SCENE: Mitch BERG is sitting in a Chicago-style Viking restaurant in Richfield, perusing the menu. Devadip Ulysses PLOOBRADOR is escorted in and sits at a table next to BERG. PLOOBRADOR is a mystic prophet and self-described wise man who also doubles as a UPS and Doordash driver. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
BERG: Mr. Ploobrador. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
PLOOBRADOR: Mr. Berg. So what’s been keeping you busy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
BERG: The usual, Collapse of civil society, mostly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
PLOOBRADOR: The tribalism is truly suffocating. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
BERG: Yeah, but it goes beyond that. As Dennis Prager notes, in 1861, when the US split into two nations, and provided you leave out slavery and some of the erosions of federalism that’s happened by that point, they were virtual mirror images of each other, at least in terms of structure and process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And there is just no way that if this nation split up today that’d be the case. If the US split into two nations, one would largely reflect the Constitution as it is, and the other would likely resemble the French Republic with a little dash of Scandinavian parliamentarianism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
PLOOBRADOR: You are not wrong. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
BERG: And of course, the way around that is to renew our commitment to federalism, limited government and checks and balances. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the GOP is killing those institutions with neglect, and the Democrats are killing them very deliberately. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
PLOOBRADOR: I can not argue. Decline and collapse is something that requires a great deal of acquiescence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
BERG: Right. So I’m wondering – at this point, barring a serious “coming to Jesus” re federalism at some point, which seems improbable at best…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
PLOOBRADOR: …agreed… <\/p>\n\n\n\n
BERG: …that some sort of “National Divorce” is inevitable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
PLOOBRADOR: Which would be the most horrible of all things. It wouldn’t be like the American Civil War, with two sides lining up on opposite sides of the Mason Dixon line. It would be more like Bosnia in the ’90s, with ideological “ethnic” cleansing expelling or removing the “infidels” reds from blue territory and vice versa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
BERG: I keep hearing that from people, saying that massive, eliminationist bloodshed is inevitable. And I have to ask – why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the best, it’s a matter of choice. People have to choose to be violent. And as we’ve seen, Big Left has no problem getting violent when they think the ends justify the means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
PLOOBRADOR: Hmmmm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
BERG: And at worst? Well, the notion that populations are so very intermingled means there’s a certain amount of balance of terror involved; would Big Left actually go full-bore Rwanda on conservatives in San Francisco and Chicago while “blues” are stranded in Miami, Austin and Boise?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
PLOOBRADOR: That seems like an odd thing to be pollyannaish about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
BERG: I know. I just think ruling out a national divorce on relatively peaceful, if far from “good” terms, is really premature. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
PLOOBRADOR: Hm. Interesting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
(WAITER, dressed in a bearskin vest and a horned helmet, approaches the tables). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
WAITER: Welcome to Skraeliings Viking Restaurant. Can I take your order<\/p>\n\n\n\n
BERG: I’ll have the Chicago Dog with a side of onion rings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
WAITER: Very good. And you, sir?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
PLOOBRADOR: Make me one with everything. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
(WAITER looks at both BERG and PLOOBRADOR, confused<\/em>). <\/p>\n\n\n\n BERG: I think he’s talking about a hot dog . <\/p>\n\n\n\n (WAITER and PLOOBRADOR both nod). <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n And SCENE.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SCENE: Mitch BERG is sitting in a Chicago-style Viking restaurant in Richfield, perusing the menu. Devadip Ulysses PLOOBRADOR is escorted in and sits at a table next to BERG. PLOOBRADOR is a mystic prophet and self-described wise man who also doubles as a UPS and Doordash driver. BERG: Mr. Ploobrador. PLOOBRADOR: Mr. Berg. So what’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-second-civil-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85590","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=85590"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85640,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85590\/revisions\/85640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}