Early Wednesday morning a man with a high-powered rifle attacked Republican members of Congress at a baseball diamond in Alexandria, Virginia. The shooter, a man from Indiana named James T. Hodgkinson, was eventually shot dead by police officers, but not until he had wounded Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) and three other people, including two of the officers who took him out.
Prior to his rampage in Alexandria, Mr. Hodgkinson had been a devoted supporter of Senator Bernie Sanders (IN-VT), a self-described democratic socialist who ran in last year’s presidential campaign. Mr. Hodgkinson, like his admired candidate, was a staunch progressive. He was a bitter opponent of Donald Trump, and posted messages on Facebook to the effect that the president needed to be “destroyed”.
At some point James Hodgkinson decided to cross the line between peaceful protest and violent insurrection. By dying in furtherance of his political goals, Mr. Hodgkinson set himself up to be the John Brown of what many people — on both Left and Right — see as the coming civil war in America.
John Brown was a New Englander who became an ardent advocate of the Abolitionist cause. He made a name for himself as one of the leaders of the anti-slavery activists who took up arms to fight pro-slavery forces in “Bleeding Kansas” in the 1850s. In October of 1859 he came with a small band of armed comrades to Harpers Ferry — then in Virginia, now in West Virginia — and led a raid on the federal armory. The plan was to occupy the armory, liberate the stored weapons, and distribute them to free blacks, who would then lead a slave rebellion.
Brown’s ambitious plan failed. After occupying the armory and killing five people, one of them a black slave, he and the surviving members of his band were captured (as it happens, by a contingent of U.S. Marines led by Col. Robert E. Lee). In late October he was tried in Charles Town on charges of murder, inciting a slave rebellion, and treason. Interestingly enough, the final charge was for treason against Virginia, and not against the United States of America — a reminder that in 1859 Virginia was still a sovereign Commonwealth, which it remained until April 1865.
Along with his fellow conspirators, John Brown was hanged in early December of 1859. He was already immensely popular among supporters of Abolition in the North, and his death turned him into a martyr. In its original form, the popular Civil War song “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” was called “John Brown’s Body”, and included the well-known lines: “John Brown’s body lies a-moldering in his grave / But his soul goes marching on.”
More than anything else, John Brown and his raid represented the shift from non-violent Abolitionist activity to violent armed resistance. He derided his fellow Abolitionists as “pacifists”, and preached that armed insurrection was only path that would achieve the elimination of slavery in the United States.
His actions were part of the final, fatal run-up to the Civil War. By fomenting deadly violence for the cause, and then dying for it, he helped create and reinforce the armed divide between the North and the South that could only be resolved by four years of unprecedented bloodshed and the loss of more than 600,000 lives — two percent of the population of the United States in 1860.
As L.P. Hartley said, “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
The events of 1859 occurred long ago in a galaxy far, far away. Yet they are still resonant and relevant in the year 2017.
The Progressives of the 21st century — whose movement comprises a loosely-defined group of left-leaning supporters of socialist policies and income redistribution — consider themselves the worthy heirs of the Abolitionists. They see their cause, with all its intricate sub-causes, as the equivalent of a mid-19th century movement that strove to abolish slavery. For them, any resistance to open borders and unlimited Third-World immigration is the moral equivalent of slaveholding.
When any cause is that morally righteous, only a tiny step is required for it to move beyond a non-violent stance to an ideology that sanctions violence for the sake of the cause.
As of this writing, only the Antifas and their ilk champion violence in the name of the Progressive cause. Armed insurrection has not gone mainstream — YET.
Were Wednesday’s semi-automatic rounds in Alexandria the first volley of the coming civil war?
We’re too close to these events to be able to tell. Still, it’s clear that there’s only the thinnest of membranes separating the current we-deplore-all-forms-of-violence ideology from the moment when blood must be shed for the sake of a righteous cause.
Consider this clip of the venerable Chris Matthews describing his high regard for the principles espoused by the late James T. Hodgkinson. Mr. Hodgkinson’s cause was so right — if only, if only he hadn’t decided to kill people to further it!
But what happens when we reach the point when it is all right to kill people for the cause?
To stop Donald Trump. To ensure equity and fairness for people of color, and women, and LGBTQ people, and the handicapped, and Muslims, etc. etc. etc.
When the cause is that righteous, and the enemy is that unrighteous, why, then killing him is a duty. And killing his wife, his kids, other members of his political party, and on and on and on…
It’s not a mainstream meme yet. It’s still just the journeywork of the Antifas. But we’re inching closer and closer to the moment when it hits the mainstream in full force.
I’ll go out on a limb here — I do that a lot; that’s why they call me the Brachiator — and predict that the first signs of the mainstreaming of violence will pop up in places like Mother Jones and the fever-swamp wing of HuffPo and similar venues, and then spread to more respectable organs. Eventually hallowed outlets such as The New York Times will write approvingly about the regrettable necessity for the use of force against retrograde anti-American etc. blah yak.
And then the new, improved Civil War will be upon us.
There are complications, of course. A complete analogy with 1861 is not sustainable.
Back then, the armed forces of the United States could bifurcate neatly into those who fought for the South and those who fought for the North. But in today’s culture, most of the military and former military will not support the Progressive cause. In 1860 terms, they will opt for Dixie.
And then the Progressives will be left with… What? The Antifas and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for sure. But what other assets?
Who among you will be willing to shed your life’s blood for Somalis and transgender bathrooms?
In any case, we’re definitely careening at high speed in the direction of that conflict.
Is James T. Hodgkinson is the John Brown of 2017? It’s still too early to say.
John Brown’s body lies a-moldering in his grave
But his soul goes marching on.
A note on the graphic:
The image at the top of this post is a composite of an FBI flyer and a famous painting by John Steuart Curry, which features John Brown as its central figure holding a rifle in one hand and a Bible in the other. The piece is known as “Tragic Prelude”, and is part of a multi-wall mural in the Kansas state house. It was painted on commission in 1937.
The Left is disintegrating into blood and gore. See this spiked article Huff Po pulled because of the shooting:
http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2017/06/14/huffpost-spikes-contributor-demanding-execution-trump-and-his
In this fairy story of the Left, Trump is impeached; he and his cronies are tried for treason and executed.
After the Sandersista shooter, their art was cutting too close to life so they spiked it. Quick.
There are some extremely irresponsible people out there in MSM land. The NYT, otherwise known as the Old Grey Doxy, is one. It was they who printed the information about time and place for the softball practice by the GOP staff. Set ’em up.
And then there is Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of the Washington Post, who also has business dealings with the CIA. IOW, he’s down so far into the Deep State they’ve issued him an aqualung.
Meanwhile, Trump’s approval rating among the electorate at large remains near 50%. Whether he can hold the country together is another story. Sometimes no matter what a leader does, the Great Divorce happens anyway.
We are not even at the real Beginning of the Beginning yet.
I find it interesting that the left has all these fantasies about Trump being murdered, or executed. Whenever there is an execution of a murderer, no matter how horrible his/her crimes were the left is always screaming about how cruel the death penalty is.
The Left has never been against the death penalty for people who oppose their vision.
“The Left has never been against the death penalty for people who oppose their vision.”
Touché.
When the left supports prison and/or the death penalty for “deniers” – those who realize and speak to the fact that AGW/”climate change”/CO2 at a hazardous material is rubbish – support dismembering viable babies to sell for parts, and making pedophilia a “normal”, acceptable behavior, you know there simply _has_ to be a reckoning. Forget the center – the _left_ cannot stand, and sanity, probity, and reason must return as the bases of our culture, or an un-civil war will surely be the result.
With regard to Bezos and Amazon, a commenter on another board recently floated the idea that the Deep State is positioning Amazon to be the United States’ company store.
A terrifying idea that is all too plausible….
Yes, the US “company store” . So they can determine what you get to purchase and know what you have purchased. Control the food supply and you control the country.
J-Dawg-
Exactly!
Of course, they will need to ban cash and barter transactions so they can lock everyone into a system of electronic payments that are only accepted by Amazon.
Err, how do you buy something online using cash or barter? Just asking..
The Civil War was terribly bloody by the standards of the day, the Minie Ball rifle slug was accurate out to 800 yards, 4 times that of the previous musket (smooth bore) slug. So the killing field was 16 times the size and the soldiers were in it 4 times longer, and then there was the artillery.
A modern Civil War too would see ‘new’ weapons but the same old brutality. Sherman’s march to the sea was the worst kind of war crime against civilians some innocent, it was making war against women and childeren in the same way that the Nazis did against Ukrainians, Poles and Russians.
When religion and politics get mixed up, morality ceases to exist. The left have lost sight of all that is “pure lovely and of good report” in their lust for the power to enforce their creed, and their vision of Utopia – with justice for all (but only for those whom they approve of, the others are non-people or untermenschen). They wish to become the feudal good guys, ‘benevolently’ ruling their serfs and villeins who will have no choicse in the matter; after all they are just the cattle. GoV readers and their like will not survive.
Sherman also voiced the single best quote about war:
“War is hell.”
Sherman was wrong. War is not Hell. Hell is Hell. Wars end. Hell doesn’t. Wars are terrible, but Hell is worse.
Wars end?
You should tell the USG this important piece of information!
“Sherman’s march to the sea was the worst kind of war crime against civilians some innocent, it was making war against women and childeren in the same way that the Nazis did against Ukrainians, Poles and Russians.”
Yes many Union soldiers’ diaries reminisce about how they had the Southerners dig mass graves and then execute them all by the hundreds to fill them. I guess my History teachers missed teaching us that part in school.
You can debate if the March to the Sea was a war crime or not, just as you can with the treatment of prisoners at Andersonville or Quantrill’s raids, but comparing it to the Nazi’s genocide of Eastern European civilians in the territories that they occupied is a bit over the top.
Why? same motive, same method and similar ideology…..
The object of both was to destroy the infrastructure and thus ensure that the culture was eliminated.
John Brown would have found solace with Horst Wessel….
Although not honestly promoting violence (that would require too much courage) the leftwing mainstream media is de facto promoting violence against Republicans and all other conservatives – especially traditionalist Christians. In an actual shooting war they would be annihilated, because the army is firmly conservative. They are aware of this, so they won’t go for an out and out insurrection. However, a war could nevertheless be triggered by their insane and frankly illegal attempts to bring down Trump. The Supreme Court has a left-wing majority, and should any attempt to topple Trump reach that stage, the Court would approve his removal. Trump could then refuse to go – especially as it will be obvious to anyone that the Court is acting illegally. In this way a shooting war could actually begin. The Left would have talked themselves into a catastrophe.
A military that gives us Reality Winner and Chelsea Manning may not be as trustworthy as we think
That’s the influence of Colonel Hackworth’s Perfumed Princes, who’ve moved right along to embracing social change and Progressivism. You see them, their boot lickers and a freak show of the above mentioned. Some will simply sit on their hands or leave, not really giving a crap either way. But enough will elect to support the Constitution to be a force to be reckoned with.
The military is recruiting homosexuals and is set to recruit transgenders. There are many female, homosexual and PC officers that have replaced many of the more traditional and combat experienced officers in the Obama purges. My son- 7 yrs army- says it will be iffy in at least some units. There is no sign yet that any of this is being reversed.
I don’t believe you have taken yourself out on a limb in writing this article Baron as one only needs to take note of the fake news outlets to appreciate the ramping up of the anger and hatred being directed at the Trump administration, and even the family members of Trump and his team have now become fair game, to an agenda that is no longer restrained by simple human decency that used to keep all of us together.
Trying to analyse the why should now be seen as passe because the Left’s actions now speak louder than words, and looking back over the past few days it seems that the civil war has already started for you in the U.S. Its just that the bullets are not yet flying that freely about.
The Left will always try to destroy those who attempt to create a better life for everyone. There is a history of it.
One man (Trump) cannot control what is coming because what is coming has to arrive if we are to see a change of direction from the road we are presently travelling on.
But we have NOT yet reached the point where the mainstream Left openly embraces the idea of violence against “right-wing extremists”, “teabaggers”, etc. There is the thinnest of membranes between where we are now and that point, but the membrane is still there.
The meanderings by Chris Matthews in that video clip give you a fair idea of where the mainstream is. Be alert for the moment when the membrane is crossed — when a hard-core lefty of stature, someone in good standing with the NYT, announces that violence may be necessary to stop the country’s dangerous descent into (whatever they call the ideological position that Trump represents; I can never remember the preferred term).
Openly embraced… not quite. Willing to condone and exploit the violence for political gain… miles past that point.
Yes, and that’s what still distinguishes our time from 1859. John Brown’s violent program was openly and enthusiastically supported by many prominent Northerners. The cause was so righteous that Brown’s methods were seen as just and necessary.
We are not there yet with the SJWs. YET.
Agreed. That ‘point’ is yet to be reached, but the rhetoric coming out of the MSM and its minions, and that is becoming more unhinged by the day is obviously designed to escalate an already dangerous situation.
And they will not back down.
It’s a war of words at present with actions from some Lefty nutters being praised, and that kind of violence must give all of us pause as to what is coming next, but it won’t take much more for the unhinged to go over into violently acting out their fantasies against their ideological enemies when pushed a little more.
Such is their lack of a grip on reality and what they will intentionally unleash for their own selfish purposes.
The Left is totally frustrated and Acting Out. They thought they were going over the top in November, that their Revolution would be complete in January and that they could begin cleaning house throughout the country by summer. They feel they were violently robbed of Utopia. It is a terrible and all the perpetrators must be punished.
In addition to the military, current and former, going “Dixie” what of the multitude and their skill set that sustains the infrastructure of modernity; who and what will they support? I don’t believe the violent and f or the progressive left has thought this resistance thing through very well 😉
First, a bit of pedantry about the Battle Hymn of the Republic, thanks to Mark Steyn:
“‘By a strange quirk of history,’ wrote Irwin Silber, the great musicologist of Civil War folk songs, “‘John Brown’s Body’ was not composed originally about the fiery Abolitionist at all. The namesake for the song, it turns out, was Sergeant John Brown, a Scotsman, a member of the Second Battalion, Boston Light Infantry Volunteer Militia.” This group enlisted with the Twelfth Massachusetts Regiment and formed a glee club at Fort Warren in Boston. Brown was second tenor, and the subject of a lot of good-natured joshing, including a song about him mould’ring in his grave…”
and the tune was an old camp meeting song.
https://www.steynonline.com/5587/the-battle-hymn-of-the-republic
But back to John “Pottawattomie” Brown (so called due to one of his pre Harper’s Ferry acts of terrorism. John Batchelor recently interviewed historian and historical novelist Thomas Fleming about his new book, “A Sickness in the Blood” about the mental attitudes which led to the Civil War. Those attitudes so polarized the country as to make the path which Britain and her colonies had taken (in essence emancipation by means of an eminent domain taking of the slaves with financial compensation to their owners, which was proposed by – among others – a young Congressman named Abraham Lincoln) politically impossible.
Fleming wrote this about Robert E. Lee’s refusal of President Lincoln’s offer of command of the Union Army as one of the great tragedies – in the classical sense – of American history.
“As Colonel Lee sat there, trying to absorb this astounding offer, what did he think and feel? What did he remember? From what we have seen of his life in this book, almost certainly the first memory was John Brown. That madman’s rant about sin of slavery and the blood that was required to wash it away, the pikes he had been prepared to put into the hands of enraged slaves, pikes that might have been thrust into the bodies of Lee’s daughters and wife, the letters in Brown’s carpetbag linking him to wealthy northern backers. Could he invade Virginia or any southern state at the head of an army composed of men who believed John Brown was as divine as Jesus Christ?”
In other words, it was the embrace by Northern “activists” of Brown’s violent record violence that convinced Lee that there was no hope of reconciliation.
I didn’t know about the other John Brown — thanks for that information.
Nevertheless, the song gained its great popularity from its being about John “Bleeding Kansas” Brown. He was immensely, absurdly popular before his death, and became a martyred saint afterwards. If I remember correctly, Ralph Waldo Emerson said something to the effect that “When John Brown climbed the steps to scaffold in Charles Town, he was ascending to his cross.”
He had Harriet Tubman on his team, but the other prominent free blacks looked askance at him. His appeal was greatest among the loopy idealistic high-minded white folks. His cause helped gin up the blood-lust in the North to the point where no further calm, rational compromise was possible.
In contrast, the radical pro-slavery side was driven more by mercantile interests. If slavery were abolished, it would cause a lot of people to lose a lot of money (and those who would financially gain from Abolition were, surprise, mostly in the North).
After we were invaded, the entire meme-space shifted. Being invaded, having your crops burned and your stock stolen, seeing your towns occupied by a foreign military force — that changes the way you think about political matters. The question of the righteousness or evil of slavery becomes less significant than a batch of distressing new facts: the invading Yankees have taken the county board of supervisors and the mayor of your town hostage, your kids are hungry, and the Union cavalry just torched your only source of income.
In other words: from 1862 onwards, the war was about something different than it was when it started.
Wars always end up being about something different from what started them. “Remember the Maine” gave the US an empire in the Pacific. “Remember Pearl Harbor” gave us a lot of things that had nothing to do with a place in the Pacific. I served in Southeast Asia, but I’m still not sure what the point was.
Vietnam could have been won – the U.S. policy was one of containment and not in winning the war.
Obviously, when a country is ‘contained’ in the sense of South and North Vietnam, then the industrial military complex and those who steer it will make a lot of money from such a policy.
We have been seeing the same ‘policy’ being played out in Afghanistan since 2003.
Western wars have become a money making concern.
Vietnam was “won” twice, in Tet 1968 and with the Christmas bombing in 1972. After both operations the North was making preparations for invasion and occupation of the North by the American forces. Both times we reached the brink of total victory and then stood down. Read General Giap’s memoirs.
Vietnam _was_ won, but was given away with the Paris “Peace” Accord. We left, North Vietnam violated its promises/agreements, and South Vietnam did not have the capability (nor its government the moral strength) to fight back effectively.
Thanks to all of the anti-war activity fostered (and mostly funded) by the Soviets and their sympathizers/CPA and SDS members in America, Congress wouldn’t authorize a return to VN to settle the North once and for all.
As has happened so many times, our government made promises, reneged upon them, and left our putative allies swinging in the wind.
As a Yankee soldier wrote home: a ragged, shoeless, starving rebel prisoner was asked, “Why do you Rebels fight so damn hard?” And he straightened himself and responded, “Cause y’all are down heah.” and none of us had an adequate answer for that.
My mother told a story of when she was a little girl, circa ’32, and complained of being hungry. Her great grandmother, who raised 3 children through the War and Reconstruction laughed and said, “Child, when a blue soldier kicks in the door and takes the last biscuit out of the baby’s hand you can worry about being hungry”.
Prior to the war being about something different, it was about one thing: the quest of the Southern states who waged it to maintain their institution of Negro servitude in the face of the potential threat to that institution represented by an Abolitionist, Abraham Lincoln, being elected president of the United States.
Since abolition of slavery, in the absence of war, would have required an amendment to the United States Constitution, and since the states that wished to avoid it formed a sufficiently large minority to block any such amendment, their initiation of the war, as Paul Johnson mentioned in his history of the United States, did not make any objective sense. The legislators of the Southern states, like Oedipus, committed a series of rash actions which, in the event, brought about the very result which it was their fondest object to prevent.
Yes, that was exactly what happened. You have to wonder what possessed these men — most of whom simply wanted to make or maintain their fortunes — to initiate such a rash action, so fatal to their interests.
I once read a theory, (which I merely mention in regard to your speculation – I don’t know enough to advocate it,) that the key players in the Secession had all as young men studied under a particular pro-slavery professor at a university in South Carolina.
As this professor, the theory continues, was an Englishman, the conjecture is that the seeds of Secession were planted by the British as part of their Great Game, applied to the United States.
Time was we worshipped God, were saved by grace, loved our neighbor and cared for one another. Then the progressives came to town peddling their snake oil. “Get involved!” they said, “Right the wrongs! Free the oppressed! Remove the stain of exploitation from the land and we will help you!” We listened to their pied pipers as they led us down the primrose path. Now we no longer worship God, in fact He is not even allowed out in public. We are shaved by Gracie and not ourselves. We exploit our neighbor and don’t care about any other, yet a spark of decency remains. The progressives will not rest until that is extinguished as godliness, virtue, and love for one another are anathema to them. They will foment the social warfare as their goal is to rule over the smoldering heap that was once the United Sates of America but now is an altered state and a ruin.
The venerable Chris Matthews? Really, Baron!! I have to hope that is a tongue I see deep in your right cheek.
There was an interesting post elsewhere yesterday (https://fredoneverything.org/author/toadstool/) about General Lee’s thoughts on the growth of the central government and the dangers that posed. I recommend it as a thought provoking addition to this discussion.
Well, somebody venerates Mr. Tingle. I don’t, but he certainly has his fans out there among the glassy-eyed boob-tube samurai.
The American Left has a lot in common with Islam. They are fanatical and have no concept of constraint or morality beyond advancing their crazy ideology. In both cases, there are lost of moderates who quietly cheer on the “radicals” who are actively fighting for a communist dictatorship / caliphate.
Moderates are also perfectly willing to give passive aid such as food and shelter to their fellow travelers against the infidel.
This is why all the bridge building exercises/interfaith dialogues are largely a waste of time.
Heaven only [knows] this one is no fAKE News.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/818055/london-fire-grenfell-tower-latest-updates-theresa-may-crowd
A house divided cannot stand!
Prophetic, very prophetic was Abe.
Abraham Lincoln was a student of the Bible. Indeed, he is to have said, “I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man. All the good from the Saviour of the world is communicated to us through this book!”
So, it’s not a stretch to think that he was familiar with Matthew 12:25: “He knew what they were thinking and said to them, ‘Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand.'”
And, Luke 11:17: “But he knew what they were thinking and said to them, ‘Every kingdom divided against itself becomes a desert, and house falls on house.'”
As well as, Mark 3:25: “And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.”
You need to read more. Lincoln was no Bible scholar or practicing Christian.
And felt that blacks were less human than whites, and wished for all of them to return to Africa, actually attempting to get what black “leaders” existed at that time to get their people to move to Liberia or other parts of Africa.
Just as with Hitler using the Jews as an excuse to take over Germany and to wage war across Europe, Lincoln used slavery as an issue to justify forcing the South to remain in the Union – and continue paying exorbitant tariffs to the US government. The Emancipation Proclamation only ended slavery in the Southern states – not the North.
Read Thomas DiLorenzo over at Mises.org: https://mises.org/library/lincoln-unmasked-what-youre-not-supposed-know-about-dishonest-abe-thomas-dilorenzo
Active military have to put food on the table for their children. When the time comes they will follow the orders of those who write the paychecks. The same for law enforcement.
In the event of a civil war in America there will not be the same as the first one.
People on different sides live almost side by side with each other. A group can attack a target in a neighboring city and retreat very fast if they use cars.
It will be like guerrilla warfare in Yugoslavia or the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Forget about defined states versus states and two armies in a battlefield. It will be much more ugly than that.
Yes, you are right. The 1990s Balkans war is a preview of what we all will eventually face in the West if the political process continues to be lost to the will of the people.
Exactly as the Spanish War was the prelude to WWII. It is puzzling as if an extraneous force, mysterious and cruel, deranges the human minds collectively, that evil practices and attitudes turn into good and benevolence. Sane people, who have no power to make decisions, see evil as evil. Decision makers, Hitler or Traitors, see evil as good. Lead us to perdition for 6 years. Then, after 6 years of bloodbaths and corpses, when 5 year old children, donkeys, and hens understand that we are in hell that we created, the Traitors and Hitlers also would have understood by that time.
I am happy that this time it won’t take 6 years because we are so clever in perfecting killing machines that we will be able to murder ourselves and others in one month a number equal to what our heroes did in 6 years.
It’s a dark picture that you paint, but nevertheless, that is what we will all reap if what is occurring now is not corrected via the political process, and soon, methinks.
We are fast running out of time.
Quite frankly, the coming civil war will be hives against flyover country. People live in the hives because they luvs them some big government, and have no use for the Constitution. People live in flyover country because they want limited government. Yes, there are a few in each area that do not subscribe to the same ideas as their neighbors, but they are few and far between. Doubt that? Fine. Show me a hive mayoral ballot from the last 30 years that has a Constitutional candidate for mayor on it. And Guiliani clones do not count as “Constitutional”. But they have no problem coming up with “Rent Too High” candidates for that office…
The flyovers simply need to stop shipping food to the hives and wait a couple months.
Also recall that many military installations are in flyover country, and are staffed mostly by folks from flyover country.
Far more effective is for the flyovers to stop shipping electricity and water to the hives. Works MUCH quicker.
Dinh ding ding! Winner!
Author Matt Bracken has, IIRC, suggested that any American internal conflict will be “Bosnia times Rwanda”.
I cannot argue against that conclusion.
In my opinion, the new civil war started with Ruby Ridge and Waco. However, your finding the parallel with John Brown is brilliant. This civil war will vary in its details but the general pattern is there. Once again we have the fight between states and the federal government. And quite right instead of slavery we have immigration as the central issue. God help us all.
Ruby Ridge, Waco, didn’t those take place under the Clintonista’s watch? And how about Mdme. Hillary’s support for the Palistinians and the Sarajevo Muslims? Hmm. I wonder who will fire the first shot, or was that the Bernie (belt and pad) Sanders activist?
Ruby Ridge was done in August 1992 under Shrub I. The murder by Lon Horiuchi was white-washed under Slick, but the actual operation was all Rove Republican sewage.
Right. The first was under GOPe rule, the second under Dem rule. Is there any longer any doubt which holds the leadership role in the Prog movement? All those “moderates” still claim to have clean hands. For instance, while it was the Dems who were demanding a special prosecutor for a crime not even charged, it was the GOPe who insisted on giving it to them.
Is there really any difference between the Dems and the GOPe? Only to the extent that the Dems are openly anti-American and anti-West. Personally I find it hard to call out the distinction without feeling I’m stating the obvious. But as a friend often points out, the obvious is the overlooked. We won’t begin to solve any problem when we continue to overlook (and forgive) the obvious.
The Democrats and the Rove Republicans (GOPe) are One World Government aficionados. They all have the same goal. The Rove Republicans merely want to go there slightly slower, and have a different set of cronies that they want to slop at the government trough while on the way there.
Waco was under Clinton. Ruby Ridge under GHW Bush.
Read two of the William Forstchen EMP sagas. Simply PG versions of what may happen if America decided to commit suicide by side glance. Meaning, too many characters coming into conversation distance before being dispatched to their heavenly reward.
A civil war in America would more likely resemble Venezuela circa “now”!
Differences old vs new: Modern Americans are soft well fed and lost without electricity.
19th century Americans suffered hunger cold and candlelight de
rigueuer.
Modern American cities are horizontal to the extreme. Indoor
plumbing, elevators, tied to our smart phones and computer
dependent.
Civil War America; wait till 1865 to find out where possibly a
grave marker existed for your son who expired in 1862.
My sensibility is that this war would end faster than Manolo Blahnik broken heel on Boston/NYC/WashDC subway grating. The virtue signaling would end in one loud and desperate sigh of “No mas!” The scary part is who would be in charge in the aftermath.
Great article Boss, with the usual intelligent feedback.
Dead on the money.
An additional consideration as to “civil war”?
Decisions by judges have led to violence and even “civil war”. Roger Taney the Supreme Court justice who wrote the majority opinion of the contentious Dred Scott decision has been vilified throughout history as central figure in causing the “War Between the States”.
What is dredful (dreadfully good pun) is that just a quick Wikipedia historical glance shows that Trumps 45th presidency has as many tripwires as James Buchanan’s 14th presidency.
The similarities involving race an ethnicity are kinda eerily mirroring what is occurring today. Black American and Mexican American contretemps will dog this American century just as it did the 19th and 20th.
Trump’s bumptious personality and James Buchanan’s amazing resume and status as a competent political infighter (all lost in the afterglow of the Lincoln’s rise to sainthood) do not at all resemble one another. How they do resemble one another they both sit (sat) at precipices of historical events that can lead a man to infamy dependent on which side of the coin one calls. A. Lincoln was the ultimate political and wartime cleanup hitter. He like a Babe Ruth said he’d knock it out of the park. J. Buchanan pulled a “Casey at the Bat”. Looked the part but “strike three” cried the ump!
Mr. Trump? America? Is their a A. Lincoln waiting in the “on deck circle”? And who is he? Will he swing for the fences?
since when has the Left ever been ‘non-violent’?
Sherman’s “war is hell” quote is an excerpt from a longer and more carefully reasoned letter. The civilians of Atlanta were complaining. He explained that there was no way to wage war gentleman style. The South had started it and now it was going to play out by the iron logic of war. If that meant that Atlanta had to be put in such a state that when his army left it, no southern army could use it as a base, or a source of manufacturing, or munitions, or supplies or transport, tough.
Sherman was right both as to the nature of war and as to the ethical propriety of massive property destruction as a means of war. Sherman laid waste, not to the orchards or the cities (Atlanta and a couple others being excesses of his troops and not policy) but to the sinews of war in the area he swept through.
The war was consuming both lives and wealth at a frightful pace. Even if one restricts attention to southern lives and southern wealth, the damage Sherman did was distinctly less than the damage that the south sustained month by month just because the war was going on. Sherman’s march took an amazingly small toll of human lives compared to the carnage playing out up by Petersburg. Any sober reckoning of how things would have settled out had Sherman quietly put Atlanta in order and in good time, guarding his rail connections carefully and being careful to do no harm to farms or towns, must grant that while the particular farms his bummers visited lost a lot of provisions, the war itself was by far doing the greater harm.
War is not hell, as another commenter wrote, in part because war eventually comes to an end. Hastening that end is, by that good logic, the way to make war less like hell.
The issues before our country now are utterly trivial in comparison to “free or slave”. Shall federal income tax rates max out at 25% or 45%? Puhleeze. This is something to squabble over, not something over which to kill millions of people (scale the civil war to today’s population and that’s what you get). Our liberal fellow citizens, and we ourselves, need to remind ourselves of this and not let this spiral out of hand without even once taking a deep breath and sizing up what matters more and what matters less.
The issues before our country now are not at all trivial. They truly are the distinction between free or slave. Not in the19th century sense of one man owning another but in the sense of each one us as slaves to a tyrannical state.
The two sides aren’t arguing over tax rates. They aren’t arguing over whether we should modify this government program or that one. Or whether we should cut foreign aid.
They are arguing over whether we should govern ourselves according to the US Constitution or not. They are arguing over whether we should live as free men in a Republic or live under the total domination of an elite ruling class in love with Marxist ideology.
People with shared values and shared goals for their country can squabble over tax rates. They can share power and compromise. But our would be masters don’t want to squabble over tax rates or over anything else. They don’t want to share power with us. They want total control of every single part of our lives. They want to rule, old school style. And that kind of ambition only leads to one outcome.
John Brown is absurd.
Preston Brooks is more apt.
I think there are some fallacies that need to be addressed:
1. The Left cannot prevail against the [Hard Right] and The Dirt People. (I use [Hard Right] to distinguish from the Leftist construct of <<>> which is conflated with the racist right and the Richard Spencer/David Dukes)
This is wrong because you must look at who is organized. The Right/Conservative world has been busy working, raising families and being good citizens. The TransProgs have been busy getting organized and practicing street actions – see Berkeley and all the other American AntiFa street actions since 11/9/16.
2. Civil War II will be relatively clean, of a defined duration (until we win) and standard warfare.
Nope, not even close. It will be house-to-house, neighborhood-to-neighborhood street fighting done by irregulars of both sides. Road blocks resulting in filled trenches, house-to-house actions of ‘Political Action Committees’ with disappearances like happened in South America in the past will be quite common, on both sides.
The end state will not look like Reconstruction but a cross between Caracas, Mogadishu, Aleppo, Sarajevo, Mosul, Fallujah, Kabul, Beirut, Benghazi, Chechnya, Kuwait and all the hellholes of mid-Africa as a good result. I suspect it will be much worse than even I imagine.
3. The new USA will be re-formed into a Constitutional Republic again.
Nope. It will descend into a satrapy of outside powers ruling over the scraps.
We best hope Trump can right the ship or I fear there is much, much worse on the horizon.
The Former Robohobo
Your correct I think. The fact is Americans truly are exceptional in many ways, one of which is our passion in combat. European observers were astounded, and mentioned often in dispatches home, at the ferocity with which the opponents on both sides there themselves at each other and contended far beyond reasonable endurance, a good example being a Confederate regiment, from Georgia I think, assaulting a fresh Union regiment at 2nd Manassas with rocks. If we do this it will be with “both hands” as the Bible says, and the world will be staggered by the blood letting. Rwanda will look restrained.
“House to house?” “Irregulars?” That assumes that the Leftist combatants know anything–really, anything–about modern guerilla warfare, urban combat, logistics, clandestine operations, comms and the other sections of successful 4G warfare. Sorry, but they don’t, not in the aggregate.
No, what will happen will be your roadblocks, “Political Action Committees” and disappearances committed entirely by the Right upon the Left. Short answer why: we on the American Right actually know how to do all of this. The Left is completely clueless on these actions and how they are properly performed.
We in the Right aren’t engaged in this kind of insurgency today because we know where it leads, and how bloody good we’d be at it. The immature Left thinks it can engage in it, but they don’t remember the lessons of 1930s Spain and the fecklessness of the International Brigades. We do, and we will stay away from such unpleasantries as long as possible.
But when we on the patriotic Right commit, actions will be a combination of 1970s Argentina, 1980s Northern Ireland, and shards of 1990s Bosnia. With a whole basket of the confidence of 1933-34 Germany thrown in for flavor, minus the national socialism.
I, too, cannot predict how this will end. But History will record that we on the Right did not want any of it. But we will end it on our terms and that of the Constitution.
The Left is utterly mad for wanting any of this. They won’t win. And no quarter will be given once it starts getting sporty.
The trouble with the “John Brown” alusion is that John Brown had a following before his raid. He had spent years building a network of supporters prior to his timely end. James “Bernie’s the Bomb” Hodgkinson had none of that. If a truly charismatic leader arose and espoused the same beliefs and then decided to embrace violence as the only means, then, yes, a new John Brown martyr would be born. Hodgkinson will only be seen as an oddity for the short news cycle and then forgotten. He could potentially be the inspiration for the charismatic one and thereby remembered, but he had no base before his own timely end.
Good point.
But the analogy is only supposed to be a loose fit. We can’t get an exact parallel, because it was possible to advocate a violent resolution of the slavery issue within the mainstream culture of 1850s, but it’s not possible for today’s mainstream Left to advocate violence — and I mean REALLY advocate it, not just fantasize about executing Trump. The current mainstream culture rules violent solutions out.
When mainstream culture shifts to allow the advocacy of violence, that will be the big ideological break.