TROMP:\u00a0 Yeah, me too.\u00a0 You expect us to believe that all arguments with liberals follow the same exact template?<\/p>\n
BERG: Of course not.\u00a0 It’s arguments with 95% of liberals – I’m being generous – in one-party liberal cesspools like the Twin Cities, New York and Chicago.\u00a0 They’re people who come from “progressive” families, come up through an educational system run by “progressive” academics and union workers, attend a college or university run by “progressives” where conservative dissent is actively squelched, and in many cases go on to work in institutions like government, academia or the non-profit sector where only “progressive” <\/strong>thought is ever heard.\u00a0<\/p>\n So, basically, arguments with that 95% of liberals go like this:\u00a0 Stage 1:\u00a0 The pat premise.\u00a0 When that is contested, we move to Stage 2, the Single Round of Factoids.\u00a0 These factoids are almost always taken from the current round of Democrat chanting points, and are pretty much inevitably debunked with countervailing fact.\u00a0 Which leads us to Stage 3:\u00a0 Frustrated deflection.\u00a0 Desperate for anything to try to retain the supremacy to which they believe they are entitled, they’ll toss any rhetorical crap they can out there to deflect from the actual argument.\u00a0 When called on it, they move to Stage 4:\u00a0 The Ad Hominem.\u00a0 At which point the argument is over.\u00a0<\/p>\n BECKETT:\u00a0 It seems like a stretchy premise…<\/p>\n (BERG sees Avery LIBRELLE walking into the coffee shop.\u00a0 He squelches his urge to look away and avoid LIBRELLE’s eye, but instead waves and beckons LIBRELLE to the table).\u00a0<\/p>\n BERG:\u00a0 OK, watch this.\u00a0 I’ll signal you the stages with my fingers.\u00a0 OK?\u00a0 (Waves at LIBRELLE, who has arrived at the table)\u00a0 Avery Librelle!\u00a0 Hi!\u00a0 How ya doing!\u00a0 This is Adriana Tromp and Jamal Beckett.\u00a0 They’re college kids.\u00a0<\/p>\n LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Ah!\u00a0 May the spirit of Wellstone be with you this season.\u00a0 And (looks at BECKETT) happy Kwanzaa to you!<\/p>\n BECKETT:\u00a0 Um, we’re Methodists…<\/p>\n BERG:\u00a0 Hey, the DFL is sure setting Minnesota up to botch things in the next year.\u00a0<\/p>\n LIBRELLE:\u00a0 We have a billion dollar surplus, thanks to the DFL in the Legislature and governor’s office!<\/p>\n (BERG holds up one finger)<\/p>\n LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 The DFL is #1.<\/p>\n BERG:\u00a0 In the sense my elementary school teacher used, yes.\u00a0 But that “surplus” is a $200 million increase in an $800 million surplus that the GOP racked up, on top of erasing a $6 Billion deficit, without raising taxes.\u00a0 And the DFL hiked taxes $2 Billion to get that extra $200 million.\u00a0 That’s not really a huge return on the investment.\u00a0<\/p>\n LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Pfft.\u00a0 Numbers are numbers.<\/p>\n (BERG holds up two fingers)<\/p>\n LIBRELLE: Yes.\u00a0 Peace.<\/p>\n BERG:\u00a0 But the worst of the DFL’s job, business and revenue-killing taxes, like the B2B and Warehouse taxes, haven’t even kicked in yet!\u00a0\u00a0 This is going to turn another epic deficit!<\/p>\n LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Oh, yeah?\u00a0 What were you doing when Tim Pawlenty ran up a six billion dollar deficit?\u00a0 Huh?<\/p>\n (BERG holds up three fingers.\u00a0 BECKETT\u00a0nods, TROMP smiles in recognition).\u00a0 Er, Avery?\u00a0 The DFL controlled the legislature completely in 2009 and 2010.\u00a0 The legislature passes the budget.\u00a0 Pawlenty fought as hard as he could, but he couldn’t completely resist a two-chamber press of tax-and-spend DFLers.\u00a0 The DFL passed that deficit, and spent the past four years trying to fob the blame onto Republicans.\u00a0<\/p>\n (Berg’s pinky finger twitches)<\/p>\n LIBRELLE:\u00a0 You are ugly and stupid.<\/p>\n BERG, TROMP and BECKETT:\u00a0 Four!\u00a0 (They trade high-fives).<\/p>\n LIBRELLE:\u00a0 You conservatives are sure weird.\u00a0 (Ambles away, dribbling latte).<\/p>\n TROMP:\u00a0 Is that a man or a woman?<\/p>\n BECKETT:\u00a0 I can’t tell.<\/p>\n BERG:\u00a0 Oh, that?\u00a0 Well, it’s like this…<\/p>\n (And SCENE).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (SCENE:\u00a0 Mitch BERG is sitting in a book store coffee shop with Adriana TROMP and Jamal BECKETT, two College Republican activists visiting from Wyoming and Texas, respectively.\u00a0 The three are drinking coffee and engrossed in a conversation).\u00a0 BECKETT:\u00a0 I find that hard to believe. TROMP:\u00a0 Yeah, me too.\u00a0 You expect us to believe that all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[236],"class_list":["post-40653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-war","tag-dramatization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40653"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40653\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40681,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40653\/revisions\/40681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}