{"id":57404,"date":"2016-02-04T12:00:36","date_gmt":"2016-02-04T18:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=57404"},"modified":"2016-02-04T08:41:40","modified_gmt":"2016-02-04T14:41:40","slug":"lightning-fails-to-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=57404","title":{"rendered":"Lightning Fails To Strike"},"content":{"rendered":"

SCENE: \u00a0Mitch BERG is out running his snowblower down the block. \u00a0BILL GUNKEL,\u00a0former Republican who is now chairmain of the Inver Grove Heights chapter of \u201cFormer Republicans for Ron Paul\u201d, pulls up to the curb. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

GUNKEL: \u00a0Hey, Merg!<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0Oh, hey, Bill. \u00a0What’s up?<\/p>\n

GUNKEL: \u00a0Elections are a sham. \u00a0The best way to “participate” in elections is\u00a0withdrawing your consent by refusing to vote.<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0Huh. \u00a0Well, feel free to tell the Minnesota Department of Revenue “I have withdrawn my consent” when they come for your money and property after the DFL wins.<\/p>\n

GUNKEL: \u00a0Hah. \u00a0So what? \u00a0Your participation makes absolutely no difference. \u00a0In fact, settled science has shown us that your chance of dying on your way to the polls is greater than your chance of affecting the outcome of an election<\/a>.<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0That’s absurd!<\/p>\n

GUNKEL: \u00a0 It’s science! \u00a0Why do you hate science?<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0It’s not science. \u00a0It’s arithmetic. \u00a0The writer – apparently a barrista who contributes to “Forbes” – calculated your chance of being the\u00a0single vote that decides an election<\/em> versus your chance of dying in a car accident on the way to the polls.<\/p>\n

GUNKEL: \u00a0So?<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0So nothing. \u00a0Of course\u00a0<\/em>your chances of being\u00a0the single vote\u00a0<\/em>that decides an election are small – although if you think they’re nonexistent, tell it to her<\/a>.<\/p>\n

GUNKEL: \u00a0Hah. \u00a0That’s just the religion you were taught in high school civics class.<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0Right. \u00a0And all of you “libertarians” who sit resplendently above it all snarking at the commoners are so much better than that. \u00a0I get it. Look – it was a stupid article, and it reinforces an even dumber point. \u00a0It’s not about tipping elections yourself. \u00a0It’s about bringing a lot of people who believe the way you do to the polls to help you tip it. \u00a0Which, to be fair, is something your crowd has never been good at.<\/p>\n

GUNKEL: \u00a0Pffft. That\u00a0never\u00a0<\/em>happens. \u00a0If it did, you’d see election results change significantly.<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0It most certainly does. \u00a0Thirty and forty years ago, support for gun control was extremely common at the state and federal levels. \u00a0Over the course of thirty years, Human Rights advocates in ones and twos voted, and convinced others to vote,\u00a0for\u00a0<\/em>rather than against the Second Amendment. \u00a0Today, those regular schnooks voting by their ones and twos have flipped that issue 180 degrees.<\/p>\n

And you “liberty” people could do it too, if you ever stopped purity-testing each other to a fine sheen and started trying to convince people, instead of bellowing about “principles” to rooms full of people just like you.<\/p>\n

GUNKEL: \u00a0Oooh, look – a city snow plow! \u00a0(Forms a snowball, begins the stalk<\/em>)<\/p>\n

And SCENE<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCENE: \u00a0Mitch BERG is out running his snowblower down the block. \u00a0BILL GUNKEL,\u00a0former Republican who is now chairmain of the Inver Grove Heights chapter of \u201cFormer Republicans for Ron Paul\u201d, pulls up to the curb. \u00a0 GUNKEL: \u00a0Hey, Merg! BERG: \u00a0Oh, hey, Bill. \u00a0What’s up? GUNKEL: \u00a0Elections are a sham. \u00a0The best way to “participate” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[236],"class_list":["post-57404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-dramatization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57404","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=57404"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57405,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57404\/revisions\/57405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}