55 thoughts on “How Civil Wars Start”

  1. Late Roman Republic?
    The Masterpiece Theater telling of I, Claudius is much more entertaining on the small screen than living through it.

  2. So he’s saying that a state of civil war exists in the US and that the way to end the civil war is for the people on his side to take up their arms and go out and kill a lot of other people.

    In reality of course his brown shirt rhetoric is nonsense because the two sides in his make-believe civil war are too geographically integrated, civil wars in previously functioning democracies almost always have a strong geographic component, a central government supported by the majority acts in an authoritarian way towards a provinces/states that are ethnically or culturally distinct.

    Mind you, if his call to arms were to result in an actual civil war it might well be one of the bloodiest in history, much like Rwanda’s because of that high geographical integration of the two sides.

    1. So he’s saying that a state of civil war exists in the US and that the way to end the civil war is for the people on his side to take up their arms and go out and kill a lot of other people.

      No, that’s not what he’s saying.

      1. OK, I missed this sentence: “Because this isn’t a shooting war yet. And I don’t want to see it become one.”

        But he does say “This is a civil war” . . . “Guns Are How A Civil War Ends” . . . .”The stakes are as big as they’re ever going to get. Do elections matter anymore?” . . . “The civil war is out in the open now and we need to fight the good fight. And we must fight to win.”

        So what he’s actually calling for is unclear, I’m starting to think he just wants to use a lot of strong rhetoric, some fighting talk to make himself look big, brave and leader-like, but really he says nothing that suggests a real course of action to solve the problems he sees. all woof, woof, woof and then nothing.

          1. It didn’t sound to me like he was talking to the left, it sounded to me like he was talking to the Tea Party.

          2. “Hey lefties, if you don’t accept elections we may have to force you to.”

            “It didn’t sound to me like he was talking to the left.”

            “Ready. Aim. Fire!”

            Yes, Andrew, listening is a choice.

          3. “Hey lefties, if you don’t accept elections we may have to force you to.”

            You do show a crazy sense of humor sometimes Ken, if it weren’t for the quotation marks I might think you were being serious.

          4. “How do civil wars happen? Two or more sides disagree on who runs the country. And they can’t settle the question through elections because they don’t even agree that elections are how you decide who’s in charge. That’s the basic issue here. Who decides who runs the country? When you hate each other but accept the election results, you have a country. When you stop accepting election results, you have a countdown to a civil war.”

            Is it your claim, Andrew, that the TEA Party, or at least Daniel Greenfield believes it is the TEA Party, that’s not accepting the vote that made Donald Trump POTUS?

            It seems clear to me, Rand, and Ken are reading Daniel Greenfield differently than you. But then we live here in the US, and probably understand the nuances of his speech, like who it is not accepting the election results.

    2. So he’s saying…

      Didn’t the Jordan Peterson kerfluffle warn you about using that phrase?

      Just quote him instead, “we must fight to win.”

      So he’s saying two things. We MUST fight. We MUST win.No need to invent strawmen.

      geographically integrated is just grasping at straws.

      if his call to arms were to result in an actual civil war it would finally resolve all the issues you ignore and have been festering for far too long.

      Calling him a brown shirt isn’t going to work because the evidence he presents is obvious to anyone paying attention and firmly supports his argument. The left doesn’t care about institutions because they only offer convenienance for what they do care about: control.

      Nobody wants a shooting war but getting there is because the left refuses to accept the way we avoid them. If it comes to bullets flying the left will be fully responsible regardless of who fires the first shot. Ignoring elections has consequences as well.

      1. “Didn’t the Jordan Peterson kerfluffle warn you about using that phrase?”

        Do you mean: “Didn’t the Jordan Peterson kerfuffle warn you about paraphrasing?

        If so I agree that I should have had a question mark after my first sentence. I’ve used quotes in my reply to Rand. So I don’t accept I was using paraphrasing as a way to change his meaning, only to clarify what he saw as an appropriate course of action.
        I don’t think he has one.
        And I sympathize, I think the problems are structural and that the required course of action to resolve his civil war are all but impossible.

        1. I don’t accept I was using paraphrasing as a way to change his meaning

          Yet you still don’t understand it. What does Rand’s response tell you?

    3. Civil wars in previously functioning democracies almost always have a strong geographic component, a central government supported by the majority acts in an authoritarian way towards a provinces/states that are ethnically or culturally distinct.

      I don’t recall much of a geographic component to the French Revolution, and the English and Russian Civil Wars were only weakly geographic and involved a central government acting in an authoritarian way towards members of its own culture / ethnicity as much as anyone.

      There’s only a geographic requirement if you want to fantasize about a happy ending to your Civil War, where the Bad Guys are thrown out and everyone holds a victory parade. The geographically integrated civil wars, maybe the Bad Guys get thrown out but probably one of your neighbors burned down your house while you weren’t paying close enough attention.

      1. OK, you seem to be arguing that the US isn’t a “functioning democracy”, if it is not, the problems are with the structure, not with the people.

        1. No, the problem is most definitely with the people.

          In the 60s, the left across the West realized that they didn’t need to convince Westerners to support them, they just needed to import new voters who would. So, fifty years later, America is a country where Americans overwhelmingly vote for one party, while foreigners overwhelmingly vote for another.

          If you think that can end well, you’re deluded.

          2. Generally speaking, people whose ancestors weren’t living in America before 1965.

            Since then, the Democrats have flooded the country with new Democrat voters, to do the votes Americans wouldn’t do.

            But you can argue about definitions for as long as you want. It doesn’t change the reality, that America is on the verge of the most vicious and bloody civil war the world has ever seen. If the left push America into war, it will make Yugoslavia look like a picnic in the park.

          3. “Generally speaking, people whose ancestors weren’t living in America before 1965.”

            Pathetic. You’re just making up your own facts to suit your argument.

        2. The problem is that some people want to change the structure by any means necessary. They hate America and believe its existence is a crime.

    4. “the two sides in his make-believe civil war are too geographically integrated”

      Uh, no. The cities are mostly left-wing. The countryside is mostly right-wing.

      If there is a civil war, the cities will be out of food in a week. This should terrify the left, but they keep pushing for war regardless.

      1. The cities make up 80% of the population, so by your theory if you want a right-wing government you’d better get rid of democracy.

        Or are you just rearranging the facts to support your argument?

        3. The cities make up 80% of the population

          That sounds about right, but do you really understand the reality behind those numbers?

          Cities are run by democrats but are not made up of democrats. The conservatives are actually the majority in most cities (including Los Angeles!) but have checked out of politics because of the lefts behavior. Come the hot part of the civil war and they’d move out of the cities to join with country folks (because food.)

          What the left is asking for is an amazingly quick destruction.

      2. No gas, food, electricity, or water.

        I am sure they could get China, Russia, and the EU to help them though.

    5. We do have a civil war right now between those who value the constitution and the values/ideal/philosophies of western civilization and those who think there very idea of the USA is illegitimate and needs to be torn down so that we can have a Year Zero and construct the perfect communist utopia.

      The oped correctly points out that the Democrats use the courts to ignore the law and the constitution. The other side believes in the constitution and the rule of law.

      It is also violent already. The past two years have seen hundreds of people hospitalized by the progressive black shirts and their allies. In Portland they even had to cancel a parade because the Democrats said they were going to lynch people in the street. The physical violence is matched by corporate abuses against their common enemies and until Trump was elected, a willing government (both elected and unelected).

      The Democrats rioted on inauguration day and physically blocked non-Democrats from attending. Then they bragged about how small the crowd was. But before that they waged a campaign of intimidation against the electoral college. They also demanded government workers sabotage the Trump administration and provided tools for encrypted communications. Heck, my own local library had a book special featuring about a hundred books on how to start a revolution and engage in “direct action” activism.

      Half of congress was almost assassinated. A senator was almost killed mowing his lawn and there have been many other examples of people using violence against Republican politicians, like trying to run them off the road.

      Where does it end for the Democrats? They have worked themselves up into such a frenzy that they believe they are morally obligated to overthrow the government by any means necessary. Non-Democrats are just supposed to take the abuse? Accept the beatings? Accept getting killed? Accept their businesses being abused by the government and the progressive technocrats?

  3. For me, the obvious problem is that the good guys don’t always win civil wars. For example, this civil war wouldn’t be well armed neighbors against poorly armed neighbors. It would be military against military with the better force and better logistics trumping better ideology.

    There are plenty of ways to lose such a fight. For example, piecemeal warfare where the opponent only has to fight a small portion of your side at a time and can defeat them a piece at a time. Or the enemy able to hold on long enough for a superior industrial capacity (not necessarily their own) to win the war.

    The people talking tough this early don’t have to win any wars and likely wouldn’t, if they were somehow put in charge of one. Hotheads lose wars.

  4. I’m not buying that we are near a civil war.

    That said, I do think the recent revelations suggest a coup was in the works, and until a few weeks ago; I wouldn’t have believe it would have been as effective with such incompetent people leading it.

    1. An actual shooting war? No.

      But we are in a cold civil war between Americanism, capitalism, and law and order vs critical theory, communism, and making sure that the rules are ambiguous so the right people can always be punished and everyone is always jumping.

      1. An actual shooting war? No.

        And I think that’s where the link in the original OP causes problems. If no shooting war, why mention guns? On that point, I think we aren’t that close.

        To be fair, I live in Texas, which isn’t uniformly red as some might imagine, but unlike Californians, Texans don’t have public conversations with acquaintances regarding politics. It’s considered rude, even if you share the same views. So the emotions are much less. When I’ve travelled to California, I was amazed to see people talking politics at nearly every venue. I suspect in those places, the differences in ideology can become more stark, and the desire to debate versus taking action is ending. Moreover, 2017 showed the willingness of the Left in California to take physical action, which is the first steps to a truly violent civil war.

        One of the shocking things to me in Scott Adam’s “Win Bigly” is his matter of fact notion that anyone would have “moral authority” to kill someone they thought “the next Hitler”. He even said he would do it if that’s what he thought. That’s frightening, because it assumes the absolute ability to identify the next Hitler. It’s worse than minority report and pre-crime. Its capital punishment against people, who only crime is a rhetoric that others think will incite regional violence, thus personal violence is warranted immediately against them.

        1. Leland, avoiding war is what sane people do. TX is one of our most sane states. Everywhere else the left’s violence has become brazen and people are getting to the flash point.

          We are at war. It has just been contained so far. The left will ensure the pressure cooker blows.

        2. One of the shocking things to me in Scott Adam’s “Win Bigly” is his matter of fact notion that anyone would have “moral authority” to kill someone they thought “the next Hitler”

          I think that is the tactic the Democrats used to call people to action, an intentional tactic to create the moral obligation to act. How people act takes different forms depending on their aversions; protesting, violence, changing company policies, government worker sabotage, and eventually voting. Everyone has a limit to the types of behavior they will engage in but that line moves.

          They are happy with some Democrats engaging in wanton violence as long as it means the rest of the party is morally obligated to act by other means as well. Since a small number of a population will usually easily support violence, the more people engaging in violence means the more people are also moved to engage in other actions. The ANTIFA and other marxist/socialist groups have all experienced a boom in growth and actions.

          1. Unfortunately in this case, people to action includes the guy shooting up the Congressional baseball practice session.

  5. I don’t think he has [an appropriate course of action.]

    Because it was a wake up call. Not a call to action. People don’t believe we are in a civil war. He’s saying, “then pay attention to this outline of reactions to elections by the left.”

    The point of elections is to resolve issues without a physical fight. If elections that don’t have the ‘right’ outcome are ignored where are we?

    We are in a stealth civil war and coup attempts are just part of the way it’s being waged.

    Course of action come after and will be whatever is effective. It will be ugly only because the left has already signaled their intent to make it ugly. At this point it appears we either fight or give up. Americans are not the give up type

    The left can’t win it by poo-poohing it because their actions leave the truth unavoidable. The left is going to have to deal with the reason the 2nd amendment exists. It is not for no purpose.

    The lefts response is entirely predictable. It is the unity of the right that will be at issue. The left is doing all it can to unify the right.

    One thing the left is guaranteed to do is show govt. troops killing a woman holding a baby (Ruby Ridge) and claiming it’s the right doing this.

  6. It’s a feature of working democracies that if people believe there has been illegal meddling in the electoral process they have the right to challenge the election result, it’s in autocracies that that option is removed. So as it stands, by any sensible measure, the US is neither in a civil war nor is it an autocracy.

    1. You should tell that to Clinton, who was ‘horrified’ when Trump suggested he might challenge the election result.

      And it’s odd, isn’t it, that only the left have done so? When they refuse to require ID for voters the way the vast majority of countries do, and it’s well known that 99% of dead people vote Democrat.

      1. You should tell that to Clinton, who was ‘horrified’ when Trump suggested he might challenge the election result.

        Add Chris Wallace. His behavior in asking that question was abysmal. To sit there and lecture Trump during a debate, as if the 2000 election result wasn’t delayed as Gore refused to accept the results. And now we have had a year of questioning whether Trump legitimately won the election, even after Hillary directly protested a few states and lost recounts.

        Wallace’s question always smacked of something from the establishment. It touched upon the GOP’s demand that Trump accept the results of the Primary, yet the GOP failed more than Trump to accept those results.

    2. That is the old “I’m using freedom of speech so you can’t criticize me.” line.

      People have every right to protest and other people have every right to point out that Hillary, Obama, the media, and the DNC were the ones who tried to rig the election with the participation of corrupt government workers and foreign agents.

      Trump won the election fair and square. Russia running some ads on facebook or posting memes on twitter didn’t affect anything. And don’t forget, Russia also supported Democrat causes with their meddling. Besides, Hillary is exactly what Putin wanted. All of her policies dovetail nicely with Russian ambitions.

      When Republicans went to protest, the Democrats abused them with government agencies. That would have only gotten worse under Hillary.

      1. That is the old “I’m using freedom of speech so you can’t criticize me.” line.
        I don’r follow your meaning.

        Hillary, Obama, the media, and the DNC were the ones who tried to rig the election with the participation of corrupt government workers and foreign agents. . .
        . . . Trump won the election fair and square. Russia running some ads on facebook or posting memes on twitter didn’t affect anything. And don’t forget, Russia also supported Democrat causes with their meddling. Besides, Hillary is exactly what Putin wanted. All of her policies dovetail nicely with Russian ambitions.

        I couldn’t say, I’ve no crystal ball and I wasn’t a fly on the wall to know.

        1. they have the right to challenge the election result

          This statement lends an air of legitimacy to what the Democrats are engaging in by not respecting the electoral process. I put forward the notion that their actions do not represent a good faith challenge of the results. Beating people up on college campuses and their other actions isn’t “challenging” the results. You do that in court.

          I couldn’t say, I’ve no crystal ball and I wasn’t a fly on the wall to know.

          It is very easy to tell whose policies benefit Russia, the same party that has been defending them for decades.

          There have been a few people who looked into what Russia did in social media during the election and their results pointed to meddling on all sides. While social media can be powerful for PR, there are a lot of people who are not on Twitter and Facebook or who even if they are, wont be swayed by one out of the millions of memes they see.

          We will find out eventually but it could very well be that the dossier paid for by Hillary and the DNC was used by the Obama administration as justification to spy on the Trump campaign and transition and that the media has been a willing participant in this effort. The dossier was constructed by a foreign agent with the help of the Russians.

          1. It is very easy to tell whose policies benefit Russia, the same party that has been defending them for decades.

            That’s been my problem with the charge of Trump collusion with Russia from the start. If you are going to come up with a lie like that, at least make it plausible.

  7. “You should tell that to Clinton, who was ‘horrified’ when Trump suggested he might challenge the election result.”

    So?

    “and it’s well known that 99% of dead people vote Democrat.”

    There must be at least 400 million voters in the US then, I’d always been under the impression that very few dead people vote.

    1. Voter fraud does happen. My parents kept getting my grandmother’s ballot for several years after she died and this was after the state was informed she was dead. My grandfather kept getting a ballot after he moved out of state and this was after notifying the state he no longer lived here.

      The point about Hillary was that she made a big deal about the peaceful transition of power being the cornerstone of our country and then the Democrats attacked the electoral congress, rioted on inauguration day, and waged a cost to coast campaign of violence. There are too many examples of them being sore losers to the point of breaking laws and general unethical behavior to list.

      1. Let’s call dead voters by their correct name Wodun, swing voters.

        Although doesn’t it seem ironic that dead voters gave us ObamaCare?

    2. I read Edward’s statement as the number of ballots cast by people who were dead, of which there were hundreds across the US, 99% of them occurred in precincts that broke for the Democrat ticket. Whether you agree with the statistic or not is irrelevant, as only one party has supported the idea of requiring an ID in order to vote. Also the dead voting is only one type of fraud occurring. Another is stuffing voter rolls with fake names, something that Acorn practiced in 2008. In Democrat controlled Detroit, 37% of the precincts had more people on the voter rolls than people who actually lived there.

  8. We have never (yet) experienced a civil war in a country that possessed a viable strategic nuclear capability. Let’s hope we never do. The thought that in a world with multiple strategic players, such a war would be allow to progress without “foreign intervention” or if you go with the foreign press’s description of “multinational peace-keepers” is a quaint and anachronistic notion….

        1. And an uncontested coup at that, the Republics that made up the USSR all seceded from the USSR in late 1991 and on Christmas day 1991 the Soviet legislature declared the USSR defunct.

  9. I knew we were on the path to civil war the moment Obama was elected in 2008, for the simple reason that you can’t have half of the population trying to ram Communism down the other half’s throats without bloodshed. I’m frankly surprised it’s taken this long to turn hot.

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