American By Birth, North Dakotan By The Grace Of God

The guys over at Fraters Libertas are shooting their mouths off about invading good ol' North Dakota. (Okay actually, one guy over at Fraters - the Elder - wrote about shutting down the border and/or redrawing some borders, and a reader of theirs wrote about invading ND; but I'd hate to let the facts get in the way of halfway-solid intro to this post.) I think the cause of the beef with the Peace Garden State has something to do with an alleged chapter of the Fifth Column that is made up of NoDak ex-pats and operating here in the Twin Cities. I can't say whether I'm a member of this group or even whether it exists, but I can say I know who I proudly would have voted for in the cabal cell-leader election.

But as to this pending invasion of North Dakota by Minnesota - the Fraters instigators of this plot are pretty much already congratulating themselves for occupying their neighbor to the west. I would just like to point out three very-likely scenarios in which their plans fail:

1) Don't forget 1939: The Minnesota invasion could echo the USSR's invasion of Finland in '39. The Soviets expected to overrun heavily-outmanned Finland in twelve days. They ended up staying (and winning in) four-plus months. That doesn't sound too bad - but problem was, they invaded in November and weren't expecting to have to fight a winter war against an opponent that thrived in the bitter cold. The Soviets suffered 400,000 casualties during their invasion. The Minnesotans may invade soon and suffer a similar fate - Lord knows Twin Cities natives (who are convinced TC winters are tough, what a freakin' joke!) wouldn't last long in a North Dakota winter.

On a related note - I recently read The Winter War by Eloise Engle and Lauri Paananen and noticed how the Soviets invaded Finland to "liberate" it from capitalism. Minnesota would likely similarly invade North Dakota to "liberate" it from socialism; after all, the web sites for its state bank and state mill virtually brag about them being unique state-owned institutions in the USA.

2) The spirit of '67: North Dakota has two Air Force bases. What if they were to pull a preemptive air strike ala Israel in 1967? What with all the saber-rattling and troops massing on the east side of the Red River, they might just do it. Minnesota has no air force to speak of. You could argue that they could quickly move to armament their air fleet, but they would run into two major delays: a) NWA would hold out until they got state bail-out money, and b) To put pilots into NWA's planes would require a sweep of Twin Cities airport-area bars that would take hours upon hours.

3) Grand Forks = Quagmire: The Fraters have already tallied Fargo to be on their side. That is fine. They can deal with all those Cow College fans obsessed with being a Division I power. The Fargoans soon will be boring you with how they want to play the Gophers in football (Glen Mason: "Yes!") and how they are "going to get a Division I hockey team and join the WCHA." So Minnesota will move its armies to the north in order to strike at Grand Forks. If the Fraters guys are in charge at the northern theater, it will be a slow doom. They'll get entrenched in their HQ at Whitey's in East Grand Forks on the MN side of the river, drinking reasonably-priced taps, plotting their invasion on cocktail napkins, and getting beer lazy. This scenario ends one of two ways: a) They end up trading down their weapons supply over a period of time for grinders from the Red Pepper, or b) They get busted after sneaking across the border and into a Sioux/Gophers game at North Dakota's crown jewel. (They'll lose control and blow their cover by cheering when the Gophers win at Engelstad like they always do.)

But I'm sure calmer head will prevail. Once the Minnesotans realize what a great deal they've been getting overall in NoDak imports, we'll all shake hands and smile over beers together. Give peace a chance, 'kay?

(Oh, and if I'm not posting to my blog or answering my emails, it's because I've cleared out of my Minneapolis abode as my homeland - or Pat Robertson - has decided to drop the big one on ya. Sweet dreams.)