We Were Made for Civil War

The American Conservative ^ | October 29, 2018 | MICHAEL VLAHOS

[Jack Black]

Civil division and its conquests are the true makers of America, and continue to shape its national progress—or threaten its undoing. Indeed, the very founding of the United States advanced the principle of civil conflict over all others. Our very identity, from the start, was framed as triumph over the “other.” We cast them out, like France cruelly expelled their heretic Huguenots in the 17th century. For our part, we drove out 100,000 loyalists we once counted as blood brothers. This civil war itself lasted 20 years, from 1763 to 1783, but the ensuing cold war and residual battles with Britain did not end until 1815.

By then there was another fissure in the nation. After 1815 a new cultural migration began. Young America itself split into two opposed ways of life and two increasingly bitter political identities, which fought another 20-year conflict, from 1857 to 1877. Threats of secession and nullification dominated American politics all the way to 1896 with Plessy v. Ferguson. Only the “lucky” generations, from the 1930s to the 1970s, could pretend to celebrate something like national unity. Even then, such privilege was the demesne of a single, favored political majority—completely coterminous with the prevailing liberal establishment.

[Jack Black]

One of the most thoughtful articles on the possibility of a second civil war. The author's sadness rings throughout the piece, it is almost a eulogy.

[Da Coyote]

This will have to happen.
The slimes will not give up, and those of us who actually can read and the understand the constitution will not allow such bottom dwellers to change it to the benefit of mentally challenged folks who don’t know who they are, what sex they are, what the requirements of a citizen are, or many other common sense items.
Sad, but one must wonder...better sooner or later?

[Jack Black]

CW II PING!

About the CWII Ping List

The CWII Ping List is short for Civil War II. It is NOT a list of people advocating another Civil War in America. It is a list of people who are interested in the parallels between the Civil War (or War Between the States, if you prefer) and our current situation, or more generally are noting the references to a 'coming Civil War' that are made in the press.

FR rules do not permit advocating for the overthrow of the Republic, and I am not aware of anyone doing so on the list. Still many do see that as the political climate worsens we may be heading in a direction that makes such a conflict all but inevitable, particularly if other avenues for resolving our differences are taken away. Such as widespread vote fraud by leftists making elections meaningless, or a small cadre of judges over-ruling all attempts to end destructive policies over the clear will of the people.

The correct keyword tag for the Civil War II ping list is "CWII".
Please Freep Mail me to get on the list

[2banana]

Oh please - enough of the “both parties are equally at fault” meme...

“Both sides rush to tear down the constitutional order. Just since the 2016 election, we have witnessed a rolling thunder of Blue and Red elite rhetoric”

[Nateman]

All these bloodthirsty people itching for civil war. How about we try Article V first since it was made specifically to restore freedom without having to shoot anybody .

[the OlLine Rebel]

Actually, not “2nd”, as it rightfully points out much of our history has been civil war.

“For our part, we drove out 100,000 loyalists”

And kept many as well. Not all were driven out or wanted to leave.

“battles with Britain did not end until 1815.”

Actually they continued, as Britain tried to foothold in the west and even, to some extent, might have crept into the so-called Civil War.

[LeoWindhorse]

The wrong side won in 1865

[rockrr]

Thank God the right side won in 1865

[MileHi]

You’ve been pushing this “coming civil war” for as long as I can remember. Yet there has still been no civil war. Obviously this is just conspiracy nonsense propagated by kooks. Why would anyone buy into this stuff if it hasn’t happened within a year of it first being put forward?

[KrisKrinkle]

Wasn’t the losing side governed by Democrats, the predecessors of those who who seek to destroy the country today?

If the South had won, do you think the Northern Democrats and the Copperheads would have moved South, or stayed in the North to cause further destruction?

[wastoute]

When you have a congressman threatening to nuke 2nd Amendment supporters it’s basically over.

[EvilOverlord]

When you have a congressman threatening to nuke 2nd Amendment supporters it’s basically over

Yeah, this is what people here don't seem to understand, but comments like this should make clear.

The progressives are not against guns.

They are against you having guns.

[semaj]

Please sign me up for the occasional CWII ping.

[Balding_Eagle]

Thanks for that.

‘Both sides’ indeed.

No point in reading an author who can’t tell right from wrong.

[Lurker]

Peaceful coexistence with these people is not possible. We should stop pretending that it is.

And plan accordingly.

L

[SES1066]

I recall the late, very great James Mcpherson speaking in Ken Burn’s “Civil War” and his penetrating insight into what changed in the language before and after that war. Before the US Civil War (USCW), it was common to say “these United States”, that is pluralized to show that the basic unit of the Union was the State in federation with the rest. After the war, it quickly became “The United States” as the individual states lost their sovereignty and became units of the whole.

Now, with all of the rhetoric that gets thrown around about a second US Civil War, some very pertinent differences need to be considered between then and now. Unlike the USCW, where the differences were very geographical, today’s philosophic divisions are far more like Britain’s 1640s Civil War where the factions, Royalists vs Parliamentarians, were intermixed throughout the country and that meant that the entire country became a potential battlefield.

Another item to consider long before we even come close to such a horror, the world is a much, much smaller place than it was in 1860 let alone 1640. We have competitors/enemies who would love us to turn inward and fight each other. While the French ‘dabbled’ in the British CW, and both Britain and France had diplomatic involvement in our USCW, a modern CW with the USofA turned inward, would unleash the currently restrained powers of China and Russia and make for a considerable change in the EU as well. No matter who would ‘win’ a USCW2, the world might make even the winner feel like a loser.

In short, we are becoming like the North & South of the 1850s, feeling like we need a CW to end this maddening polarity. My view is that this wish is almost sure to be fatal in the long run. I fear it greatly!

[MichaelCorleone]

Your suggestion is a good one and, frankly, the preferred course of action.

Problem is many, many people on and off line have been trying to gin up support for it, but years of effort and we’re no closer to a convention than we were 10 years ago.

[Billthedrill]

There is a complication in today's political stance that makes an amicable separation unlikely, and I thought I'd point it out before the thread devolves into yet another interminable Lost Cause debate. It is this: that the animating ideology of the Left carries with it a requirement for world revolt, world transformation, world socialism, world government, world domination. Less will not suffice. If Clausewitz was correct that war is politics in another form, the opposite is equally true. The true line of demarcation here is freedom versus bovine herd obedience, and the elites are in favor of the latter because they imagine, to a single man and woman, themselves in charge.

Denials that their intention is not totalitarian ring false in view of such movements as mass migration and elite control of production under a spurious environmental flag. As Daniel Webster said, they mean to rule well, but they mean to rule, hopefully making things as comfortable as possible for we the ruled for our own good according to their judgment, and only so far as necessary. That we might not want to be ruled at all counts for nothing.

So no, no neatly geographically divided civil war this time, no overt force of arms with a sharply demarcated outcome. We are past the time when the Will to Rule had to disguise itself under fair euphemisms. It's out front now, that's the phase we're in if such things even have phases. And the reason the Left is so desperate to commandeer the resources of the state to fight it for them is that they'd lose it any other way.

[MichaelCorleone]

Amen brother.

[ZULU]

Yep. Sadly, it’s a better alternative
than living in another VENEZUELA!!