The danger of civil war is real - and growing

 

The more this election drags on, and the more fraud is uncovered, the less likely it is that our democracy can survive in its present form.  The United States is, in so many words, no longer united.  We're tearing ourselves apart, Democrat versus Republican, "blue state" versus "red state" - but it's not as clear-cut as that.  No state is entirely blue or red.  We've a mixture of political affiliations in every state, and thus each state is itself becoming dis-united, at war with itself, as well as the wider Union.

Brandon Smith saw this coming.

In July of this year in my article ‘Election 2020: The Worst Case Scenario Is The Most Likely One’, after I outlined the strange factors surrounding Biden and Trump, I stated that:

“These factors and more lead me to predict that Election 2020 will be a contested election which ends with Trump staying in office but accused of usurping the democratic process. This outcome is the worst possible outcome and also the most advantageous for the globalist establishment.”

. . .

The bizarre behavior of vote counters in swing states, including PA where they stopped the count altogether overnight, indicates a program to incite national tensions and rage. The media refusing to call certain states for Trump even though he held clear leads while rushing to call states for Biden even though the count was far from unfinished will only exacerbate people’s suspicions that the election is being rigged or stolen.

Trump has said he will take the results to the Supreme Court and there is no doubt that recounts will be held in states like Michigan and Arizona. I continue to predict that Trump will stay in office despite the close election. I also predict that numerous fake ballots will be discovered during recounts only throwing gasoline on the fire and implicating Democrats in certain districts with fraud. Social justice leftists will surely try to riot in response, and Trump will call for martial law if the current scenario plays out as I expect.

The leftists will NOT accept the results of a Supreme Court decision in favor of Trump. Conservatives WILL NOT accept a Biden presidency. I think it’s clear where this is all headed.

There's more at the link.

I've seen civil war in three countries (so far).  I know just how terrible, how destructive it can be;  and I know what it can do to countries that can't or won't come to terms with their internal divisions, and seek to bridge them peacefully.  The last thing in the world that I want is to see that in our streets . . . but I think it's so close right now that it's almost inevitable.  God forbid!

I'm seeing it already in things as routine as office politics.  I've worked in plenty of office environments in my time, and I understand them.  There's always been friction between individuals and groups who don't like each other, but now we're seeing active hostility between them, and attempts to fire one or the other because of their political views.  Try being a conservative working at Facebook, or Google, or Twitter these days.  Odds are you won't last long, no matter how good your technical or professional skills.  You'll be driven out because your political views are unacceptable.  The same dynamic is evident even in smaller companies.  Those who are well led are cracking down on political expression at work, insisting on a neutral environment for their staff.  Those who are not doing so are finding more and more friction between their workers.  There are many horror stories out there.  I'm sure my readers have heard them, and may have had encounters of their own to bear them out.

I'm also seeing whispering campaigns against companies in the marketplace.  "Oh, you don't want to do business with X - they're a bunch of conservative knuckle-draggers!"  "Don't buy anything from Y - they're all liberals, and they'll use your dollars to support socialists!"  You get the idea.  When I, as a private citizen and a customer, start hearing that sort of thing from hairdressers and sales clerks, I know things have gone waaaaay too far for comfort.

Far too few people seem willing to "agree to differ".  Far too many people appear to be insisting on "my way or the highway".  That's a very dangerous situation indeed.  It hasn't yet got to the point of taking up arms against each other . . . but it has come to the point that when a mob destroys someone's business, those who disagreed with its owner will merely snigger and say that "He had it coming!"  It's even come to the point that extremists are deliberately targeting members of the opposition, seeking to maim and/or kill them.  Charlottesville, 2017.  Portland, 2020.  Denver, 2020.  There have been others.  There will probably be many more, at the rate things are going.

Some years ago, in response to the terror attacks in Paris in 2015, I wrote an article titled "Paris and the pain of being human".  In it, I said:

I've seen war from the inside.  I've been under fire, and I've fired on others.  I've been wounded - one of my wife's early experiences after we married was to pick a piece of shrapnel out of my back as it finally worked its way out of my body - and I've inflicted my share of wounds.  I've picked up the dead, and the pieces of the dead.

Those aren't the worst aspects of violent conflict.  To me, the worst is what it does to the human psyche.  You become dehumanized.  Your enemies are no longer people - they're objects, things, targets.  You aren't shooting at John, whose mother is ill, and who's missing his girlfriend terribly, and who wants to marry her as soon as he can get home to do so.  You're shooting at that enemy over there, the one who'll surely 'do unto you' unless you 'do unto him' first.  He's not a human being.  He's a 'gook'.  He's 'the enemy'.  He's a thing rather than a person.  It's easier to shoot a thing than it is a person.

. . .

That's the bitter fruit that extremism always produces.  It's done so throughout history.  There are innumerable examples of how enemies have become 'things'.  It's Crusaders versus Saracens, Cavaliers versus Roundheads, Yankees versus Rebels, doughboys versus Krauts . . . us versus them, for varying values of 'us' and 'them'.

. . .

And in the end, the bodies lying in the ruins, and the blood dripping onto our streets, and the weeping of those who've lost loved ones . . . they'll all be the same.  History is full of them.  When it comes to the crunch, there are no labels that can disguise human anguish.  People will suffer in every land, in every community, in every faith . . . and they'll turn to what they believe in to make sense of their suffering . . . and most of them will raise up the next generation to hate those whom they identify as the cause of their suffering . . . and the cycle will go on, for ever and ever, until the world ends.

We cannot 'kill them all and let God sort them out' ... There are too many of 'them' to kill them all, just as 'they' can never kill all of 'us'.  We cannot kill our way out of terrorism.  We cannot kill our way out of the dilemma of being human, with all the tragedy that entails.

May God have mercy on us all.

Again, more at the link.  The comments below the article illustrate the diversity of opinions on the matter.

We are getting far too close to a "line drawn in the sand" moment.  There are already extremists who have demonstrated their willingness to take up arms against those with different opinions.  That's legitimate in order to defend against a threat to the safety and security of oneself and one's loved ones.  It's not legitimate to do so in order to threaten or attack the safety and security of those who hold different opinions.  Too many of us are losing sight of that distinction.

For all our differences, we need to remind ourselves that our opponents are human beings, too, and deserve the same consideration from us that we expect from them.  Unless we do that, we'll soon end up fighting each other with more lethal options than words . . . and once that happens, our future as a nation will be grim.

Peter