Civil War II Weather Report: Spicy Time Coming

Burning Platform ^ | June 4, 2019 | John Wilder

[vannrox]

Way back in 1998, I ended up with one of the neatest jobs that I had – assessing risks to a major corporation.  The Internet was new at work, and I was being paid to research potential disasters.  It was so interesting and so much fun I felt guilty.  In researching disasters and risk, I came across Y2K.  For those that don’t remember, there was a concern that, as a result of programmers only using two digits to store year information in computers, that many computers and computer programs would cease to function when the calendar flipped over to 00.

There were multiple websites and personalities that were writing about Y2K, and one that I went to from time to time was Cory Hamasaki’s Y2K Weather Report.  Hamasaki was a programmer (he has since passed away) and he had an inside perspective of the ongoing work that was required to keep the systems working.  As a result of his insider knowledge he bought an AR, a lot of food, and spent New Year’s Eve at his remote cabin.

Obviously, the systems kept working.

Not my original.  And I’m sorry.

We live, however, in spicy times, with the potential for them becoming even spicier (I got the Spicy Time meme from Western Rifle Shooters (LINK), which really should be on your daily reading list).  I’ve written several articles about the potential for Civil War, and studied and thought quite a bit about it.  As such, this is the inaugural edition of John Wilder’s Civil War II Weather Report.  I anticipate putting it out monthly.  This first issue will probably be a bit longer than later issues, since I’m putting the framework together and explaining the background.

I’m attempting to put together a framework that measures where we are on the continuum between peace and war.  I’ll even try to develop some sort of measures that show if the level of danger is increasing or decreasing.  Civil wars don’t happen all at once, and like a strong storm, they require the atmosphere to be right.  A weather report is probably a good metaphor.

If you haven’t seen it, the guy with the trident was the weatherman in Anchorman.  And when he has a trident?  People die.

So, to review the future, let’s start by looking at Civil War I so we understand what happened, and what the potential differences are.

Civil War I was:

• Based on philosophical differences – the views of the people, North and South were pretty similar, except that the Northerners were descended from Puritans who sailed on the Mayflower, and the Southerners were descended from the Norman conquerors that took England in 1066 but got booted out after having lost a war in England. Although the North and South were the same people, more or less, with the same heritage, there were enough differences to lead to a war.  And it was a doozy.

Civil War II is different because:

• Certainly we are not the same people today compared to when we generally unified ethnically. Civil War II will likely be fought on the basis of conflicting culture, identity and ideology.

Civil War I was:

• Fought by armies, mostly, with identified geographical centers.

Civil War II is different because:

• At the early stages, at least, Civil War II won’t be fought by armies, and there won’t be defined geographical concentrations. Armies are better at killing people and breaking stuff, but irregulars are way better at atrocity.  Expect the initial stages of hot war to be filled with some pretty rough stuff.

Civil War I was:

• Characterized by a general adherence to the rules of war, though there were some war crimes on either side.

Civil War II is different because:

• There has been a tendency of civil wars in this century to have increasing levels of atrocity during the war. This will continue.

Civil War I was:

• Fought with the intent of reunification (by the North), and separation (by the South). The basic desire of the North was to reunify the country, admittedly under more comprehensive Federal control.  Reconstruction sucked, but the goal was a single country.  That’s why all the Confederate statues were tolerated, and even encouraged.

Civil War II is different because:

• I expect whoever wins to pursue a policy of revenge at the end, especially if it’s the Communists. This is founded based on every single communist revolution ever.  The end of Civil War I occurred in a growing young country with the opportunity to move West.  Now?  Whoever wins will cleanse whatever areas they take.

Civil War I was:

• Fought by organized, elected governments.

Civil War II is different because:

• I’m thinking that one side might be a Caesar-type leading a partial military coalition versus Leftist irregulars, but I might be wrong on this one.

I decided to see what other studies had been done about more recent civil wars, and found that James Fearon and David Laitin (from Stanford) did a study in 2003 on civil wars during the 20^th Century (LINK).  Here’s what they found:

• Civil Wars had a median duration of six years
• Sub-Saharan Africa: 34 wars
• Asia: 33 wars
• North Africa and the Middle East: 17 wars
• Latin America: 15 wars
• Eastern Europe/Former Soviet Union: 13 wars
• The West: 2 wars

Why do civil wars develop?  It’s my bet that political scientists are like economists – six political scientists will generate 15 incorrect theories over coffee each morning, although I, for one, have no idea why we would think we would have a more stable country if we import people who keep having civil wars all of the time.  Fearon and Laitin came up with three different types of civil wars:

• Ethnic: “You other people suck.”
• Nationalist: “We want our own country, because you other people suck.”
• Insurgent: “We want to be the boss, because you suck.”

Okay, I don’t know who the originator was of this meme, but it still cracks me up.

Civil wars were non-existent in ethnically homogeneous and rich countries during the time period of Fearon and Laitin’s study.  As the United States was essentially ethnically homogeneous and rich during Civil War I, you can see that, just like the Revolution, something unique was going on here.  We decided to fight over principles.

Fearon and Laitin had several graphs that pointed out that increased wealth makes up for a portion of ethnic diversity – wealthier, non-homogeneous societies were less likely to go to war than poorer non-homogeneous ones.  Oddly, the very poorest ($48 to $800 a year) societies were less likely to go to war than societies that made just a little more money.  I guess just living was tough enough and going to war against other people who also had nothing was pointless.

One conclusion that Laitin and Fearon found was that civil war onset was no less frequent in a democracy.  Discrimination is not linked to civil war.  Income inequality is not linked to civil war.  Grievances aren’t the cause of civil war – they’re caused by civil wars.  What are risk the factors?

• New nations. I guess they haven’t developed the “don’t kill the president” tradition yet.
• People can hide in mountains.  I guess.
• Higher (absolute) population numbers. I told you big cities were bad.
• Oil exporting.
• High proportion of young males.
• Exporting commodities – risk seemed to peak at about 30% of GDP coming from commodity export.

Okay, not directly on point, but my primary export is memes.

So where does the United States stand as a country today?  I guess I’d throw out the thought that the first prerequisite for Civil War II is economic stress.  Why?  Average Joe won’t pick up an AR to go kill people in the next county if Joe has beer in the cooler and another episode of Naked and Afraid® next week.  If Joe has a job and a wife and a mortgage, well, there just won’t be action.  I meant war, silly.  Get your mind out of the gutter.  Our risk now is relatively low based on economics.

The United States is developing a higher absolute population.  That puts us at risk.

With immigration, the United States is forming a higher proportion of young males.  That puts us at risk.

State weakness is generally correlated with civil wars.  I’m torn on this one.  On one hand, we have the largest number of laws ever, along with a very large enforcement mechanism.  On the other?  Laws, both state and Federal are increasingly just ignored.  Victor Davis Hanson describes this paradox in California (LINK).

Nearby civil wars are associated with having a civil war.  Latin America is a civil war factory . . . so we’re at risk.

From the above five predictors of civil war, we have four of them.  Obviously this doesn’t tell the whole story.  The United States has a peaceful history, and, unlike a less established nation, the general populace is going to assume that today was good, so tomorrow will be pretty good, too.  And, generally that’s a good way to predict the future:  tomorrow will look like today.  Building the conditions for civil wars generally take years and what was abnormal becomes normal and tolerated as time goes by.

I’m going to attempt to try to make a metric showing the rise in various societal factors that I think might lead to civil war.  Some of the obvious are:

• Economic metrics – economic growth, unemployment, average wealth.
• Organized violence metrics – news of riots, other organized violence and protests.
• Political instability metrics – use of the term “impeach”, “civil war”, “electoral college.”
• Sites banned – numbers of political speakers silenced.
• Number of illegal immigrants per month. This shows greater economic stress or greater problems at their actual home.

Yeah, you just can’t add the North and the South together and end up with a Civil War.  Unless you do it in binary, then you could have a Bipolar War?

I’ll then combine them into an index.  If you have other items that you think can be tracked and should be tracked, let me know, and I may incorporate them, especially if they’re easy find and to incorporate, because I’m lazy.

Finally, Civil War won’t show up all at once, it may take years to get people to the idea that war is better than dealing with your weird neighbor by going into your house and watching a marathon of YouTube® videos where people turn $40 of propane and a bunch of aluminum cans into $10 worth of aluminum ingots.  It’s easier than fighting, right?

Following is my take on the steps that will lead to actual civil war.  I humbly call it the Wilder Countdown to Civil War II™.

1. Things are going well.
2. People begin to create groups.
3. People begin to look for preferential treatment.
4. Opposing ideology to the prevailing civic ideology is introduced and spread.
5. Those who have an opposing ideology are considered evil.
6. People actively avoid being near those of opposing ideology.  Might move from communities or states just because of ideology.
7. Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly.
8. Opposing sides develop governing/war structures.  Just in case.
9. Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.
10. Open War.

I bolded number six.  That’s where I think we are right now.  Violence is occurring, but it’s not monthly, so I don’t think we’re at step seven.  Yet.  And I think we can live at step nine for a long time as long as we don’t have the bottom drop out of the economy.  Might there be some trigger that takes us to nine in a hurry?  Sure.  But I’m willing to bet that we see it take a few years, rather than a few months.  My bet is no sooner than 2024, but I’ve been wrong before, way back in 1989.

This is a project where I’m not only very open to contributions and anonymous contributions, I’m actively soliciting them.  Let me know if you’ve got commentary, criticism, news stories, or suggestions to make issue two (probably in early July) better, either down below or at my email, movingnorth@gmail.com

While we can’t predict catastrophic storms with 100% accuracy, it’s probably about time that someone started looking at the horizon to see what they could see.  Because I see what might be a storm coming.

[flamberge]

But huge militias maneuvering against each other? That’s just a fantasy, for now at least. In a hundred years, who knows?

Try 2027 for a waypoint.

Not "huge militias". Dozens of heavily armed gangs squabbling over territory in major urban zones and some rural areas too.. The local Governments will be trying to play off the gangs against each other in order to maintain a semblance of control. Access to cash, manpower, and weapons will be decisive factors.

"Votes" can be manufactured as needed. Courts will rule in favor of who ever appears to be in charge.

See Chicago and Los Angles for worked examples today. Repeat in two dozen other cities and multiply the intensity by a factor of 20 or so.

Central authority will break down under economic stresses triggered by the pending insolvency of State and Municipal pension plans and Medicaid plans. This will increase exponentially by 2024 and the response will be Federal Government bailouts. The checks will be deposited every month; you may be quite certain. This of course will cause massive inflation. By 2027, things should really be cooking.

The Federal Government will be busy purging dissident individuals from civil service and any role in public life. Large corporations will be aggressively doing the same in the so-called private sectors. Think of "public-private partnerships" and what they really entail.

Large Government and large Corporations are symbiotic allies.

Governments will sponsor "Public Safety Auxiliary Forces" when they can no longer fund regular police departments. These will be local militia, and mostly with a Leftist and ethnic political orientation. They will be poorly-trained, but ultimately permitted and well-supplied with small arms.

Again, see the "Sharia Patrols" which operate in New York City with approval (or at least toleration) from the Police.

Lots of raw kindling available to start a fire when formerly middle-class people find themselves taxed out of their homes and impoverished by constantly rising prices.

Most of the kinetic activity will be localized. Others with more experience have said; "The greatest threats to your life and liberty are within five miles of where you live". That sounds right to me.

[JAKraig]

I’m not sure I consider myself a “Prepper”, I do however consider myself prepared. The question I guess we should all ask is what am I prepared for.

First, most importantly, I consider myself prepared for the coming of The Lord. If you aren’t prepared for that I’m not sure how important any other preparations are.

Second, I have prepared my home for natural disasters as much as possible with goods and food stuff for our rather large family to last certainly at least a year. While I have a spring on the property I have also stored hundreds of 1/2 gallon and 1 gallon bottles of water. The spring will be great for bathing and toilet flushing but without treatment not so much for drinking. We do have the carbon filters so we can drink it if we have to.

Third, We have installed 12KW worth of solar cells on the roof. We have 3 freezers. While we could of course get by without them there is much that we would like to continue enjoying in them. Our electrical system consists of the solar and a very substantial battery backup system. We also have a gasoline and a NG generator. In an emergency I don’t expect to be able to get gasoline or NG but we will use it if we have it and need it.

Fourth, We have a large yard. While we started with 29 acres we have gotten rid of much of it, it is too much work for old people, we still have 7 acres and have kept up our gardening and canning skills.

Fifth, We have the means of protecting what we have. We do not have the ability to hold off an army but we do have weapons and munitions to hold off marauding bands of those would would forcefully take what we have.

For us prepping is not a hobby. Being prepared is a way of life, it just makes sense to us. By preparing we live much better on less than most do with the same income. We have always saved and we have always bought more than we need when something is a good price. A good example is: I like Welch’s Grape Juice. Typical cost today is about $4 a half gallon, to us that is expensive. A few times a year it goes on sale for less than $2 a half gallon still expensive but not as horrible. We never buy it at full price and when it goes on sale we travel to all the local stores and get all they have on the shelves and then get a rain check when nothing is left. It sounds like a lot of money but it is a huge savings over time. The grape juice is only one example, we try to do that with most everything we purchase.

We have always saved money. We lost a bunch in the 2008 crash and have redirected our savings into real estate. In real estate we have our money albeit tied up in the property but we also have a pretty substantial return. Typically 10 years of rent pays for the property and then some but we still have the property, we are out literally nothing but some time. Once you have several properties you realize it is substantial income. In retirement it is especially nice.

We have learned that storing some cash is important but that it decreases in it’s real value rapidly. Of course the stock market can also do that so we have looked for ways of saving that will retain value. We kind of like having some silver and gold. Mostly we like American silver coins, what is called junk silver. In an emergency silver coins are “real” money and while paper money value decreases or could become worthless silver and gold are never worthless.

There are many people on the Free Republic that have shared their books and pamphlets with all of us and we keep those for a reference for when the Internet is gone. We really appreciate those who have taught us so much.

Again we don’t consider ourselves preppers but we do consider ourselves more prepared than many of our neighbors, probably much more than most of our neighbors. We worry that if a shtf scenario our neighbors might turn on us to take what we have. If I were starving perhaps I would do the same. We have made plans for our children and their children to join us in a bad time and help us with security. We have taught them all to be good shooters. Everyone says they couldn’t actually shoot anyone but if someone is threatening your child’s life it becomes real easy.

We have enough and enough to share.

While we realize we could be better prepared, we feel a certain satisfaction knowing that we are not dependent on the government, neighbors, our children or even utility companies for our continued survival until The Lord decides to take us home.

[metmom]

This little 10 minute video explains quite well the progression from a representative republic to a totalitarian state.

We, sadly, are further along on that line that we should be.

We’re rapidly reaching the anarchy stage.

Types of Government, Explained

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJEuZrvNYg0

[metmom]

And that’s why we’re leaving NYS.

[The Great RJ]

If in the likelihood that Trump is re-elected, I look for mass protests quickly turning violent. This will escalate to political assassinations, terrorist bombings and burning cities. I would expect martial law to be declared in some areas with US military forces being used to put down the insurections. This left wing violence may trigger reprisals by well armed right wing groups. 2021 may not be a very good year for anyone.

[archy]

If Joe has a job and a wife and a mortgage, well, there just won’t be action. I meant war, silly.

In the 4-month-long Finnish Civil War [during which about 15 of the population of Finland died; it took the United States four years 1861-1865, to kill off about 2% of its population]some of the most serious and efficient killers were the women. And there were the Lottas the Lotta Svard.

I expect that the American woman will prove the same. Some will be widows; others will bring Hubby along for the party. Some will not.

[firebrand]

You don’t need both sides to be ready for it.

[Boogieman]

No, because there are no opposing ideologies in Chicago and other large cities. That’s just lefties killing each other.

[firebrand]

Plus it will be puppeteered by others, so it doesn’t have to be based on a real grievance or set of grievances.

[hal ogen]

We left THE Freak state, maryland, for southern UT several years ago. There is good life away from LIB lunatics. Free at last! Thank God, free at last!

[Boogieman]

If there are mass organized armies roaming around, I think it will be them who will be deciding what they want to tolerate...

[Taxman]

This essay should be of interest to you, Matt.

I’d be interested in your thoughts.

[archy]

CW2 will resemble the American Revolution, which was a real civil war, with atrocities especially in the South.

CW2 will resemble Finland, 1918, in which they still can't decide to call it the Finnish Civil War, War for Independence, or War to Eliminate Traitors. It will resemble the Yugoslav breakup [and bombing of Belgrade by Clinton] and the taking of Grozny during the Soviet Chechnyan War. And there will be atrocities everywhere.

I've been present during two of the XX Century's national revolutions [Cuba,1958 and Rhodesia/Zimbabwe 1979] I know.

[Boogieman]

“Florida’s a Republican State - we should be able to limit democrats moving here. California’s a liberal State - they should have the right to restrict new Republicans moving to their State... “

Sounds like the haggling over whether the western states should be slave states or free states in the lead up to CWI.

[archy]

Yup. By then we'll be approaching the demographic tipping point of an electorate that's majority Left.

Unless half or three-quarters of them have been eaten by the dog packs.

[laplata]

I’m at # 6. I want nothing to do with them and avoid them as much as I can.

[archy]

When I went to reset the calendar in the computer, I mistakenly typed in 1900 instead of 2000. Within a few days I started getting spam from the Committee to Re-Elect Calvin Coolidge, porn shots of President Harding boinking his secret girlfriends, and investment advice from David Sarnoff.

I’d fix it, but the investment advice has been fantastic. I’m making money hand over fist, although I’m leveraged up to my eyeballs.

I still don't know what to do with all this damned gold. I hate to get rid of it, it's so pretty. Bet it's so heavy!

[laplata]

“Im with him on the not before 2024. When Trump leaves office all bets are off”.

You’re exactly right!

Trump should drop Pence in 2020 and pick someone like Ron DeSantis of Florida who would be better able to continue the fight.

[laplata]

“Just my personal opinion but I say if Barr let’s the coup conspirators walk the government of the USA is finished”.

You are correct. If they get away with this, next time they will go full Stalin on us. We’ll be in a Dictatorship and at their mercy.....comply or be eliminated.

[laplata]

Thank you.