Posted on 11/08/2018 8:39:26 PM PST by blam
Strong rhetoric and violence on both sides of the political spectrum are reaching a fever pitch
Is the United States on the brink of a new civil war?
According to Newsweek magazine’s polling, a third of all Americans think such a conflict could break out within the next five years, with 10% thinking it “very likely to happen.” Plenty of experts agree. Back in March, State Department official Keith Mines told Foreign Policy magazine: “It is like 1859, everyone is mad about something and everyone has a gun.” He rated the odds of a second American Civil War breaking out within the next 10-15 years at 60%.
October’s awful events — pipe bombs sent to leading Democratic politicians and supporters, the mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh — have only amplified these fears. “We are now nearing a point comparable to 1860,” my Stanford University colleague Victor Davis Hanson recently wrote in the National Review.
The historian Niall Ferguson, another Stanford colleague, suggested in The Sunday Times of London that if someone were to design a “Civil War Clock” comparable to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ “Doomsday Clock,” the designer would probably now be announcing that it is “two minutes to Fort Sumter.”
Ferguson himself is more upbeat, thinking that “the time on the civil war Doomsday Clock looks more like 11.08 than 11.58.” It seems to me, though, that all these speculations are deeply misleading — so much so, in fact, that the main thing they illustrate is how not to use the past to understand the present.
Similarities, differences and broad patterns
There are certainly some striking similarities between the American political scene in the late 2010s and that of the late 1850s. Both periods saw extreme polarization over issues of intense economic and emotional importance.
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
Thank you for the kind words and imagery, Wardaddy.
We probably won’t get a family pic for another week or so. I’ll send it to you when we do.
Thank you!
The People want closed borders and nationalized hospitals, physician, nursing, and pharmacy services.
Right now, neither party will give them what they want, so the country is oscillating around 50:50.
By providing better border security, with a promise of more to come, Trump has gotten the “border first” faction to calm down a bit, and as the predation of Big Pharma + Health “Insurance” grows, the people for whom that is #1 are raised to a fever pitch.
A party that will close the borders and create a national health system will rule for 100 years.
Right now, that party does not exist. Stay tuned.
There's nothing conservative about nationalized health care, so you won't find support for it on Free Republic.
But President Trump has promised better, cheaper care with preexisting conditions covered, and that may do the trick, let's hope.
Regardless, so long as there is a USA you'll see conservatives defending Founders' original intent and liberals or "progressives" pushing for ways to subvert that.
Ah, I can dream about the big lib cities going out on their own, right?
As for minorities, if all peoples managed to develop political maturity, then Africa, S. America, and the Middle East would not be such disasters.
;-)
I partially agree, but we may differ in our definition of “soon”.
How long did it take for Venezuela to go from supporting most of its citizens adequately, to the present situation?
Also, how many recent large scale uprisings around the world have had legislative bodies’ support at the time things broke open? I can’t think of many.
IMO, civil war in the US is borderline possible in my lifetime. With luck, I’ll be around another 20-25 years. To me, that is “soon”. (The nukes scenario I mention might, might, come sooner.) Give these things 50 years, and the odds go way up.
I've asked myself...Is this the hill I want to die on?
Is the country crumbling..yep.
Is my neck of the woods protected..yep. At least my place is,,,,,,,,,,,,
Kyrsten Sinema?
Yikes!
I can agree with a lot of that BUT you fail to account for the large number of Republican pols who support bringing in new immigrants faster than they can possibly be “matured” into Conservatives. If they (said Republicans) actually support Conservatism at all. Then consider that major portions of some populations seem to be particularly resistant to such maturation, partially because they appear to be remarkably gullible when it comes to being kept right where the dems want them.
Then there is the education system, which the libs control lock, stock, and barrel, debt out the wazoo (I am not referring only to Federal debt), and the bureaucracy / Deep State / rigged system / whatever you want to call it — Trump has only been able to dent it slightly, and with the House gone, further progress will likely stall. Conservatives have a VERY difficult task in obtaining that maturation of enough voters...
Totally agree, though doubt if any Republicans today support illegal immigration.
My opinion on **legal** immigration is that it should be tied by formula to the unemployment rate — lower unemployment increases legal immigration, etc.
On education I’d favor vouchers — money follows students, so long as their parents **don’t** chose schools which teach hatred, violence, suicide bombings, etc.
How long does what I’d call “political maturity” take?
Three, four generations if we’re lucky?
Usually takes a great leader like Reagan or Trump to bring large numbers over.
Dems know it and that’s why they insanely insist Trump is “racist” — to keep their own voters from flipping.
I've been reading Jordan Peterson's book "12 Rules for Life" and have just gotten to the point where he warns about letting unsocialized children set the rules, which in my mind is a microcosm of the country's basic "whining and demanding" problem, but exacerbated by unrighteous lawyers. When a group of foreigners in a third country file a lawsuit against the president of the United States claiming that he is violating their rights under the U.S. Constitution, we have a very basic conceptual problem regarding the purpose and powers of government.
Agreed, especially your final sentence!
Venezuela suffered complete economic collapse... and even with people starving, they didn’t have open civil war.
Open Civil War, is not anywhere on the immediate, short or even long term horizon for the US.
We may be heading toward another 60s type of situation where there are violent incidents and riots, but full on open warfare?? Not even close.
For the most part American’s are fat and happy, if anything life is getting so easy that we are more likely to decline from within to a point where eventually external forces take us out.. Much like Rome.... But outright civil war? There is nothing in our political discourse today that is remotely to the scale where open civil war is anywhere on the horizon.
I am 47, So I figure I probably got another 30-40 years left, barring major medical breakthroughs that vastly extend aging... So, while we are losing our nation due to indoctrination of the young in an educational system that practices educational malpractice, and teaches critical theory instead of critical thinking... That doesn’t lead to open warfare.
We already fought a civil war about federal power, and its place... now we are battling the administrative state, which was created by the courts, and will be beat back in the courts... Nothing else is of scope or scale to even think it will lead to civil war.
What will likely happen, however, is a hot war with China.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.