A good deal continues to be written on the possibility of another civil war in the United States. The Atlantic‘s December issue is entirely devoted to the idea. The article below is from The American Conservative and discusses the irreconcilable visions of American life and why the resolution to such crises always leads to violence. The author is a professor at Johns Hopkins University and has written books and papers on terrorism, insurgency, counterterrorism, and strategic defense.
A lithograph cartoon depicting U.S. Rep. Preston Brooks’ attack on Sen. Charles Sumner in the U.S. Senate chamber on May 22, 1856. (J.L. Magee/public domain)
Civil war is, at root, a contest over legitimacy. Legitimacy—literally the right to make law — is shorthand for the consent of the citizens and political parties to abide by the authority of a constitutional order. Civil war begins when this larger political compact breaks down.
Civil War means that there is a functional split within the source of legitimacy between two parties, each of which was formerly part of the old constitutional order. Thus each can claim that it represents the source of new legitimacy, and the right to define a new or reworked constitutional order.
Hence civil war becomes a struggle in which one party must successfully assert a successor legitimate order, and to which the opposing party must eventually submit. This is above all a contest over constitutional authority. Inasmuch as civil war happens after constitutional breakdown, it means that resolution must be reached not only outside of a now-former legal framework, but also unrestrained even by longstanding political customs and norms. Extra-constitutional force is now the deciding factor, which is why these struggles are called civil wars…
The character of civil war is existential. The breakdown of the old order forces frightening prospects on society. If constitutions represented a collective source of authority, in its violent replacement are suddenly two opposing and inimical pretenders, each crying for both allegiance and punishment. Moreover, one party’s victory is the inevitable loss of the other’s way of life.
Hence in such conflicts, the entire society must choose sides, and it is an all-or-nothing choice. Moderates and undecided, and those peaceful fence sitters all are forced to join warring factions. In civil war, perhaps the greatest violence, in the heart, is the aggressive coercion to join a warring cause…
American constitutional order has not broken down, yet. Constitutional legitimacy still rules…A daily torrent of unfiltered evidence suggests that our constitutional order is fissuring before our eyes. That we have skirted constitutional crisis for the past quarter century is no reassurance, but rather an alarm of continuing erosion. Each new test is yet more bitterly contested, and still less resolved…
Already, warring sides have hardened their hearts so that they will do almost anything in order to prevail. The great irony is that their mutual drive to win—either to preserve their way of life, or make their way of life the law of the land—means that the battle has already become a perverse alliance. Today they refuse to work together in the rusting carapace of old constitutional order. Yet nonetheless they work shoulder-to-shoulder, together, to overthrow it. For both sides, the old order is the major obstacle to victory. Hence victory is through overthrow…
John Wilder at Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise has released the next monthly installment of his Civil War 2 weather report in which he updates the various indices he watches in reference to conflict in the US. An excerpt:
Last month when I wrote the Weather Report, the El Paso and Dayton shootings had just happened. I believe I predicted in the comments that El Paso would have legs, while Dayton would quickly be forgotten. It didn’t take Nostradamus to predict that – El Paso was attributed to the Right. Dayton, where a confirmed Satanist Antifa™ member killed bunch of people? We can ignore Dayton. That was just random violence by a good boy who just went a little wrong.
Red Flag laws have been the focus of this month’s activity. I noted in this post (Red Flag Laws, or, How To Repeal The Second Amendment Soviet-Style Without A Pesky Vote) that they would be used inappropriately. Again, I didn’t need to have psychic powers to predict this. I landed on a clickbait story from the Puffington Host (I won’t link to them) about 40 “potential mass shooters” having been arrested since El Paso. Not Dayton, but El Paso. Odessa happened this weekend. Assume if the killer’s ideology doesn’t match the required narrative, it will be forgotten…
…Allsup will keep pushing a message out – he’s articulate and relatable, but now the message will untethered by rules. The message will cease to be moderated.
Censorship and alienation is a great way to manufacture radicals. Radicals are a great way to increase polarization…
…Given our current polarization, and with violence springing up regularly when times are good, I tend to think that the younger generation doesn’t see a way forward, doesn’t see prosperity as an option. They feel that they have nothing left to lose…
El Paso, Texas. El Paso, Texas is right across the Mexican border and the town of Ciudad Juárez. I have visited both. Ciudad Juárez is one of the most violent cities in the entire Northern hemisphere. In El Paso, 21-year-old Patrick Crusius, who is a white nationalist terrorist, attacked a Walmart Supercenter near the Cielo Vista Mall. Patrick Crusius used Wassenaar Arrangement Semi-automatic Rifles (WASR-10), AK-47 style civilian rifles. The civilian version is strictly semi-automatic; one trigger pull, one bullet. Just like nearly every gun in America. He had standard-size magazines (30 rounds). For some strange reason, he was wearing ear protection. Patrick Crusius murdered 20 random people and wounded 26 others in about 20 minutes. About half of those are still in the hospital. Patrick Crusius surrendered to cops.
We call Patrick Crusius a white nationalist terrorist because he left a manifesto titled The Inconvenient Truth. I have read the manifesto but have decided not to publish it. It has nothing significantly new to say. He said the Christchurch mosque shooter Brenton Tarrant inspired him. Patrick Crusius’ primary thread in his manifesto is that uncontrolled migration to America by mostly Hispanics, who vote for the Democratic Party 70% of the time, will pull the entire nation into a one-party domination like we have in California. He faults the Democratic Party for encouraging this, and he blames the Republican Party, mainly Republican business interests, for doing nothing to stop this. Thus Patrick Crusius felt his only response is violence. He said, “…America is rotting from the inside out, and peaceful means to stop this seem to be nearly impossible. The inconvenient truth is that our leaders, both Democrat AND Republican, have been failing us for decades.”…
Dayton Ohio. The Dayton, Ohio, shooter is 24-year-old Connor Betts of Bellbrook, Ohio, law enforcement officials told CBS News, and a law enforcement official confirmed this with The Daily Beast. Dayton, Ohio, is near the massive Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. I have also visited this city. He killed nine people and wounded 26 more. The shooting happened outside of a country bar known as Ned Peppers Bar, a popular nightclub, located at, 419 E 5th St, in Dayton, OH, in the city’s Oregon Historic District. There are reports that he was killed trying to enter Ned Peppers country Bar. In general, White Nationalists do not go to where White people hang out and shoot up the place. They tend to go to synagogues, Sikh temples and Black baptist churches.
It is being reported and celebrated on the dark corners of the Internet that of the nine people murdered, six were black, three white, including his sister. Since the shooting happened so fast, it is unknown if he was aiming for black men and women, or they just happened to be the first people he encountered. The Dayton Police Chief says he “does not believe it was racially motivated.” I do. I think he was trying to kill white people. He was a registered Democrat and worked at Chipotle. At this time he appears to be an Antifa-supporting far left extremist. This has all the markings of a “tit-for-tat” response to El Paso by the satanic Left…
Jason Brennan, professor of ethics, economics, and public policy at Georgetown University, over at Reason.com has a longer article up, examining government authority, briefly touching on civil disobedience, and then going on to explore when you are justified to go beyond civil disobedience.
In August 2017, Richard Hubbard III stopped at a red light in Euclid, Ohio, but his front bumper went a few feet past the white line. The cops pulled him over. That’s no surprise: Police in Euclid, Cleveland Heights, and the surrounding cash-strapped towns strictly enforce traffic rules. But officers didn’t just give the driver a ticket.
The police demanded Hubbard—a black man—step out of his vehicle. Dashcam footage shows that he calmly complied. Yet one officer immediately spun Hubbard around, bent his arm, and slammed him against his Hyundai. He flipped Hubbard again, punched him in the face, and kicked his groin. Hubbard screamed and put his arms up to protect himself. The other officer joined in.
They threw Hubbard to the ground but continued to punch, hammer, and kick him. When he tried to protect his face, they chanted the informal motto of American police, “Stop resisting!” Even when Hubbard was subdued, prostrate with his hands behind his back and two large officers pinning him down, one officer continued to pummel his skull.
Imagine you witness the whole thing. A thought occurs to you: You’re armed. You could shoot the officers, perhaps saving Hubbard’s life or preventing him from being maimed and disabled. May you do so?
Below, I defend a controversial answer: Yes, you may. Shooting the cops in this case is dangerous—they may send a SWAT team to kill you—and in many places it’s illegal. But it is nevertheless morally permissible, indeed heroic and admirable. You have the right to defend yourself and others from state injustice, even when government agents act ex officio and follow the law…
From Mac Slavo at SHTFPlan.com comes a story of media hypocrisy. While the media and media talking heads like former CIA head Brennan blame President Trump for inciting violence leading to the recent failed bombing attempts, they ignore the well recorded incitement to violence of Democrat party leaders and the media.
While mainstream media outlets balk at the suggestion that they may have been guilty of ramping up the division and political tensions in the United States, one of those outlets actually published an assassination story about president Donald Trump.
Frustrated by the failure of the Mueller investigation to turn up the requested dirt on their “enemy”, Trump, the media “resistance” asked a few spy novelists to predict a more “appealing future” for the president in the Times‘ literary supplement., according to RT. The results revealed some shoddy writing work, even putting aside their predictable endings. Spoiler alert: Trump was colluding with the Russians all along…
…This is a highly hypocritical stance for the mainstream media to take. On the one hand, they demand Trump cool down his rhetoric toward them, but on the other hand, they insist on publishing violent leftist trash meant to incite glee over the president’s assassination.
Yesterday:
New York Times: Be sure to read the story we published depicting Trump getting assassinated.
Today:
New York Times: We need to have a serious conversation about Trump’s rhetoric.
Trump’s election has hastened a decline in journalistic standards that has seen once-respectable media outlets like the Times jettison fact-checking, accountability, and taste standards in favor of grinding their political axe. Journalists’ concerns about the Trump regime are not unfounded, however – his Justice Department has prosecuted more whistleblowers and leakers than even media darling Barack Obama, who previously held the record. -RT
That someone is a Neo-Nazi, a White Supremacist, KKK member or racist does not render them bereft of the First Amendment. Just as being a member of BLM or the Antifa does not render them bereft of the First Amendment.
It is not acceptable, legal or excusable to meet speech by any such person with violence.
Period.
To suggest, state, or advocate that such is the case, or to promote the premise that violence is an appropriate remedy for speech you find vile and outrageous is to declare civil war, because there are others who will likely find your speech vile and outrageous and by your statement you have made the claim that just punishment for speech you deem vile is to be found at the hands of a mob.
The press and now lawmakers are openly advocating for the complete breakdown of civil society — they are stating by the droves that violence in response to mere speech that one finds offensive yet has the protection of the First Amendment is not only worthy of said violence the person uttering same is not worthy of having their assailants prosecuted or the protection and investigation of the police forces to interdict violence intended for or served upon them…
David Hines at Jacobite writes on how the Right fails to organize, and how it refuses to recognize lessons from the Left.
If there’s one thing righties believe, it’s that they could beat lefties in a fight.
You see this attitude reflected over and over again, to the point that it’s probably something engrained in the right-wing psyche. Pajama Boy vs. tactical deathbeast? Pffft. No contest. Look, righties have the guns, righties have police and they have the military. If one day the balloon ever goes up, righties will just organize behind a leadership of their veterans, coordinate with the active service, give all the lefties free helicopter rides, and live happily ever after. Right?
That’s pretty much what the Confederacy thought about the Yankees, and it didn’t exactly work out well for them.
From the perspective of a mainstream righty who’s a right-to-keep-and-bear-arms guy, this dismissive attitude is remarkably familiar. It’s the same attitude of somebody who buys a gun “just in case” but never goes to the range, which is a great way to discover when somebody kicks your door in at three a.m. that you don’t know the difference between the magazine release and the safety. Organization requires time, communication, networking, and above all practice, and vanishingly few right-wingers are interested in doing the necessary work…
Lower Valley Assembly 