Oh good grief. As I have written elsewhere, a little historical perspective helps.
In truth, we've been here before. In the 1960s and 70s, we had an era of race riots, a low intensity war, campus radicalism, assassinations, populism, "do your own thing," and political extremism. One need only mention Kent State, the SLA, the Black Panthers, the Kennedy assassinations, and the Martin Luther King assassination, Charles Manson or the year 1968 to be reminded of the recent past.
Then there was the small matter of a civil war. Four years of war fought to the nth degree. The result was over 650,000 Americans, killed at each other's hands. That is an ocean of blood that Americans did not even match in either world war, indeed in both world wars combined.
Speaking of which, there was the country during World War I. Aside from an unprecedented curtailment of civil liberties by the government, as Americans watched warily for German spies, there were cases of mobs tarring and feathering those they thought guilty of siding with the enemy.
Even in World War II, the so-called good war, when Americans were united by Pearl Harbor, there was bloodiest race riot in American history in 1943. Also in 1943, the United States lost more hours of work to strikes and other labor unrest - some of which became violent - than in any other year in American history. This, when the nation was rallying to defeat the Axis powers.
That is not to say that these are not difficult times. Certainly the effects of technology may be magnifying some of the splintering forces in the culture. That technology makes every event seem larger and unprecedented because we just don't read or hear about them, but see them. Further, the technology reinforces a ethic of instant gratification and puts every person in their own mental universe.
This has created a cultural environment of mutual incomprehension, heightened emotionalism and the discounting of reason over feeling. The latter being a problem in the best of times, but in the current context it is arguable that the nation has conferred upon itself more rights than it can handle.
As Burke said, "Men have no right to that which is not reasonable." A difficult argument to make in a culture that is ardent about rights, but no so much about responsibilities.
Still, as Adam Smith said, "There is much ruin in a nation." These things come and go. The tumult of the 60s and 70s gave us the relative social peace of the 80s and 90s. As I say, we've been here before.
The same applies to the world. Imperfect beings cannot - and never will - create perfection. Ever it will ebb and flow.
However, in the end, there is no issue at stake in this rather - from an intellectual perspective - dull and content free election, that will send the masses to the barricades. They have too much to lose and too little to gain. So some segment of the population will throw a temper tantrum, and at some point those political leaders who once thought chaos was fun - see the Mayor of Seattle's famous "summer of love" as an example - will buckle down and slowly but surely life will settle back to normal.
In this case to be helped by pandemics and a relatively stable economy. As the reaction to the 1960s and 70s amply demonstrated, eventually people grow weary of "revolution" and just want to get back to the daily business of life.
To be sure, Mr. Trump's habit of pouring salt in the social wounds - in contrast to Franklin Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan, for example - will not help this process. However, sooner or later, the country will get there.
Do the confederate really think we would fight them to keep their useless asses in the union? Lol, no. They can secede with my blessings. Also, if they built a wall the union would probably pay for it.
Civil war 3.0 actually as the war of independence was technically a civil war. I think this war will be fought with crappy memes hurled across social media rather than with bombs and bullets.
I say split everything up will take all the red states with Trump as our president and Biden can have all his blue states and be the president of those areas. We don’t have to fight and kill each other but this is not right this election it’s fraudulent shady and tricky and crooked
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Anonymous
(18-24)
+1 y
You will obey biden, uncle. Civil war is not good. Why are you against living as brothers? For example, I'm not an American, but I don't want any country to engage in civil war. Because people need to love each other, not kill each other. And I hope one day Communism will rule the whole world.
if a civil war breaks out it will essentially be cities vs rural communities
one side... doesn't produce their own food, doesn't have guns, doesn't have the manufacturing plants, doesn't have fresh water supplies that don't require water treatment plants (which are easy to bomb)
yea i think i'm on the right side
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Anonymous
(30-35)
+1 y
i'll stand with the side who didn't attempt to steal an election with massive voter fraud. Democrats got caught. Now we know why they fought so hard to keep Amy Coney Barret out of the Supreme Court. Because that's exactly where this voter fraud case is heading and they will get their ass handed to them in the interest of justice, and in order to protect Democracy, which they profess to care so deeply about but tried to subvert.
I'm ready to watch the world burn while I sipping whiskey, team confederates to stir the pot, it's like a football game at this point let's do this lmao
ROFL good luck with that there will be some rioting a few burning cars then it's blamed on the death of a black man so it's ok and then back to normal.
@NorthwestRider I don't want a war but I will fight if it comes.
It won't look like the first one. it wil be a weird hybrid where pockets around the country engage in warfare while the reast of the country continues on. Going to work, going to the store, coming home, mowing the lawn. News will be hiding the truth from the nation while things go viral on the internet
