Saturday, August 9, 2014

To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction


The latest column by Fred Reed got me thinking.  Here's an excerpt.

Weimar America is not stable. The cracks in the foundations, the social crumbling and virulent antipathies grow daily more evident.

The economy declines, jobs leave for other climes, the petroyuan looms, college graduates crushed by debt find no work, the middle class shrinks, and the young begin to live perforce with their parents. Times of diminishing expectations are dangerous.

City after city joins the ranks of the bankrupt, semiliterate, corrupt black Bantustans which by honest naming would be called Lower Third World. Their culture is utterly alien to that of Eurowhites. Across the open border to the south pour huge waves from the Latino slums, less alien to Eurowhites, less hostile, but nonetheless threatening to form yet another country within a country. The Third World proportion of America closes rapidly on a full third. Despite desperate attempts to impose multicultural harmony, experience shows that widely disparate peoples who do not like each other do not enjoy happy endings. My country ‘tis of three, sweet land of dystrophy….

America can no longer be called a democracy. The Constitution recedes in memory. Congress and the Supreme Court amount to nothing. Washington rests uneasily in the hands of a half-mad clique of geopolitical illiterates, warlike misfires playing dangerous games like little Kaiser Wilhelms in a sandbox. Presiding over the city is Septimius Severus, Bokassa III, a negligible pol from Chicago who doesn’t like whites or understand European norms of government. He will keep the borders open and civil liberties in retreat.

A sort of insanity rules, warning of stress building along many political San Andreas faults waiting for the Big One.

. . .

Below this seething maelstrom of degeneracy lie dangerous shoals of cultural conservatism, of people who believe in two sexes and birth within wedlock and orderly society obedient to law. They are quietly very, very angry at seeing everything they stand for eaten away by the multi-culti, touchy-feely, everything-goes miasma emanating from Washington. They speak of personal responsibility, learning the multiplication tables, English as the national language, and no toleration of crime-- and they know who commits it. Whether you think them simple-minded and fascist or wholesome and self-reliant defines which side of the gaping cultural divide you inhabit.

In times like these arises a yearning for a strong man to sweep away the filth, banish the disorder, and restore a possibly existent former Elysium ... And so a strong man arises from somewhere. With luck you end up with Lee Kuan Yew instead of Mussolini or, worse, that dark squatty effeminate blond Aryan superman of the Beer Hall Putsch. Unfortunately you can’t tell who you have got until after you have got him.

. . .

In America, something is going to happen. It will not happen just now. Things are not yet bad enogh. Wait. Whether it will be a continued slow sinking into an internally chaotic semi-bushworld status, or a serious war with Russia and China started by brain-burnt sexagenarian adolescents in Congress and pasty neocons with Napoleonic fantasies, or a coup by the military, or something else, I don’t know ... But something is going to happen.

There's more at the link.  Sobering reading.

I think Fred is right.  I'm sensing undercurrents in more than one part of American society that concern me deeply.  On both extremes, of Left and Right, we see hard-line positions being adopted that have no room for maneuver or mutual acceptance.  "Live-and-let-live" appears as dead as the dodo.

Trouble is, I've seen the extremes in action for myself.  In South Africa's civil war and in conflicts in many other African nations, I've seen what happens when people and groups on either side of the political divide decide that the status quo is intolerable, and that any means are justified in order to get rid of it - even wholesale violence and indiscriminate murder by bomb, land-mine or other means.  Once that line is crossed, by either side, the other side will probably respond by crossing it in its turn.  It's almost inevitable.

Each side is likely to assume that it has enough force/power/whatever to prevail.  Those relying on the 'Big Brother' state to enforce their policies will believe that a 'Civilian National Security Force', that might take shape in the form of a greatly expanded Department of Homeland Security and its efforts to 'militarize' police forces at national, state and local level will be sufficient to compel compliance with their orders.  Citizen militia will assume that with so many 'patriots' (whom they define according to their own criteria, which are not necessarily shared by others) and so many weapons at individuals' disposal, such authoritarian impulses can be defied - by force of arms if necessary.

I've seen what happens when such irresistible forces meet such immovable objects.  The innocent are the first to suffer, because extremists on both sides are eager to proclaim "If you're not with us/for us, you must be against us!"  In their minds, this justifies extreme action against those who are less than quick to co-operate.  In its turn, such simplistic "my-way-or-the-highway" dictatorialism begets similar reactions from those on the other side.  If extremists can't target members of the security forces because of beefed-up security, they'll target their wives and children and extended families.  I know.  I've seen this happen before.  In their turn, the security forces will lose all sense of restraint and exercise unfettered violence against anyone and everyone they perceive to be a threat, or 'different' in any way to themselves.  Again, I've seen this happen.  It's real.

I believe that in his unfettered contempt for the Constitution and the legislative branch, expressed most clearly in his recent moves to permit many more illegal aliens to enter the country, President Obama has "crossed the Rubicon" in his disdain for the views of most Americans.  I believe that the new arrivals will bring with them greatly increased crime and disease, and will impose crippling new burdens on the already stretched education and welfare budgets of states that receive them.  (The Administration's contemptuous dumping of hundreds of illegal aliens in some states without even bothering to inform the Governors of those states about it is mind-boggling in its arrogance and stupidity.)  As one commentator has pointed out:  "A Constitution is born of words, but it lives in deeds.  Or, as is usually the case, it dies."

I hope and pray that this won't be the catalyst for hard-liners on both sides to draw a line in the sand . . . but I fear more and more that this is a pipe-dream.  The Bundy ranch standoff earlier this year was a red light, warning of further troubles ahead.  I predict that the 'militia' movements currently sending people to patrol areas of the southern border will escalate such conflict with uniformed security services in those regions.  Sooner or later, a spark is going to be lit to the fuse.  Once that happens, where will it stop?  The last time such a fuse was lit in this country was at Fort Sumter . . .

It may be that, as one commenter has put it, 'Organized Community Defense Is America’s Last Hope' - against both extremes.

Peter

8 comments:

Rolf said...

I have a hard time explaining this to my liberal acquaintances. They feel the need to help, "we have to let them in!" they say.
"I'm a teacher," I tell them. "What would you have me do when two illiterates with gang connections, no English, and no interest in learning are dumped into my classroom? How will that help YOUR children that are in there with them?" All I've gotten so far is spluttering or silence. People will live in their magical-thinking world, right up to the moment reality sticks its ugly, diseased, brutal head into their tent for a midnight snack.

Anonymous said...

The "security services" show NO "restraint" NOW. Every day another "officer" murders a baby , a small child, an elder or an innocent; often for sport. The Badge scum and there supporters do all that they can to cover this up. They kill just because they can , knowing they will never be punished. The people have shone remarkable restraint in not exterminating them. The open border ,and communist government in DC guarantee not only civil war but ethnic cleansing wit large. Genocide that engulfs tens of millions and drives out tens of millions more. The communist left and the "live and let live" useful idiots and "anti-racist" have made this inevitable and unstoppable. The "conservative right" believes this to have only one intent; The total extermination of the white man. That more than anything is the reason for the Militias to have reformed. You are right about one thing; both sides have gone crazy, and we only await the "spark" that starts the "great extermination" of huge segments of the human race. P.S. The Militia is a lawful civilian formation that government has very limited authority over , An institution protected by the US constitution and almost every state constitution. By law , ALL adult Male citizens are members of the militia. The United Stats was NEVER a "democracy" it was always a Constitutional Republic.

Old NFO said...

You and Fred are both right... and it IS coming to a head!

MrGarabaldi said...

Hey Peter,

I think the people are patiently hoping to "vote" themselves out of this problem, but I am having doubts that this will work. I fear the tipping point was the 2012 elections. People like "us" are quietly arming themselves in preparation of conflict. I absolutely don't want to see a civil war in the United States, we still are dealing with the last one that hit in the 1860's. But it has come to a point where the "elitist" flat don't care about us and want this vision of the very rich and the very poor, where the rich stay where they are and the poor are dependent on the government or "them" for survival and have to give their loyalty to the same. The vision of American from Norman Rockwell is fading fast, and I unfortunately believe that there will be a fight. The "right" will not back down anymore, they have been caving to the demands of the "left" for generations and they will not back down anymore. For proof is the 85% rate of disobedience to the assault weapon ban in Connecticut. The people will fight if it is pushed. This is one flashpoint, the immigration debate is another. We are balkenizing and it is getting worse.

Will said...

The deliberate flooding of 3rd world, incompatible illegals over our borders will be the fuel that will do the most damage to the nation. When the inevitable conflagration lights off, it will burn from coast to coast. Of course, this will not be the only reason, but it is a fairly visible, easily confirmed factor that can be focused on to vent the peoples anger, as they attempt to fix things. It will spread wider, very quickly.

Rather like the forests that the leftist eco-wackos won't allow to be touched. When you allow unchecked growth of underbrush, and don't allow the removal of deadwood, all while fighting any fires that nature would normally use to keep things balanced, you end up with a situation that when it finally does catch fire, is unstoppable. Normally, the large, mature trees don't burn, but in a fuel drenched situation like this, EVERYTHING burns. Even the ground gets burnt, and ends up sterilized.

I don't know why, but it is quite obvious that the typical left-winger/socialist has an inability to look at real world facts, and come to logical, or sane, conclusions. Are people who think this way attracted to the various flavours of socialism, or does believing in it cause them to create the brain wiring needed to sustain this type of thinking?

Jselvy said...

I think the question is not if but when. There will be blood, and it will be orders of magnitude worse than anything the world has seen before. In 1860 a section tried to leave a voluntary agreement. It was regional and thus limited. This one will be a true civil war with the (multiple) factions intermixed. No uniforms to delineate the sides, no one will know who is who. In 1860 the US was not the great white father of the whole world. All of our collective resourced will be engaged in this conflict with nothing left over. No NATO, UN or USAID. No aid against terrorism, no alliances and no help for anyone.
Good luck and I hope to see you on the other side.

Coconut said...

Would think the easiest fix would be for people feeling one way to go to one part of the country and people feeling the other to the other, there to go their seperate ways; though I seem to recall a chappie named Lincoln torpedoed any hope of that about one-point-for centuries ago.

United States seems a bit like the Mafia to me; you can join, but God help you if you try to leave.

mobius said...

What is the militia but an Organized Community Defense Force?

"In their turn, the security forces will lose all sense of restraint and exercise unfettered violence against anyone and everyone they perceive to be a threat, or 'different' in any way to themselves. Again, I've seen this happen."

Have they not, already?