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Who Will Win the Upcoming Civil War?
In which a leftist writer makes an awful lot of unspoken assumptions, some right but most completely wrong, about civil war in America. Thanks to Sipsey Street Irregulars TNG for the link.With racial tensions, inequality, and populist rage set to boil over, some fear America could be on the path to a violent confrontation between the angry Trumpies and the equally angry lefties. Before we decide to start this war, we must ask: who would win? Better to ask: who would lose? That would be America. As police shootings and street protests stoke a national climate already heated by xenophobia, terror attacks, One might ask oneself whether the terror attacks and the "xenophobia" could be tied together? and the unexpected success of an anti-everything brand of politics not seen in generations, many have compared 2016 to 1968, a year marked by assassinations, riots, and questions about the continued success of the American experiment. It is still early, though. By the time this is all over we may be more inclined to compare 2016 to 1860, when half of America got so pissed at the other half that a bloody civil war ensued. The violence in the 1960s was almost 100 percent caused by the left, criminals and their allies. Civil wars don't start because "half of America got so pissed at the other half." They start because one side decides to do something about the other side. This, of course, is the worst case scenario. But it’s always good to plan ahead. The Combatants On the Right: Low-income white workers who were on the losing end of globalization and have become convinced that immigrants and non-white people are to blame; Billionaires; White nationalists; Angry grandpas; Fearful grandmas; Survivalists; Fox News viewers; “Car guys”; Everything you need to know to know that the author is an idiot is right there... On the Left: Black Lives Matter activists; Bernie Sanders voters; Aging hippies; College students and professors; Legal and illegal immigrants of all nationalities; Occupy-style perma-activists; Confused self-identified pacifists. Idiot. The Billionaires are on the left.
On the Right: They own more guns. They may also be able to claim a higher percentage of military veterans and law enforcement officers in their ranks.
I think the elements on the right will be a good deal more scattered and divided than is assumed here. Every time some mention of civil war getting started gets started, inevitably the infighting and score settling begins, but in the virtual realm. I suspect once lead starts flying, it will fly everywhere, not just between sides. Amongst sides, rather. Again, the writer's biases are on display -- he assumes that the conservative right are "Nazis", not recognizing the brownshirts on his own side... On the Left: They have a higher average education level, which could be useful for designing bombs and crafty booby traps.
They have a younger average age, making them more physically fit on average.
A bit of silliness. The left will no more have a monopoly on the basic aspects of warmaking than the right, such as deception, arming up, etc. What it could boil down to is experience and a willingness to be inhumane to political opponents once things get sporty. Though comparing the Left to the Khmer Rouge is always correct... Weaknesses On the Right: High proportion of elderly crackpots could hold back fighting units when traveling for speed and distance. High proportion of rural residents could be a drawback in urban battles, when skills like navigating sidewalks and subways are necessary. Anti-intellectual tendencies could result in hostility towards “outside the box” guerilla tactics. Affinity for Donald Trump holds no combat value whatsoever. I think this jamoke would be shocked at the creativity his armed opponents would have towards committing mayhem against political opponents. I think he would be shocked at the notion of just how powerfully a spring will return to its natural shape once released. The folks on the right can read. They'll figure out the subways... On the Left: Widespread lack of military or contact sport experience could lead to panic in the ranks when the violence begins. High proportion of urban residents could be a drawback in rural battles, when skills like living off the land or not being scared of bugs are necessary. Reggae music is an ineffective pre-war motivational tool. Tactics On the Right: Mass shootings. Head-on assaults on mosques, quinceanera parties, and college dorms. Lots of gunfire, everywhere. Occasional arson of libraries (they haven’t figured out the internet stuff yet). Another bit of silliness on the author's part. I will grant you that a small number on the right would not be predisposed to things internet, but the same applies to other groups on the left. Both sides regard the internet as a communications tool. He should study matters in southeastern Ukraine, where in the early going there was a tremendous amount of media posted to the internet from both sides about the war. That is until both sides started using that media to grid for artillery strikes and recon probes. Then use of the internet wound up in the hands of the leadership. It won't be a bunch of right wingers and left wingers sitting at their consoles spouting war propaganda. Those guys will already be dead, and their replacements will be posting fotos and videos for the commanders and leaders of their respective sides.. On the Left: Guerilla warfare. Elaborate ruses designed to entrap jeeps full of enemies into concealed pits. Hit-and-run attacks on churches, VFW halls, and high-rise office buildings. Lots of Molotov cocktails, homemade spears, and gunfire that is somewhat sporadic due to relatively low gun ownership in this fighting cohort. This fella unwittingly hit on the basis of an American civil war: Guerrilla actions against civil institutions. He speaks of those actions as though they are a part of normal fighting, but they are not. They are partisan acts of war to destroy one side. They will be nasty, and they will be dirty, and in the end, none of those acts will contribute to victory for the side committing them. He also speaks, if you'll notice, as if the left will have some advantage in the very basis of warfare: deception, but as Sun Tzu wrote: "All war is deception." The Outlook My outlook. It will be a gawdammed mess. The Left’s purist ideology and youthful vigor will inevitably wane under the withering fire of The Right’s mob-like bloodlust and superior weaponry. The inevitable ugliness of the conflict will tend to erode the morale on The Left, where philosophical approval of violence is mixed at best, whereas the religious and racial zealots of The Right will only grow more emboldened, easily integrating this new war into their longstanding intellectual framework of patriotic genocide of The Other. We can expect that the next civil war, like the last one, would be explosive, bloody, and long. But we can’t expect that the good guys would win this time around. Sure we can. Democracy, freedom, liberty and conservative values will win in the end... In the final calculus, The Left is better off parlaying its domination of the media into social victories that can be leveraged for peaceful political gain. It’s the only real choice, unless we all want to get massacred. Probably the first thing in this missive the writer has deliberately gotten right. The problem: it will apply to both sides. Now what we need to do is take away their guns... That would be an excellent start to civil war. Can't think of a better triggering event, as it were... Posted by: badanov 2016-07-18 |
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