Yes. Tanks in the streets. And churches.
Are the issue dividing left and right more severe than those in the 60s around the time of Vietnam? Maybe. But that didn't lead to a civil war. In fact we were much closer then based on the fact that there were multiple leftist organizations which had renounced politics and explicity set out to fight. These include the Black Liberation Army, the Black Pathers, the Weather Underground, the Symbionese Liberation Army, and others. Despite several hundreds of fanatics willing to fight, backed by tens of thousands of leftists, they failed to inculcate the civil war they wanted. The vast overwhelming majority on both sides would not support their radical proposition that politics had failed. The left was able, eventually, and in part due to the fear the militant left engendered, to force many changes in society. Changes which still anger conservatives and have greatly contributed to the deep division the author sites.
Yet despite these differences I see little or no broad support for the military option on either side. In the first Civil War state after state passed resolutions in their legislature leaving the Union. These were often followed up by plebecites among all voters that re-affirmed the majority desire of these citizens to break away. Millions volunteered (or were drafted) to fight in the ensuing civil war.
I don't see the analogy yet. I believe today is more like the sixties. Perhaps a few people feel it is time to give up on politics, by they are a tiny minority. The only domestic war-like act in recent years was the McVeigh bombing. It was roundly denounced by citizens and politicians of every stripe. It would be hard to find one organized group that had anything good to say about it. On the left most of the violence of the last few decades has been largely symbolic violence against property, and again the majority of leftists have denounced it. The only group that has actually caused anything remotely resembling a civil war are the LA King rioters. But that was clearly a riot, and not overly motivated by the positions the author discusses on either the left or right.
In summary while we are clearly deeply divided politically I feel Mr. Prager has completely failed to make his case that this is even a percursor to civil war. His statement that it already IS a civil war is pure hyperbole. It made for a nice provocitive title, but there is no evidence submitted to prove that his bold assertion is true. It is not, and we are not in the midst of a civil war.
BTW, if you are going to say the right uses language just a violent please cite sources. TIA.
What about those "I hope the war is a disaster, it will help the Democrats" comments from the likes of Democrat stalwarts like Ellen Ratner and salon's Gary Kamiya?
Ellen Ratner's pre-war comments, http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30414 or http://bulldogbulletinarchives.lhhosting.com/page32B1.htm
Fox News Channel's "Your World" Dec. 28, 2002
Gary Kamiya of salon.com, April 11, 2003 column.
You say, "the majority of leftists have denounced [symbolic violence against property]." I'd love to see a source or two. TIA.
You are correct about the 1960s groups. But my recollection was that darn few knew the intent of those groups. Guys like H. Rap Brown, Newton, et al. were presented on the "news" as civil rights activists and victims of "lawn order" racism, the term used to ridicule law and order concerns.
"Anti-war" groups chanting "Ho Chi Min is going to win" and waving their blue, red, and yellow "protest banner" (as the press called the Viet Cong flag) were featured nightly. So well presented by the press that North Vietnam general Giap honored the American press by calling them his best guerilla.
Yes, I remember those days. The difference today is we have a free press. In those days you had to depend upon limited circulation publications to get news. Many of us knew what was happening, the vast majority of Americans thought we were nuts. The majority accepted the sanitized images of the the leftist pukes. The New Left took over control of the Democrat Party in the 1970s driving traditional Democrats outof the party. Things cooled a bit. The Third Way was invented.
This is not a civil war in the 19th century model. This is modeled after the Revolution. It is not necessarily against the government either. It is similar in that "all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such [evil]. . ."
Those abuses include PC, treason against our sovereignty by deferring to internationalists, the leftist pukes' argument that America is the "root cause of most of the world's problems," that our military is the biggest threat to world peace, and many more offenses listed here many times in the past.
When a large part of your nation (including much of the opposition leadership and most of the prestige media) is secretly cheering for the bloody defeat of your military during a time of war, you are in a Cold Civil War.
When they are working to subjugate American sovereignty to the rule of the U.N., you are in a Cold Civil War.
When they are working for "open borders," driver's licenses for illegals, amnesty for illegals etc with the intention of adding to the voter rolls of the opposition party, you are in a Cold Civil War.
Those are just three examples.
What could turn the Cold Civil War hot? What happened in Florida in the 2000 election was a harbinger of things to come.
If massive vote fraud occurs in a presidential election (can you say "touchscreen voting?") that could well trigger a Hot Civil War. >{? Another trigger could be a manufactured event, such as the bogus "Stadium Massacre" described in my novel.
Yes. Tanks in the streets. And churches.
Are the issue dividing left and right more severe than those in the 60s around the time of Vietnam? Maybe.Yes.
Someone has not been paying attention.
This is not simple disagreement. This is in your face by-any-means defiance of orderly reasoned debate: Florida, the threats in California, the control by other means violent demonstrations, arson, explosives in backpacks, the usual historic tools of the clueless-turned activist.
It is the precursor of a shooting war.
When two things have happened, the success of anti-firearms and the defining of self-defense as a crime worse than the criminal's (as in England, Canada), I expect the beginnings of the shooting war.
Tell that to the Cold War that Ronald Reagan bloodlessly won.
Hmmm... a Cold Civil War II? ;^)
True. Prager's essay is such a hodgepodge. Most often it looks like he compares the left activist wing of the Democrat party with mainstream American attitudes. But some of the views he attributes to the right are out of the mainstream as well.
Why not judge opinions about Islam and Christianity, Israel and Palestine, "most university professors in the liberal arts" and silicone breast implants on their own merits rather than prejudging everything one way or the other? Some arguments on each side may be valid, others invalid.
It's not likely that everyone would agree on everything. We start from different assumptions and argue in hope of convincing each other. In the process we learn more about issues, about what we believe ourselves, and about what is politically possible. And where we end up counts as much as where we start out.
The country is divided between the parties at something like 50-50, but that doesn't mean that all citizens are mobilized and polarized and passionately adhere to one tribe or another. The experience of the last decade or so has been hard fought elections, but no major policy changes one way or the other.
Of course if the left or right falls down completely we will see such radical changes, but I wouldn't count on it. The political system more or less works to direct political passions into contructive channels where they have to face reality and moderate their demands.
And if it is the case that one gets one set of views just by living in Manhattan, and another by living in Muskogee (which isn't true), people are smart enough to see beyond this to the things we have in common as a nation and a people.
We are NOT in a "Civil War;" we are in a Time of "Civil Upheaval!!"
Americans "WELL & TRULY REMEMBER" "9/11;" we need NO FURTHER MOTIVATION to Institute a "War on Terror!"
"Political Operatives" trying to use our Current "War" are SADLY "OFF-BASE"-- trying to create political issues concerning our current "War on Terror."
The American People Aren't stupid; WE KNOW who our "Allies" are--& Who we cannot trust.
America KNOWS that we are largely, "on our own" in this fight; we will have some help from our "traditional, English-speaking Allies," but we MUST FIGHT the "Psychopathic Islamic Radicals" MOSTLY ON OUR OWN.
SO BE IT; WE are the better, more Civilized, more Peaceful, more Worthy Culture!
"W" was RIGHT; "Bring IT ON!!!;" we are in a "Fight to the Finish--a Fight we MUST WIN!!
Doc
I think that a few factors are at work that didn't really come into play in the 60's.
For one thing, the left has gained a near stanglehold on the news media, the entertainment media, education, and the government itself. There has been 40 years of indoctrination and acceptance of it by many in this country. The respect for the rights of the individual are at an all time low - it's all about class and race and orientation now. Groupism and class envy are the watchwords of the day.
Those of us on the right who still value these things are more aware of the threat to our way of life and will not suffer the abuse much longer. If it is delayed much longer, resistance will be futile (yeah, yeah - it's a movie line). The longer the minds of our young are in their hands, the fewer there will be who will even know or care about the America we love and won't fight for it.