If the US does have a second civil war, it will be a great deal messier than the first.
In the WBTS the opponents were reasonably well split up geographically.
Today the groups are totally intermixed, in states, in neighborhoods and often within families.
Such a “true” civil war usually gets very nasty quickly.
>>>If the US does have a second civil war, it will be a great deal messier than the first.
In the WBTS the opponents were reasonably well split up geographically.
Today the groups are totally intermixed, in states, in neighborhoods and often within families.
Such a “true” civil war usually gets very nasty quickly.<<<
Very true observation. However, I’m seeing something different from a civil war on the level of China during the 1930s.
The American culture emerged from the cultures of Great Britain and northern Europe. Those places generally have rebellions. (Even the American Revolutionary War was a rebellion of British subjects against the Crown, and there’s a reason Confederates call themselves “rebels.”)
The metaphor for our present struggle is the Glorious Revolution of 1688, in my opinion. The question there was the divine rights of kings and political rights of Parliament. The rebellion was fought between the elites, with most of the people trying stay out of the way.
Our question is similar - should there be an all-powerful central government, or do individuals really have pre-existing rights? I’ve heard this over and over at the town hall meetings, where people have begun their statements with, “I don’t want the government to...”
On one side, there are academics, the media, the unions, and federal government officials. On the other side, there’s the military, the churches, state and local governments, talk radio, and businesses. These sides have been at war already for a while, although it hasn’t gotten to the point of outright violence. The health care proposal, however, might be the turning point.
The Glorious Revolution wasn’t a revolution like the Bolsheviks or Pol Pot. There were battles here and there. Some people (Catholics, Irish) were on the wrong side and got stepped on badly. In the long run, though, the Glorious Revolution established traditions like religious tolerance and a Bill of Rights, which were good things.
This is just a metaphor. (I don’t see anything like the Dutch navy coming into the capital... but perhaps there’s something about Sarah Palin having to come overseas to get to the Lower 48... or, much worse, a Chinese fleet coming to “save” the American government from the rebels... well, all that is science fiction.) My point is that we may get to the edge of calamnity, and back off, if free men and women are willing to stand up for their liberty. It wasn’t a good world in England for the Catholics after the Glorious Revolution, and certainly it wouldn’t be a good world for leftists if free people re-established limited government and individual rights. I’m not going to weep for the defeat of communists, though.
There is another scenario. We could have some kind of external disaster - an EMP weapon from Iran, for instance - and, for a while, there would be the collapse of the central government. The elites would battle it out locally - and since they really have no base of support without federal help in most locations, freedom and liberty would win out overall.
I guess we’ll see what happens soon enough.