That's exactly what it is.
Mark Steyn with another gem. Food for intellectual thought.
His columns are the kind you read slowly, because of all of the profound thoughts contained therein.
Many here on FR allude to a looming type of civil war, that society has fractured along invisible fault lines, some dealing with reality and some dealing with rabid liberalism, some along the lines of failed Socialist policies that are trying to be resurrected, even after their utter failure has been exposed.
In American history this fractionalization of political thought reminds me of 1860, when the fissures of the body politic became deep, undeniable and irreversible.
I can only pray that the election decision next year does not become a close result ala 2000, but a decisive decision by the American electorate, one way or the other.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
Shades of 1860 indeed.
CW2 Ping.
We’ve been using the expression “Cold Civil War” here on FR for at least four years, but it’s still nice for Steyn to notice.
Hree’s a link I found in about two seconds to Cold Civil War, from 2003 on FR.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1004834/posts
The question is what might turn this into a "Hot" civil war? Despite the common fantasy on the fringes of the Left very few in the entire world are being assaulted for attempting to turn their respective governments toward world socialism, but quite a few are being assaulted by their respective governments simply for hoping for some sort of democracy. One might have thought that this fits into the "progressive" paradigm, and one would have been mistaken - these movements are, broadly, abandoned and even cursed by "progressives." I cite Burma, China, Tibet, Iraq, Iran, Zimbabwe, and Cuba as examples. That list isn't exhaustive by far.
What we have here is a blatant abandonment of principle in favor of faction, politics in its most primitive, unthinking, tribal form. One of the things that makes it primitive is its proclivity for violence. We see this today in the identity of who gets shouted down on campus - left or right? Who gets their tires slashed at election time, their cars keyed, their signs stolen, left or right? And so the answer to the question of what might turn this into a "Hot" civil war is, I am afraid, the mere ability of the violent Left to get away with it.
I can think of several things that might encourage that. One, with us already, is the willingness of clearly partisan media to ignore or excuse acts of violence on the part of those whose cause they tend to view sympathetically. Another is the systematic disarmament of the enemies of the Left. Those who think "gun nuts" are the only ones to be concerned about this had better reconsider. Another still is the encouragement of violence by proxy in the form of inflaming sundry grievances on the part of the resentful. Yet another, and perhaps most dangerous of all, is the capture or subversion of state resources toward political violence that is disguised as enforcement of legitimate authority.
It is that last that concerns me the most. When politics at the national level is as tribal as some on the Left appear today we have the very real possibility of turning this "Cold" civil war into a "Hot" one. And inasmuch as the Left has displayed a consistent tendency to presage its acts by accusations toward the Right, one can readily imagine that those who desperately fantasize about a BushCo police state might not flinch at establishing a real one of their own. Those who cannot or choose not to differentiate between their own paranoid imaginings and legitimate abuse are more than capable of the latter.
The Jews found out about all of this in Nazi Germany - systematically divorced from political representation, systematically disarmed, hostile media giving moral sanction to systematic violence against them, and finally systematically murdered by a people so morally confused by then that it seemed justifiable. I invoke the "system" repeatedly here because no one in it bore personal responsibility until it was thrust back upon them at Nuremburg. It was a thoroughly evil fantasy world that manifested itself in the real one. It could happen here.
If it ever does, the resulting Hot Civil War would end up violent beyond imagination. Some on both sides fantasize this with the eagerness born of ignorance. In the comic books the blood is only red ink. In the movies, corn syrup. In the real world, it's blood.
All IMHO and subject to debate as always, of course.
It's patriotic to be a traitor.
Big CWII ping.
This article lays it out better than most.
dufekin’s post 6 is a nice succinct summary, as well.
Pat Buchanan called it “a war for the soul of America” at the 1992 Republican convention. He was scolded by the elitist media.
The (elder) Bush circle was disgusted; but Pat was right.
Today, the Bush gang is still clueless.
Hey! That's my line. George Norry.
The latest from CoasttoCoastAM -- Bush black ops people will nuke a U.S. city (the regular guest said his sources indicate that it will be Las Vegas), Bush the Evil will blame Iran, Bush the Evil will then annihilate Iran completely. Pufff! Gone.
Ya remember the B-52, missiles hubbub? Hee hee. Black ops, USAF insider ruse to make off with at least one of the missiles, another expert guest said. Don't be surprised, there's a mushroom cloud acomin' some place.
Norry is not a MorOn.org, dailycuss type; he's basically conservative and links to right wing sites. The best I can figure -- given my age and all -- is he's a FDR Democrat. Proud American, patriotic but boy! how FDR Democrats hated Republicans.
Thanks for this great thread. The fissures of this political divide go deep.
It got me thinking - I found this thread from yesteryear:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1453903/posts
From a 1950 preface to a book on Constitutional government:
“The National Education Association, theoretically representing the teachers of the country, had for years been passing resolutions favoring whatever was before the public of un-American import, especially for getting the imperial Government at Washington, through “Federal aid,” to take over the shaping in school of American ideas. Under the cloak of “academic freedom” men in the universities belittled those who wrote the Constitution and pronounced their work faulty and outmoded. The schools, while neglecting to give thorough courses in our history, and especially in constitutional history or the history of Liberty, admitted objectionable textbooks and periodicals.”
Those were the good old days, eh!
Great thread - bookmarking for later...
BTTT
‘Mr. “Ed Funkhouser,” who emailed me twice in the small hours of Tuesday: the first epistle read, in total, “who needs facts indeed. How do you live with yourself, scumbag?” An hour and a half later he realized he’d forgotten to make his devastating assessment of my sexual orientation, and sent a follow-up: “you are a f—kin’ moron. and probably queer too!” ‘
Sounds like the average poster a Liberty Post dot org these days....(chuckle)
Thanks for posting this, its a good read, and food for thought.
Dispatches from the CCW (cold civil war)
To be fair, the Denver columnist may have been being at least a little ironic, maybe even critical:
Audacious. Profane. He won.
By Diane Carman Denver Post Staff Columnist Article Last Updated: 10/06/2007 11:26:03 PM MDT
Twenty-year-old J. David McSwane is the future of journalism. Smart. Confident. Audacious. Opinionated. Brief.
Very brief.
He writes tight.
Short sentences.
Readers can finish an editorial in three seconds.
Its impact lasts weeks.
...
Are we in a "cold civil war?" I don't know. Things were a lot worse forty years ago.
And vice versa, to enthusiastically support the government taking any powers it wants to wage an ill-defined "War on Terror" while not trusting them to manage any part of the domestic agenda. Consistency requires that one identify as a statist or a libertarian - the "partial-sort-of-free-market-statist" we see in both parties today ends up adding ever more to the state's power, regardless of his reservations about doing so.
And of course, the only candidate expressing consistently anti-statist positions these days is the one who everyone thinks is an unrealistic loon. ;)
That thought has stayed in my head since and Setyn only solidifies that thought.
I am still predicting a "hot" civil war within 20 years.
I suspect that there will be an attempt to set up a "government in exile" much like what was done in the Mexican election.
