Friday, November 6, 2020

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, 2017Portland, 2020Denver, 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


28 comments:

Aesop said...

Repeated for emphasis:

A violent civil war to the death between competing ideologies in this country is the last thing I want:

but it's STILL on the list!

The courts are down to about a New York Minute to return things to status post ante, and prosecutors had better start rounding up election fraud conspirators in vanloads right quick.

Failing that, the soap box, ballot box, and jury box will have failed, and the Left coined the phrase, "By Any Means Necessary". So be it.

So if they intend to attempt to carry this farce through as if it isn't happening, I'm not going to sit here, watch the country thrown to the lions, and resolve merely to taste bad.

The Other Side, human or not, is going to find out what blood tastes like in their own mouths, and we're going to see in living color what "enemies foreign and domestic" looks like when played out in 3D reality.

The made their grave when they resolved to steal an election, and a country, outright, in an election they knew they'd lose, narrowly (and did).

If they want forgiveness, that comes from God.
it may be time to start booking their travel plans for the meeting, and I for one will be more than happy to cancel as many tickets on that ride as humanly possible, as long as I have strength.

It's 11:58.

Here I stand. I can do no other.

Aesop said...

And we're not differing on their opinions, Peter.

We'll be stepping in to oppose, by force of arms if necessary, their choice of means to achieve their ends.

They've violently raped the political system. Brazenly in broad daylight, in the town square, with everyone watching.

Either someone gets apprehended, and roughly, for that, and dealt with harshly.

Or more ad hoc means are going to become common practice.
Ropes and handy trees become the coin of justice on that day.

You be the cool voice of reason. That's well and good.

But beyond a certain point, you can't argue with a rabid wolf.

At that point, the shotgun calls the song.

If you listen sharply, you can hear the approaching snarling, and the orchestra is warming up in the pit, even as we speak.

Tick tock.

Roy said...

Be careful. Be very, very careful.

War is like a fire. Once started, if it gets out of control, it goes its own way and consumes everyone in its path.

A comparison to CW1 isn't always apt. But there are some things about CW1 that are worthy of note. Today, our political divisions don't have the geographic lines of north verses south, but there is one aspect of the first war that is comparable - the Civil War in Missouri and Kansas. Go and read what the people of those two states went through, or you can go watch a very good movie called "Ride With the Devil".

Be very careful what you wish for.

jen said...

I tried the 'agree to disagree' with regards to the blm/antifa horseshit, and was told, emphatically, that that makes me raciss. There IS no acceptance of other viewpoints, go along and agree, or you're dead to them.

NITZAKHON said...

@Roy (and @Peter):

Nobody with more than three brain cells capable of firing at once is chomping at the bit to light IT off. At least, nobody sane. And that's what they're counting on - our reluctance to start something whose outcome is likely (for our side) but not certain... and which, even if we win, will entail enormous death and destruction in America. Let alone outside from the stabilizing presence of America off the stage.

But as we weigh the consequences of such a war, we need to weigh the consequences of acquiescence to this outright, in your face vote theft - one of which being a yuuuuuge step towards the Left having absolute power.

Is this the hill to die on? IMHO yes.

looper said...

ROY, We have used our military to defend elections in other countries, sane folks do not WISH for war. Do we not have the right, the need to protect our way of life, our Constitution, values, laws and what is morally right ?
If not who will do it for us ??

The Lab Manager said...

Ever talk to a leftist? They are total dipshits and incapable of any reasoning even with education. With exceptions, I would guess most on the right are not real happy with the Republican Party which has failed and they say so, but no, that's not enough for a leftard.

looper said...

Look at all the ballots from the 1800's.
be sure to click on order ascending for birth date column.

https://data.pa.gov/Government-Efficiency-Citizen-Engagement/2020-General-Election-Mail-Ballot-Requests-Departm/mcba-yywm/data

Unknown said...

"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." Yeah, when Bill Ayers and friends discuss the need to murder 25,000,000 Americans to achieve their utopia, I know what I can expect from them should they succeed at this theft of an election/a nation.

tweell said...

The problem is that we won't get any consideration from them. They have said so, in word and deed. For myself, I will give thieves and traitors all the consideration they deserve. As ye sow, so shall ye reap.

looper said...

They ( the left ) have shown they do not care about anyones lives but their own.
The right continues restraint and probably will until it is too late. This is a pattern with the right. We will see

NITZAKHON said...

@Unknown:

Elie Wiesel, the famous Holocaust survivor turned speaker, once said "When someone says they want to kill you, believe them".

They openly say they think we're not human, that we need "re-education" if not worse, and that for believing what we believe we're evil people. And throughout history, subhuman and evil people are "handled" by "good people".

I have the moral courage to take them at their word.

dogsledder said...

This is a very dangerous time for our country. I believe that if the left is able to steal this election, it will mean the breakup of our country. We cannot allow a communist takeover of the "United States".

McChuck said...

The only thing worse than war is surrender.

The Democrats have been waging war against America for a century. Anything we do at this point IS self defense.

JaimeInTexas said...

Excellent movie.
Outlaw Josey Wakes is another.
Some say that Kansa and Nebraska were the real civil war. The rest was for independece or keep the union as it was in 1860.

SiGraybeard said...

Gun Free Zone has picture up from a Tweet, labeled Portland, November 4th. It says, WE DON'T WANT BIDEN - WE WANT REVENGE.

Antifa has people sent to Syria to fight ISIS and any other war they could get them into. That's who's on our streets.

Listen to the audio when they assassinated that Trump supporter in Portland. All they knew about him was he had a MAGA hat on, then they label him a fascist and go kill him in cold blood.

If that isn't the war here already, what is?

For the last 50 years or so, the division in America has been big cities vs the rest of the country. That's why those Red/Blue maps of American show millions of miles of Red counties with Blue tending to be centered on the biggest cities.

Greg said...

I've said it elsewhere and I'll say it here: Hold yer fire hothead! It's not over till Trump says it's over! I will be looking to team Trump to tell us what is to be done where and when.
Many years ago Claire Wolfe wrote: Don't Shoot the Bastards (Yet): 101 More Ways to Salvage Freedom. It's not quite yet time to reach for the cartridge box.

Rick said...

Alright, so how to keep the Republic and avoid the bloodshed?
I've earnestly tried talking with leftists. It is an exercise not only in futility but will drive you to psychological exasperation. Even the mildest leftists pepper their argument (commonly circular) with platitudes which then run off to tangents and a myriad of 'what if' scenarios'. As if the hypothetical has become the point of conversation. Of my many attempts, no matter how broached or the terms couched in pleasantries, the fact is that none have considered a peaceable resolution. Even if they don't storm off angered with a F U flung over their shoulders, it is obvious that no mind was turned, no consideration given.

Jesus answered to a self-righteous Peter, Seventy times seven, and while that was in a different context I have adopted that as instruction as to how to approach others in difficulties. Yet required is some evidence of humility on both sides, a willingness to reconsider or to accept admonishment. I have yet to discern that ability of mind or heart in the other. I suppose it is wrought by their confidence that they are 'winning', that there minds are so set on victory that they ignore the costs thereof.

Aside from the difficulty in using, your know, reason in conversation with the leftists, the undeniable basis remains, no matter how clouded or deflected it becomes; how to propose agreement between two vastly different ideologies. It can't be done.

It can't be done not because a lack of intelligence acts to prohibit the discernment of the solution but that the two are completely opposite one to the other. One wants peace, the other war. One wishes to preserve that which the other seeks to destroy.

To reiterate, it is preservation of the Republic which is at the bottom of the disagreement, nay, resentment of one to the other. Any who seek to harm or tear down that is the enemy. I'd rather not say it but I must for I am not in the habit of ignoring reality; it is the leftists who have made their bed, it is they who agitate, often violently, for dramatic change. That they just won't leave me and millions of others alone has earned them the wrath to come.

kurt9 said...

If civil war comes (and I still think it won't) I agree with Aesop that the military itself will sit this one out, as well as most of the cops. I think the biggest threat (to our side) will be the CIA contractors. They are the only people in CIA, and government in general, who have actual experience doing "field" work (e.g. "wet" work). They clearly have the skills. Where will they come in in this mess? Most FBI agents do not have the skills for this kind of activity. However, all of the various alphabet agencies have their own SWAT teams. They could be a problem as well. However, I think the biggest threat would come from CIA field work contractors. Perhaps they can be payed off into retiring to the beaches of Southeast Asia or the like.

Rick said...

SiG, that it is the cities which are encampments of blue in a sea of red is why I had taken no action, nor felt any remorse that the cities have been looted and burned. They spoil their own nests. That people (some thought to be 'innocent') were terrorized or otherwise ruined is no consideration of mine. It is not a hard heart which permits me to say such a thing, yet it is the observation that those 'innocent' were kindred spirits yet cried out when the cause turned on them.

That they do such deeds under the banner they fly is reason to not consider them my fellows. I travel not with them nor seek their advice. Consider Ezra telling the defilers to depart even though they had said we are like you, we also worship the same God and make tithes. The lies are revealed. The deceivers sought to infiltrate in order the destroy. A hard line is drawn. If they will not withdraw of their own accord, it will be by force.

That I have typed this many words is evidence that there is compassion. Yet it remains divorced from them for their deeds are great. Where is their love?

kurt9 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
kurt9 said...

I wonder if we will see Andreas Brevig tactics in the U.S. What the wikipedia does not talk about is that he specifically targeted the offspring of his opponents.

Jimmy the Saint said...

From the quoted article: "Conservatives WILL NOT accept a Biden presidency."

No offense, but accepting losses is what American conservatives DO. In fact, it's pretty much all they do. Things that were unthinkable not that long ago are now commonplace because the Right doesn't play to win. Even the few successes that they do have (e.g., the Heller decision) end up being pretty inconsequential. They are forever Charlie Brown to the collectivist's Lucy.

Jimmy the Saint said...

@ SiG: "For the last 50 years or so, the division in America has been big cities vs the rest of the country."

That's part of it, but there are also, unfortunately, significant racial and religious components, too; they're just masked to some extent by the urban/rural framework.

Jimmy the Saint said...

@ kurt9: "I wonder if we will see Andreas Brevig tactics in the U.S. What the wikipedia does not talk about is that he specifically targeted the offspring of his opponents."

If history is any sort of guide, we absolutely will, with one caveat. It's pretty common for one group to try to wipe out the children of another. The caveat is what the Soviets and Nazis realized: if you control the education system, you don't need to kill the young; you simply convert them to your way of thinking. Though in the Nazi case, to the extent the "enemy" young were "racial enemies", killing was still the preferred approach.

kurt9 said...

The caveat is what the Soviets and Nazis realized: if you control the education system, you don't need to kill the young; you simply convert them to your way of thinking.

That's actually the reason for wiping them out. The school system cannot do its damage if there are no kids for it to do its damage to.

kurt9 said...

In any case, there isn't going to be any civil war. If anything, we are becoming less violent over time, not more. I expect this trend to continue.

John T. Block said...

I recall the German Patriots, after WW I, strong in their beliefs..."We have our medals! We fought and bled, for der Fatherland! The Govt. won't turn on us, just because we are Jewish!"

When my opponents, including family, tell you your Faith, convictions, indeed your CULTURE are now evil, dispite those things having built the society that allowed them the free time and income to be "revolutionary ", and that all that, and you must be pulled down and destroyed,if you disagree over your dead body,
BELIEVE THEM. And prepare accordingly....