Bearing in mind my longstanding dictum that there is simply no way of knowing how it will all shake out, that the one sure thing is that such things hardly ever go exactly like anyone thinks beforetimes that they will, Simplicius takes a stab at a little prognostication.
On Secession and Civil War
Will there be breakup by 2030?I often mention my long-held forecast that I predict the United States will either devolve into civil war or secession by the year 2030. Hearing this, many have asked me to expound at length about my thoughts on this, why and how I see it unfolding. So I’ve decided to finally treat the topic in a more in depth manner than the usual comment reply allows.
Particularly in today’s cultural climate, when they conjure up ‘civil war’, many people are subconsciously referring to some sort of Rwandan Genocide-style conflict between the two opposing sides of Liberals and Conservatives, where the actual civilians have taken up arms and are battling it out in the streets. This notion of a ‘civil war’ is driven by endless memes posted by both sides which depict things like armed antifa leftists against conservative militiamen rifling it out in some dystopian suburban battlefield, perhaps akin to Seattle’s CHAZ ‘Autonomous Zone’.
The Rwandan-style one has the least chance of happening because it presupposes some sort of de-centralized, stochastic ‘free-for-all’ where people just happen to take up arms against the fellow man. Sure, there will be sporadic armed conflicts occurring regionally, owing to the growing racial and political divides in the country. But there exists no real formalized mechanism by which the two sides can even cohere into some semblance of organized, opposing armies with a central command, staff structures, etc. This is mostly a juvenile consideration, at least for any time in the semi-near future, of which we’re speaking. One could perhaps envision such a scenario much farther down the line than is possible to predict: some sort of weird, lawless, dystopian post-apocalyptic Mad-Max-style future in the year 2100, or something like that. But for our purposes, this is unrealistic and unworthy of serious deliberation.
There is a third option some people refer to when invoking civil war: that of ‘people vs. the government’. I’ll treat this one briefly on its own, because there are a few important considerations here.
Firstly, this idea has gained traction as numerous American politicians have wielded this cudgel as a threat against upstart Americans who might like their chances in an uprising. Biden himself has remarked on at least two or three different occasions that ‘Americans need F-15s not AR15s to fight against the government’, implying that U.S. citizens can never defeat the government unless they’re armed with high level strategic weaponry, as opposed to mere small arms.
In short, the government and its ‘mighty military force’ wouldn’t last in a true prolonged conflict against the population of the U.S. Of course, it all depends how many people would be on the revolting side in this hypothetical scenario. But let’s not forget that the U.S. has an estimated 400 million guns, and 393 million of those are in civilian hands. There are reportedly something like 70-100+ million gun owners. The U.S. military has about 800k total ground troops. Even with all the planes and tanks in the world, can 800,000 go against 100,000,000? You could argue they couldn’t even defeat the Vietcong’s less than 1 million, much less 100m. Not to mention that most Americans are far heavier armed than the typical Vietcong and their bolt-action rifles.
But like I said, those are just slightly absurd hypotheticals to put some things in perspective; in reality, this is not the type of scenario I expect to occur. It’s simply a quick two cents thrown into the debate to refute the typical leftist canard that the U.S. military is invincible, when in fact they entirely rely on the civilian sector to even function.
Lots, lots more to this one—which, despite my opening admonishment regarding the ultimate futility of assuming that we can make any predictions here with any realistic expectation of accuracy, I nonetheless consider to be well worth a read. One more thing I feel I ought to address:
Professor Barbara Walter explains she’s studied civil wars for thirty years and has spent the last few of them working for a CIA taskforce which uses such metrics to prognosticate ‘where the next civil war will occur’ in the globe.
Professor Walter explains, when turned against the U.S. itself, these same proprietary calculations reveal that the U.S. is at the edge of what the CIA would deem the cusp of the “RISK” to “HIGH RISK” categories. Normally, a country at ‘high risk’ would be placed on a special CIA watchlist, as upheaval there would be considered imminent.
Walter, the Post said, concludes that the US has passed through stages of “pre-insurgency” and “incipient conflict” and may now be in “open conflict”, beginning with the Capitol riot.
Citing analytics used by the Center for Systemic Peace, Walter also says the US has become an “anocracy” – “somewhere between a democracy and an autocratic state”.
Walter’s second point is indisputably true. The first, though? Meh, not so much; the notion that we may be in a state of “open conflict” is seriously undercut by A) the simple fact that what she blithely refers to as a “riot” was no such thing; and B) excepting the ever-escalating incidents of mostly black-on-black violence in the nation’s urban jungles, all most Normals need to do to disprove the idea that we’ve arrived at “open conflict” is to just take a look around. Any conflict we might be in is certainly not “open,” and for the vast majority of us, there sure doesn’t seem to be very much of it to be seen.
That said, Simplicius sounds a cautionary note here:
These findings, however, are already more than a year old, and the country has likely slipped even further into the danger zone.
Fair enough, no argument. Even so, the danger zone isn’t quite the actual thing; they’re very different animules—as I suspect we’ll soon be finding out, to our great chagrin and injury.
As I said, there’s much more to this deep-dive examination of every facet of this issue, so do read it all.
(Via WRSA)
2
- Entries
“Secession”?!?
The concept is quite simply too retarded to even mention.
Doing so is in the dictionary under “How to tell me you’re retarded, without telling me you’re retarded.”
From where would anyone “secede”?
TO where?
There’s no safe space, and nothing you will ever hold.
Civil war? Absolutely, to an almost metaphysical certainty.
Block to block, house to house, and room to room, times 50 states and seven territories.
That is why the very idea of “secession” is utterly simplistic retarded bullshit.
Call me after six months of that, and then you can start talking about secession.
But it’s going to be ongoing, until there’s only one side left, everywhere.
Because neither side can afford to let the other one abide.
You don’t secede from cancer.
You poison it, burn it, or you chop it out.
So it will be when civil war is finally unleashed.
‘s gonna make the last one, under relative Marquess of Queensbury Rules, look like a church picnic food fight.
The coming one isn’t a brother war.
It’s a war of existential existence versus total extermination.
Both sides may lose.
But only one side is going to survive.
Necessarily.
As I’ve said about eighty-bazillion times, the idea that FederalGovCo would ever permit a state to peaceably secede–yes, even Texas, which might have an actual right to do so written into its State Constitution; there’s still plenty of debate and uncertainty about that–is beyond ludicrous.
The tax money, the military bases and equipment, all that land the dotgov seized by Imperial decree–they’re gonna just give all that up without a fight? PUH-LEEEZE.
We tried it once already; ask any Southerner how that worked out in the end. As if the goobermint had become less tyrannical, less greedy, and less control-mad since 1860. Umm, yeah, NO.
“…ask any Southerner how that worked out in the end.”
2nd time’s the charm 🙂
A little better luck and the first time would have gone our way.
“A little better luck and the first time would have gone our way.”
Nah, not really, Barr. With Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond being the primary, effectively our only, iron-processing, plate armor, and cannon-building facility (it’s one of the main reasons the CSA capitol was moved from Alabama to Richmond), the outcome was pretty much a foregone conclusion. Too close to Washington, therefore too easy for Grant to get at. The Union would’ve had a much rougher go of it if the CSA had left the Capitol down in Allybammer.
There were several opportunities even though the South was outgunned and out manned. No chance in a long war, which it turned out to be. OTOH, Jubal Early came close:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-washington-dc-came-close-to-being-conquered-by-the-confederacy-180951994/
When Lee went northward, crossing the Potomac in 1862, there was an opportunity, one that required the “luck” mentioned earlier.
Funny you should mention old Joob, Barry. As it happens, one of my good, longtime friends in CLT is a direct descendant of his. In addition to being an old-school biker and patch-holder with the Mystic 7 MC down in FLA, Fred is a wealthy stockbroker, now retired, as well as a former Formula One racer. An interesting fella for sure, a real character.
Fred has only one (1) tattoo, a small F.E.W above his left wrist, normally concealed underneath his watch band. He showed it to me years ago, explaining that it was his initials: Fred Early Woltz. He’s an Unreconstructed Southron for sure and certain, even though he maintains a super-nice condo in NYC, as well as his places at Lake Norman, in CLT proper, and down in FLA. He’s damned proud of his Confederate heritage. Used to take me out on the fast-as-hell Donzi cigarette boat he keeps up at the Lake Norman place, too.
I never will forget, in the early days of my friendship with him, one of the first times we played at Rodeo Bar in NYC. In the middle of the set, here comes good old Fred pounding right up the center aisle to the stage with a small entourage of fellow Charlotteans in trail, most of whom I was friends with too: Rick Hutchens, Rick’s then-GF Jouette, and irrepressible local wildman Gene Tucker, among a handful of other familiar CLT faces. They’d all been to a bazillion of our Double Door shows, yeah, but seeing their grinning mugs unexpectedly roll up en masse at Rodeo blew my mind completely, and made my night for sure. I joshed him about that forever after, in fact.
They had decided only that day, in a real wild-hair stroke of instant inspiration conceived and acted upon with great alacrity and aplomb, to fly up for the show in support of the local boys making good, then overnight at Fred’s NYC condo, which at that time I didn’t even know he had. Reminiscent of the time, a few years later on, when me and my friend Scott decided to go up to NYC for the Stray Cats/Fab T-birds show at Roseland, hanging out the night before at the long-gone Heartbreak club down on Varick Street for their Sunday rockabilly night, then heading back home immediately after the Roseland show. Of course, me and Scott drove, being poor and all.
Which reminds me that I need to give old Fred a call; haven’t talked to him in far too long, what with this, that, and the other damned thing piling up on me like they have, and will do.
In fact, now that I think of it, that night at Heartbreak with Scott was also the night I met, hung out with, and humiliated myself by attempting to dance with the lovely Belinda Carlisle, fresh off her painful breakup with LA Dodger infielder Steve Sax. Belinda was to make a surprise guest appearance onstage at the Roseland show, even offering to have her limo scoop me up and bring me to Roseland, so nicely had we hit it off at Heartbreak the night before–an offer I summarily declined, for some insane reason. Talk about your Heartbreaks…heh.
Hmm, I know a Woltz and a Hutchens, probably all unrelated, but I’ll have to check.
Interesting, the people you meet when you are in front of them performing.
Formula One as in racing? That’s a pretty difficult level to rise to.