Maybe somebody just forgot what it was like.
Lt. Col. Andrew Tanner in Red Dawn attempting to explain why the Third World War broke out.
(I originally posted this back in 2018. I am reposting it now because the national situation has continued to deteriorate and a Civil War II, sadly, is increasingly becoming a distinct possibility rather than the amusement of a few hours reading of an alternate history novel. Back in the eighties a Time Life advertisement for their Civil War series of books, which I have most of, was a picture of a Civil War soldier, unclear whether he was Confederate or Union, with his rifle pointed at the viewer. The caption noted that If the battle of Gettysburg were fought today that you would be the enemy. I found it amusing then; I find it much less amusing now.)
As faithful readers of this blog know, I write a lot about the Civil War. One thing that has struck me over the years is just how terrible it was. The amount of human suffering during that War is something that future generations have found difficult to fathom. Typical is the uncertainty as to how many men died in the War. For almost a century the accepted figure was around 620,000. In the last few years good arguments have been made for 750,000. Who knows? There were so many unrecorded skirmishes, so much combat in poorly reported theaters of war, for example the Indian Territory and the Far West, so many men who died of disease, so many records lost, especially on the Confederate side. You could tell me that the figure was a million and I wouldn’t blink an eye, and all of this was out of a total population of thirty million. Then we have the maimed from that War, who became a common feature in American society for decades, as did myriads of widows raising kids, side by side with the many young women who never married due to so many young men being lost in the War. That the South was economically devastated for decades is well known; less well known is that it would be over a half century for the debt incurred by the Union to be repaid. I think the cost in lives and treasure was worth it, but the phrase a dreadful price accurately sums up what occurred.
Thus I find it infuriating when idiots talk blithely of a Civil War II. Attorney and retired Colonel Kurt Schlichter takes a look at a recent sample of this:
Tech titan Jack Dorsey of San Francisco-based social media platform Twitter applauded an article in something called Medium in which some other hipster CEO described how liberals intend to crush Normal Americans into serfdom in a bloodless “civil war.”
Here it is.
Ready?
It will just sort of happen. Why? Because. Americans will simply decide to be like California because of reasons and phew, no more troublesome conservatives and Gaia is saved!
So basically, wishing.
Well, that’s a kind of war plan. Perhaps by unleashing the power of hoping so they can utterly subjugate the half of America that voted against Felonia Milhous von Pantsuit and drive the people who actually operate and defend this country into silent obedience.
Or not.
Now, I know what you’re saying. You’re saying, “Why do a bunch of San Francisco dorks think that 150 million Americans with 300 million guns are just going to give up their rights and their say in their own governance and submit to the commands of people who eat kale by choice?” That’s a fair question, and they have an answer.
Because you just are.
I didn’t say it was a good answer.
Recently I wrote a long column here describing the ugly realities of an actual Second Civil War – realities that are much uglier for the anti-freedom liberal side in terms of terrain, combat power, and morale. Naturally, this cry for sanity, which was only the latest in my long history of pleas to liberals to avoid the kind of civil strife I witnessed the consequences of overseas, was greeted by a torrent of outright lies. “You are advocating a civil war blah blah blah blah.” All liberal bull Schiff, including some by shameful collaborationist Fredocons who should know better, but not at all unexpected. The modern liberals’ rhetorical toolbox is filled exclusively with lies, which has the effect of making actual reasoned discussion impossible. Of course, that is their goal – they don’t want to defeat your argument. They want you bullied into silence. Tellingly, no one even bothered to try and counter the indisputable facts I offered many times showing why liberals will fail if they choose violence – instead, they tried to shut me up.
Go here to read the rest. If we ever have a Civil War II it will be because, like the first Civil War, too many people on all sides swallowed their own Kool-Aid, and believed their propaganda that the other side would not fight or would be easy to defeat. In a Civil War in a nation of 330 million people, stretching across a continent, our death toll in the first Civil War would likely be considered an historical footnote compared to the carnage that would quickly ensue in such a fight. Otto von Bismarck once predicted that if a Great War happened it would be over some damn fool thing in the Balkans. If Civil War II ever happens in this nation it will be because we simply have too many damn fools period.
“I will wipe up all the blood shed with a handkerchief of mine.”
A. W. Venable, North Carolina secessionist, predicting how much blood would be shed prior to the start of the first Civil War.
If (God forbid!) civil war happens, then the strong arm of the left will be Antifa and BLM financed by George Soros, Jeff Bezos and the remainder of the technocrats running social media. Neither Antifa nor BLM have any qualms about arming themselves, and in fact do so. BLM-inspired gangsters in inner cities are responsible for much of the reported gun violence already. Yes, these two groups will be outnumbered and out-gunned by normal thinking Americans, but the devastation will be incredible. Living near Charlotte, I already avoid going into the city which turned blue some time ago along with the governorship of the state, due to those liberal north-easterners and left coasters who flee the consequences of the politics for which they voted and then in their new places of residency proceed to vote again for the same thing they had before. My company is decidedly leftist. No one dares speak aloud about normal things; it’s all about diversity, inclusion, tolerance, non-divisiveness – all the liberal buzzwords – as normal things like morality and ethics are stomped on and squashed. Fortunately most of my neighbors are to the starboard of politics, but there are enough transplanted north-easterners and left coasters to pose a definite problem to safety. It’s sad to have to write that, but it’s true. I pray we can avoid civil war, but Democrats will not surrender abortion and sodomy till they are utterly and totally crushed into defeat. There is no compromise, no dialogue to be held with them and that’s the problem; when the other side is perceived as utterly evil, then compromise becomes impossible. Think about it: how can you compromise about murdering babies or sanctifying sodomy? If Trump does win in November, I think we’ll see governors in states like Oregon, Washington, California and New York declaring the election invalid and moving against the Federal government. Once one state (like Oregon) does that, many of the rest of the blue states will follow suit. And if Trump loses, then we’ll see open persecution of Christians. If you’re a Christian at a company and you don’t sign on the dotted line that you support this culture of diversity, inclusion, tolerance, non-divisiveness (aka, abortion and sodomy), you’ll find yourself unemployed. Your social media will be scrutinized and anything written against the liberal agenda will be cause for you to become a political prisoner. Yes, I think that will happen, either sooner or later. And that will be cause for those on the right to start defending themselves.
I hope everything I have written above is just the rantings of a man who has had too many bad nightmares. But when I opened a web page at work and saw a BLM icon being proudly displayed, I no longer thought us safe any longer even though we got it taken down. Again, my opinions are my own as a private citizen.
A second Civil War will not be between States, but rather zip codes.
The prospect should shake every last one of us to the core.
Increasingly, I doubt that such is the case.
Part of me wonders would a civil war even be fought? I know a lot of people if California decided to leave, would be happy to wave goodbye to.
I can see maybe some people eager at the thought of shooting their political enemies – the problem is always that the enemy gets to shoot back. Otherwise do I want to shoot a bunch of liberals to make them stay in the nation and keep voting the way I don’t like? Are there that many who would say yes?
I guarantee that it would be fought. Take Illinois for example. Outside of Chicago and its inner suburbs there would be zip enthusiasm for joining Blue America. California has substantial red areas. Texas has blue cities in a red sea. As Dale noted, this would be a war fought between zip codes and not states. Messy, confused, up close and personal. A huge amount of guerilla wafare. War to the knife and the knife to the hilt. Think Missouri and Kansas during the Civil War occurring throughout our nation.
The only real question about the fighting is whether police and the military would be involved, or if it would just be mobs burning things down while the government does nothing.
The only reason that I don’t say that we are in a civil war at this very moment is because the mobs are burning down their own neighborhoods. If they change their tactics and start driving to other towns to burn them down, we are effectively in a civil war.
The most recent Spanish Civil War happened in my grandfather’s time, with a death toll similar to your own Civil War’s. I talked to him many times about it, even though he didn’t like to remember those times, because they were indescribably horrible. Almost anything is preferable to a civil war.
Unfortunately, the operative word is ‘almost’. There are times (and the Spanish Civil War was one of those times) when going to war is the only way to survive for a great part of the population.
I’m afraid it does seem that irreconcilable differences are slowly leading the world in general (and the USA in particular) to such a crossroads, where the only options are either war or servitude/gradual extermination. Deus avertat!
I don’t argue with Don and Dale on the part about zip codes. Thing of its – and then? California splits apart – will the blues really want to fight that hard to keep the reds?
I could see some initial peaceful splitting as neither side finds the other worth fighting over.
Then things getting ugly when the red zones declare, “oh yeah, since you don’t want us, you don’t want our food either.” Then war might break out.
Dunno. Especially after the wuflu. A people willing to fight and die in a civil war is a people that believe in something greater than their own lives. The recent COVID bruhaha seems to prove that we have become a people who value our lives above any and all other causes. Just seems hard for me to believe that the same people unwilling to risk their lives over a cough, are really going to go risk their lives to keep as neighbors people they hate.
For me the real question will be: which zip codes possess the nuclear weapons? THAT is what will be fought over.
I’m afraid the cause of any violence is going to rest with those who turned common institutions into sandboxes (and were permitted to do so by feckless people) and turned institutional referees into political partisans and their proceedings into exercises in political gamesmanship. Add to that the project of the Democratic Party of importing masses of aliens to outvote the people they despise. You cannot, structurally, have a constitutional state under these circumstances. Only one side did these things. Their street-level partisans haven’t a clue.
I’m going to offer a hypothesis that how much violence there will be depends on what happens to the military and the police forces as social organisms. If they fall apart into political factions a la Spain after 1931, we could be looking at a 7 digit death toll (as well as being horrifically weakened in the face of Chinese power). If they remain coherent, it might be something like Indonesia during the 15 month period running from December 1965 to March of 1967 or it could be like Uruguay and Chile ca. 1973. Sanguinary for a period, then over.
Right now, we’re looking at national elections which are due to fail consequent to massive vote fraud. Adjudicating this will be a judiciary staffed with the sort of me who have been harassing Gen. Flynn for the last 18 months.
The modern liberals’ rhetorical toolbox is filled exclusively with lies,
Yep. The most concise and grossly comic illustration of that was George Floyd’s funeral.
Nate,
The problem is the leftists demand compliance. From everyone, no exceptions. This has been the pattern since the French Revolution. Don’t like it… you get put against a wall and they let some air into the back of your head. No option. Plus, as already noted, many on the left WANT to put us against the wall and have publicly proclaimed their intentions to do so.
For me the questions is where does the uniformed men stand? I’ve already see TOO many police officers willingly comply and do the revolution’s bidding since they are only following orders.
https://www.unz.com/isteve/minnesota-nice-2020-style/
A dear friend of mine, who had grown up first in Virginia and then in Harlem (ca. 1929 +/- 12 years) offered to me 40 years ago her political principle, “I’m not going to kill you, but I’m not going to let you kill me”. This is where we are. And, no, the suburban residents of Hugo, Minnesota are not responsible for this.
For me the questions is where does the uniformed men stand? I’ve already see TOO many police officers willingly comply and do the revolution’s bidding since they are only following orders.
Considering how cops have been treated by the Left this year, I think most of them would go anti-Left.
There are enough military and police – perhaps 20% (but I am guessing) – who are leftists and will pose a great problem. In my industry (Neutrons ‘R Us) too many nukes we get from Navy subs and aircraft carriers are typical young people – entirely leftist. Not a majority, but enough to be a big problem. I imagine it’s the same with Army and Air Force. I suspect the Marines are in better shape.
Where’s the clip of Shelby Foote musing on the Ph.D. thesis calculating how many handkerchiefs would be needed to sop up all the blood shed?
I wonder if anyone has considered the possibility of a second civil war here unleashing wars elsewhere? Putin, for example, isn’t going to just sit back and enjoy the show. He’s going to reclaim Russia’s historical near-abroad; by intimidation if possible, by force if necessary.
I’m beginning to think I need to get out my old copies of Game Designers’ Workshop’s (GDW) “Twilight 2000” game for ideas.
War is already here.
If this were a functioning Republic, what’s going on in Portland and Seattle would be called by it’s proper name, insurrection, and treated as such.
Portland, by the way, is why you never ever give up your guns.
And if you live in a jurisdiction that’s hostile to a fundamental civil right, and you’re not comfortable defying liberty-infringing regulations, you should move while you still can.
I would be very afraid of what could happen in the next civil war (if there is one) compared to 1860 through 1865. Unlike then, we have massive technological and engineering infrastructure which if attacked would fail catastrophically, possibly killing tens of thousands or more at a single stroke. Remember the Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal Indian in December 1984? Over 500,000 people were exposed to poisonous methyl isocyanate gas. The official immediate death toll was 2,259. It rose to 3787 victims with an estimated 558,125 injuries.
Now think about all the petrochemical plants in California, Texas, Louisiana, New Jersey, etc. Think of all the chemical plants that produce ammonia, chlorine, fluorine, molten sulfur, sodium hypochlorite, etc. Think of all the massive methane tanks for gas fired electric power plants everywhere throughout the nation. Think of the 98 operating nuclear power plants in the United States. Think of the nuclear submarine and aircraft carrier ports. While the infrastructure of all those industries and facilities is designed for fail safe operations, and while some are designed to repel a terrorist attack (military bases and nuclear power plants), they are NOT designed for the insurrection of civil war. If just a few chemical tanks along I-95 in NJ just outside NYC explode and the toxic gas cloud drifts northward, then millions could be injured or die. And one well placed bomb at the base of the Kensico dam could flood all of White Plains and below. These are just a few of the really bad scenarios of a civil war. Forget about guns – sabotaging infrastructure would send us back to before the 19th century very quickly and decimate populated areas.
Yes, Donald, I know that I could depress a laughing hyena. But I for one don’t want civil war no matter how much I loathe Democrats.
LQC, I once heard that a single man with a scoped rifle could go shoot a couple of ceramic capacitors or the metal transformers at an electrical relay station, knock it offline causing a cascading blackout across the rest of the city / state. It could take months to get replacement parts. Now imagine multiple shooters at multiple locations and it taking place in January. You would have a major metropolitan area with no power and little no heat. The more technological, the easier to push it over / power starve it. People cry bloody murder when they have no internet, think what it will be like without heat.
Only the Amish will be left.
BTW, people have already tried it. in 2009, 2013, 2016 and in 2020.
https://ktvz.com/news/central-oregon/2020/02/21/fbi-offers-reward-for-shooters-who-damaged-midstate-substation/#:~:text=PORTLAND%2C%20Ore.,substation%20in%20northern%20Klamath%20County.
Possible, JFK:
“LQC, I once heard that a single man with a scoped rifle could go shoot a couple of ceramic capacitors or the metal transformers at an electrical relay station, knock it offline causing a cascading blackout across the rest of the city / state.”
Not many of those places are protected. And with all the useless worthless unreliable wind and solar power installed on the grid and this becomes an even worse scenario. I say 30 million dead from a civil war, up towards 1% of the population if major infrastructure targets are hit, releasing toxic gases or causing cascading blackouts that last months (no refrigeration, no food, no medicine, no nothing). People like me dependent on heart and diabetes medication will be among the second wave to die. The first will be the immediate fatalities from such an infrastructure hit.
I don’t know if any of you have been paying attention to the OT readings for daily Mass and the Office of Readings in the Liturgy of the Hours over the past few months, but what God allowed to happen to Judah and Israel wasn’t very pretty. Micah chapter 3 is illustrative:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Micah%203&version=RSVCE
More material for the
stormwar’s a’comin’ file.A lot of civil war porn/whistling past the graveyard/gallows humor in the comments.
Opps, I mean 10%. Argh!
Short term, mortification, penance and eucharistic adoration are needed.
Oh, and more, much < a href=https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2020/08/15/bishop-hying-and-archbishop-listecki-lead-eucharistic-procession-in-madison-wi/>more of this:
“MADISON, Wisconsin — The Second Person of the Holy Trinity was given a police escort up riot-scarred State Street to the Wisconsin Capitol building on Saturday, followed in procession by 2,000 Catholics who proclaimed in word and deed that Jesus Christ is the answer and antidote to our troubled times.”
Be nice to see something like that in every diocese in the United States.
Medium term, we need a better alternative to the Democrats than the present Republican party because there are too many Quislings and Vichyites in that party who are happy presenting us with an echo instead of a choice.
Long term? In the long term we’re all dead.
Oops forgot to close the tag.