So about this second Civil War

[Cyrano]

The American Civil War had geographic lines. Free states vs slave states. And they also had uniforms.

Today, our country is as divided as it has ever been. But it's not a geographic division. It is a political one. It is a division between Republicans and Democrats. And it is as vicious and hate filled as the original Civil War. But who's who?

The Civil War had geographic dimensions. North vs South, and states that declared themselves as one or the other. So where are the lines for a new Civil War? 112 Main Street vs 207 Grand Drive? Exactly how do we figure out who are us and who are them? Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? Who worships the orange creature and who hates him?

Hmmm, kinda makes a new Civil War a problem. Well, then again, we know where our various family members stand, so why not just go out and start shooting at them? Are you prepared to kill a brother, sister, cousin, uncle, aunt, son, father?

This so-called "Second Civil War" is going to be a problem with no fixed battle lines.

The hatred that has been generated in this country is palpable. So if you have that "Second Civil War" in mind, exactly who is it you're going to attack? What battles do you foresee? Exactly what army are you going to be battling against? How do you fight a Civil War against millions of people spread out across a continent who aren't wearing uniforms of different colors?

Kinda makes it hard to kill the "Thems."

[ZZenith]

1. Probably best that we don't fan these particular flames.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

2. +1, but it has been discussed on RW forums in depth for a while now. . . . nt

[ZZenith]

12. Yes, because in their fevered minds they can picture themselves winning such a thing.

The death of white male dominance in this country was never going to be a pretty spectacle but it is inevitable and painfully slow.

The more we plan for a contingency that involves violence on the scale that the op envisions, the more we set ourselves upon that course. There is precedent for non-violent revolution and much to be learned from those examples.

I’ve seen too much hate to want to hate, myself, and every time I see it, I say to myself, hate is too great a burden to bear. Somehow we must be able to stand up against our most bitter opponents and say:”We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will and we will still love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws and abide by the unjust system, because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good, so throw us in jail and we will still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and, as difficult as it is, we will still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities at the midnight hour and drag us out on some wayside road and leave us half-dead as you beat us, and we will still love you. Send your propaganda agents around the country and make it appear that we are not fit, culturally and otherwise, for integration, but we’ll still love you. But be assured that we’ll wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one day we will win our freedom. We will not only win freedom for ourselves; we will appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory. - Martin Luther King

[GemDigger]

23. I have been hearing lock n load from RW'rs from the beginning of President Obama's second term.

It got really bad when they thought Hillary was going to win and then it got worse when trump won but then the talk of Russian interference and the 25th came into the picture it got much much worse. I finally had to stop going to open sites (R's and D's) because it got so bad.

[ZZenith]

36. Please know that the vast majority of them are simply frightened and frustrated

by a world they are ill-equipped to understand. The world is moving past them and they will rage in their impotence. Our task is not to be swept up in it, and to treat them as we would a relative who’s been very sick and is disoriented by the experience. Humanity is close, I believe, to cresting a large hill, upon which we will finally be able to recognize the unity of all creation and act accordingly.

[Alpeduez21]

29. Discusion is fanning the flames?

I trust most posters are capable of making informed decisions.

But heavens to murgatroyd we can't upset the delicate feelings of a minority of posters. Censorship is a conservative tool. I usually just don't participate in discussions I don't want to have. I don't try to shut down debate.

[ZZenith]

37. At no point have I attempted to shut down debate.

I have stated my position and am responding to other’s responses to that statement. Odd that you see that as “censorship.”

[Alpeduez21]

42. No, you only implied that this topic of discussion

shouldn't be. I have the courage of conviction with my words. I don't try to obfuscate my intention with waffling innuendo so when someone calls me on my shit I can hide behind plausible deniability.

[ZZenith]

43. I understand your fear.

But I am not going to help you stoke it further.

I wish you well.

[struggle4progress]

3. The real civil war was started by folk with an economic interest in slavery

and any possible future civil war would also almost certainly be driven by some economic interest

People usually don't go to war solely over conceptual disagreements

[mitch96]

45. "started by folk with an economic interest"

The money in the south was agricultural and in the north it was manufacturing. Bad soil practices meant that new fertile land was needed to grow the cash crop, cotton and tobacco. That land was out west. Slaves were needed to work this agricultural land to make it profitable. The northern states wanted to put a ban on new slave states. The south wanted the new states in the west to be slave states. No slaves would cut into profits..
ie the economic interest.. Like now the wealthy class got the poorer people to fight their war for them. States rights!! "they" said.. Effecting our way of life they said.
If your not part of the 1% ers why vote like them?? They don't give a shit about you.. uffda
m

[unblock]

4. the civil war split many families.

quite a number of families had members fighting on both sides. sometimes it was out of belief or state loyalty, sometimes it was a deliberate strategy for the well-being of the family after the war.

some thing happened during the american revolution.

a colleague of mine is a descendant of soldiers in the american revolution. the family quite deliberately sent some children to fight for the british and some to fight for america. the idea is that whichever side won, the rest of the family (and their wealth) could be protected.

in the civil war, there were many regions that were ideologically split. for example, southern ohio, southern indiana, and southern illinois -- all technically part of the north, but with considerably sympathies for the confederacy.

the civil war was not, in reality, neatly split by geography nearly as much as basic high school history teaching suggests.

[thucythucy]

56. The western part of Virginia

left Virginia to rejoin the Union as West Virginia. Much of western Georgia resisted the Confederate draft, eastern Tennessee was pro-union even though Tennessee was in the Confederacy, and Kansas and Missouri had their own civil wars which began before 1861 and continued after 1865.

Awful bloody traumatic and insane. I don't know that the country ever truly recovered.

[unblock]

58. the va/wv situation has changed a bit, hasn't it?

wv is now about as red as it gets and va i think we can finally put in the blue category, though certainly not strongly so....

[thucythucy]

59. Indeed.

[brooklynite]

5. What "So Called Second Civil War" are you thinking of?

[marylandblue]

6. We are not going to have a real civil war.

We may have a lot of clashing protestors. We may have an authoritarian take over. But if, say California decided to leave the union, half the other states would say "good riddance" and the rest would say "we are going too."

[Blue_true]

48. The "war" will be coastal states plus Colorada, New Mexico,

Arizona, Nevada and the upper Midwest versus other states. It will be more economic than violent. Republicans took a stab at it with their tax scam, designed to kneecap coastal, economically developed coastal states.

[bdamomma]

50. That's Putin's

revenge to break up the states, just like the Soviet Union.

[dameatball]

7. I commented about this on your previous OP and I agree with your main point.

it seems like one way to tamp down some of this would be to start working now for the 2020 election, avoid internal feuds within the Democratic Party as much as possible, take back the Senate, win the White House.....and then re-establish adequate funding to government organizations tasked with overseeing domestic terrorism.
The lone wolves will always be with us pending earlier recognition and access to mental health treatment. But the groups, such as "3%ers" are not exactly the same thing. Adequately funded counter terrorism measures are a necessity with these types. Weekend warriors that spent a lot of money on G.I. Joe equipment and need to scratch that itch.

[Bradshaw3]

8. People who want a civil war have never seen one

Of if they do, they are psychopaths.

As to the logistics there are more problems than the ones listed, just like seccession. So a majority of Texans or Georgians want to fight for the "south" or red state side - what about the people of Austin or Atlanta who have the opposite view. Maybe it makes some feel tough to talk about a second civil war. Many felt that way before the first one - and were sorry they did.

[First Speaker]

9. If the hatred and desire to kill is there among the people...

...the stuff you mention will be just a detail. Imagine Northern Ireland on a continental scale. There are all sorts of ways a second civil war could come about, and be fought. Red enclaves in the Blue states, mostly in the country; Blue enclaves in the Red states, mostly in the cities. Anarchy. Chaos. Every single "election" contested, declared illegitimate by one side or another, often leading to bloodshed. Total insecurity. Every "President" regarded as illegitimate by half the country, with each new one--especially, of course, Democratic ones--unable to function. The US as a banana republic, with military interventions becoming regular occurrences, in an increasingly hopeless attempt to establish "normalcy". Think it's impossible? I don't. This current regime would have seemed impossible 20 years ago. Turn on any right-wing hate radio asshole, and just *hear* the hatred. They want "liberals" dead. This isn't inevitable, thank God...but it is certainly a possibility.

[Cyrano]

10. What a horror. And to think wingnuts want this horror

Yes, the nightmare you describe is possible.

But if America allows this to happen, we deserve the consequences.

I don't know how to head it off. But I do know that we're talking about a minority of lunatics that would welcome this scenario.

Then again, as history has shown us time and again, all it takes is a minority to fuck everyone.

[bdamomma]

51. We need to

"fuck" the Minority.

[DontBooVote]

15. Yes, they want liberals dead. And they are ready and willing to make us dead. Which

puts them way ahead of us. Our lack of preparation for such a contingency is our own undoing. Right here in this thread is evidence that we, as a demographic, will allow them to slaughter us before we can even get serious about the threat.

And, since I hate them with the heat of 1000 suns, this failure to take the threat seriously is gravely concerning to me. We seem to always cede the advantage because we don't believe it can happen. Yet, look what has already happened. Just...LOOK!

[Whiskeytide]

20. I promise I'm not being a smart ass ... but how do you see ...

... an actual "war" playing out? Seriously. Armies moving from town to town? POW camps? How do their troops get supplied? Does someone make a Wal-Mart run? Who and where would their central command be? Who's giving them coordinated orders and military objectives? Who's going to pay their car note and the cable bill while they're off playing soldier?

They have horded a shit pile of guns, a lot of ammunition, maybe some grenades or IEDs (maybe), some MREs, maybe a handful of them have some old SAMs, and most of them have several camo outfits. I'll give you that - but they'll be in pick-ups for crying out loud.

They don't have tanks, planes, helos, armored transports or military quantity ordinance. We saw a preview of these guys at the wildlife refuge three years ago. They took to the internet to ask for snacks. Was it probably dangerous to be right there, in front of them? Sure, I guess. But they did not pose a risk of civil war or the take down of the US government. Even if there were fifty, or 100, or even 500 - such bands taking over wildlife refuges around the country, wouldn't they all play out pretty much the way that episode did?

I'm just curious how you see a actual civil war unfolding here. Isolated episodes of violence, and real bloodshed - that could happen. But an organized, functioning red-state army is not likely to spring up from the suburbs - even here in Alabama.

[Alpeduez21]

32. If they are in power like they are now

Law enforcement is already in place to quell 'insurrection.' Police jailed and tortured women who wanted to vote. Police sicked dogs on and fire housed people of color who wanted equality. The camps are called jail and prison. Most cops are conservatives. The system of oppression is already well entrenched.

It a border emergency stands what prevents a voter fraud emergency or a dissention emergency?

[First Speaker]

49. My feeling? It would be a large-scale Northern Ireland...

...with 350,000,000 people, and almost as many guns. Assassinations, terror, the collapse of institutions. This might especially be true in the "contested" regions of a de facto partition--the rural areas of the Blue states, and the cities of the Red states. Whether or not this nightmare happens, I am virtually certain we're heading towards an America in which the two "countries" essentially ignore the laws the other side makes--in essence, two constitutions, one for Blue, one for Red...nullification on a mass scale. There might be a de facto recognition that this is the only way to avoid mass bloodshed. And this is a relatively optimistic scenario...

[dustyscamp]

53. I wish more Dems would read what you posted and start preparing

[smirkymonkey]

21. +1000

I know there are a lot of armchair warriors out there, but I think we are kidding ourselves if we don't think that a good percentage of those on the other side are prepared to take up arms and kill their fellow man (anyone they perceive as liberal, peace loving, minority, gay, feminist, non-Christian, etc.) if things don't go their way.

They are just waiting for someone to strike the match. I think we know who that will be and when it will happen.

[bdamomma]

54. Yea smirkymonkey

they have guns and are allergic to the truth, uneducated and delusional too.

We have pot and we are on the side of truth.

[Whiskeytide]

27. Say a group of 15,000 "patriots" took over Lubbock. What ...

... then? They make statements on CNN? They make a show of rounding up some liberal looking people and holding them at the YMCA? The aptitude and will to actually slaughter innocent people is simply lacking in “most” of them. They have their psychos, sure. But psychopaths who genuinely want to carry out genocide are not as common as you think. Most of them would not have the stomach to actually take lives. If they did so, in a frenzied passion during the initial phases of it, they could not handle the remorse.

Roving bands of murderers killing Americans? Even trump could not ignore that and do nothing. The Pentagon and Federal law enforcement would mobilize. And let’s say there was a Battle of Lubbock carried live on the networks. How long would these guys be able to go toe to toe with the US military? After watching it on Anderson Cooper, how many guys do you think would drive out to Lubbock to join up?

Would it be a horror? Yes. Would some people be killed? Very likely. I’m not minimizing that. But a sustained, from within revolution against the US government simply could not occur in 2019. The logistics just don’t allow it.

Even if the military didn’t intervene immediately, they would run out of people and food and supplies pretty quickly. Hell, they’d be out of gas in three weeks.

Come on. This thread is fun, but it’s not helpful.

[First Speaker]

52. I think a number of smaller "Lubbocks" might happen, leading to a slow collapse...

...of any feeling of security. Like Northern Ireland. People would live constantly with the fear of violence and terrorism. I think this is a real possibility, though not--please, God--an inevitability. Add to this the endless disputes regarding elections. How far are we, right now, from people losing any real faith in the results of elections? Or the legitimacy of the opposition? Fuck it--I'm just a tired, cynical old man. But history, both America's and human history in general, does not guarantee happy endings...and it's already apparent that the 21st century is going to test democracy as it hasn't been tested since the 1930s. I hope those of you who are young will live to laugh at this thread...

[BamaRefugee]

11. Oh there are uniforms alright. Per a couple of right wingers i know,

They can shoot women with underarm and leg hair, anyone wearing sandals, people in Volvos and Subarus, or they can just open automatic weapons fire inside any sushi joint.
Not kidding.
Oh, and Montesorri schools.
By the way, these guys wear camo almost head to toe every day, they have uniforms too.

[ZZenith]

13. Psilocybin in the Red Bull supply would solve that problem.

[DontBooVote]

16. Yes, they are talking like this and more than a few of them have already acted in some way.

But we'll sit on our hands and pooh-pooh the very idea that it could happen, despite what we've already seen.

They want us dead and the majority of us act as if it's not true.

[Whiskeytide]

24. Ok. I didn't think of the camo. As long as they stay ...

... in the woods, they’ll be really difficult to see. So maybe we implement a military plan to, oh, I don’t know ... Stay out of the woods until they run out of snacks and it’s over.

[Poiuyt]

33. Their uniform:

[bdamomma]

55. yea that

hat gives them away.

[Whiskeytide]

14. Any effort to actually start ...

... an organized shooting “war” would be put down pretty quickly by law enforcement and the US military. This is no longer 1861, and “troop” (using that term very loosely) movements could not be made without massive attention. Once some band of 300 “patriots” marched on DC and were routed and arrested, any others with similar inclinations would stand down pretty quickly. Think about it. Even if it were a group of 3,000, it would be over before it started.

The police and the military are not going to side with them. That’s a bullshit meme. 99.9% of them will do their jobs and take orders from the pentagon. The pentagon is not going to start slaughtering Americans.

And someone above posted that wars are waged for economic reasons, not for ideals. That’s quite true. The 1% would circle their wagons of lawyers and CPA’s, not take up arms or fan the flames of sedition.

Now - there certainly could be some individuals or small groups who might attempt to hurt someone by shooting up someplace or some group they see as “librul”. ACLU offices, universities, low income neighborhoods, etc... could be at risk for episodes of violence. But that’s crime. Not a war. People could get hurt, so it might be tense for a little while. But honestly I think 97% of these assholes are all bluster. They like to sit around and talk about what they’re going to do - not actually do anything.

[Alpeduez21]

44. Law enforcement

stood on the sidelines in Charlottesville. That was very much an organized troop movement. I saw the city, the sanitized video that played on the 6 o'clock news was not the chaotic battlefield that existed that morning. Again, the cops did nothing while this was going on. Cops are a tool of the conservative establishment. That should never be forgotten.

[Downtown Hound]

17. Exactly

Everybody who talks about civil war has no idea of how difficult it would actually be to simply wage, let alone win. But the one thing the righties never like to consider is that a lot of those conservative gun owners they're always threatening us with are pretty damn old. Their army is going to be seriously limited by their need for arthritis medication and Depends.

Now millennials are overwhelmingly liberal and progressive. And unlike most conservatives, are actually of combat age.

[Florida Bull]

40. Liberals

Liberals are also the majority in strategic big cities and near ports on the water. The states on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts are gradually turning Purple if not more Blue.

Many Conservatives fear inner-City gangs and MS-13, but then think they and the Bundy Family could just march into cities like Chicago and Los Angeles without much resistance.

[dogman]

18. It's the same tired line they have always used.

It serves as a threat. That makes them feel powerful. They then set to threaten the have nots with other have nots. A common uniform identification for them is skin color.

[Initech]

19. We're in a Civil Cold War right now.

In that there's a war being fought but there's no shots being fired. And I feel like it's going to be a long battle before it's all over.

[smirkymonkey]

22. Removing Trump from office - by whatever means - will turn it into a hot war.

I really do not underestimate these psychos. They are looking for blood.

[bdamomma]

57. Maybe

all of his health issues will catch up with him.

[Captain Stern]

25. I guess I've been out of the loop....I don't know about the second civil war.

A little help on that, please.

Thanks, in advance.

[HipChick]

26. Yah...I did not get the memo either...

[Whiskeytide]

30. We're meeting to strategize at the Hardee's Wednesday - after ...

... Mardi Gras. Bring a notepad and a hi-lighter. Randy’s bringing some maps, and Wilson has a set of walkie talkies we can use if we can get some batteries.

[Captain Stern]

46. You need batteries?...If you need batteries, you just hit the jackpot.

I've been a member of the Radio Shack battery club since 1983. AA's..I've got 'em...AAA's..got 'em too. And yeah...9v's...got 'em too.

This is all going to work out just fine.

[guillaumeb]

28. It is a continuation of the first American civil war.

[pwb]

31. Come on.. Knock this crap off.

Toughen up. Pukes are fake tough guys and nobody should be afraid of them.

[stonecutter357]

34. #facknews !

[sarisataka]

35. Are you planning

On starting a civil war?

Or is this a case of let's-you-and-him-fight?

[brush]

38. What a topic. This new civil war is a result of not punishing the traitors...

after the first civil war. They were allowed to go home instead of being hung or imprisoned. As a result they began terrorizing the formerly enslaved population with lynchings and a return to near enslavement with share cropping and jim crow policies, not to mention confederate general memorials all over the place.

What other country allowed defeated traitors to just melt back into society with their so-called cause still intact, battle flags and all?

In Germany nazi paraphernalia is outlawed.

[bluestarone]

39. This would be

Playing right into RUMPS and PUTINS hands!! It's a NO GO!!

[Hekate]

41. Google Lebanon for borderless civil wars. Borders have not been the norm for a long time. Also

Tutsis and Hutus.

Please just stop this.

[PTWB]

47. A civil war would be so bad for corporate interests I don't see them allowing it.

They’ll change the media messaging on Fox if it gets that close. There may be isolated attacks and right wing Domestic terrorist incidents, but I don’t think we will get to full on regular armed conflict with our neighbors ever again.

[dustyscamp]

60. hmm