- Right.
- I don’t know and I don’t know.
- That’s correct.
- Oh well.
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Death, destruction, forceful movement of people, and all sorts of unpleasant things.
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As a wise man asked, “Do normal people around the world say, ‘I want my cities to look like LA, San Francisco, Chicago, and Detroit? Do they say, ‘I want a political system that produces leaders like Donald Trump and Joe Biden.”
Several times in this thread you’ve reminded us there is death in civil wars, something that occurs in all wars. Why do you keep repeating this? Do you not think we are aware of this? What do you think would be the reaction if I kept telling car drives they can die in car accidents?
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A question I have regarding a civil war in the US is, what would the two sides be? Would it be three or more sides?
It could mean the death of you… or your family. Not a small chance either
That has me wondering… if someone wants this to eventuate… do they have a deathwish?
The people most likely to survive? The rich, people who get out of harms way/flee, those who know how to fight/shoot (you’ll never be able to compete with those who have fought from a young age, have military experience etc)
You have children, a civil war would render your children traumatised… hell you might incur irreparable psychiatric damage.
Have you ever seen someone die? I have (notwithstanding the elderly) during stint as junior EMT … it’s not pleasant.
As to the “oh well” comment… what does that mean? Put it this way, what are the chances that ‘your side’ bands together in insurmountable numbers. If this ever happens, I don’t think it’ll be side A vs side B
I think it will be side A vs B vs C vs D. Some may believe autocratic rule is a better alternative to democracy, however as mentioned in my post above… authoritarian countries tend to be less developed, less economically successful; citizens tend to lack access to basic necessities (adequate healthcare, clean water, food etc).
I link data backing my contentions,
You tend to bring up liberal areas with the exception of Detroid (tends to swing). 8/10 of the top ten most dangerous cities in the USA are situated in red states that have a considerably more ‘tough on crime’ outlook relative to LA, San Fransisco etc. If US was so soft on crime they wouldn’t have mass incarceration or private prisons with quotas for incarceration. Particuarly considering if one looks at the stats, many inmates wind up incarcerated for crimes that fetch a slap on the wrist or a fine here (and Aus is actually tough on crime). For instance, fake ID in Aus… it gets taken away and you get told to go home.
Fake ID in the US? Felony…
No one is saying they want cities to be all consumed by crime and decay, my contention is that things aren’t constantly getting worse. The pandemic mediated a lot of sociopolitical/cultural instability, and homicide rates spiked for one year before dropping again.
Property crime has increased in select cities.
Violent crime has dropped 12% in Detroit since 2014 for reference.
What we are seeing is far more media coverage of crimes and shootings, a similar dynamic has eventuated for media coverage of non-violent crimes too. I’m not saying “there isn’t a problem, let’s ignore kids getting shot in the street because go crime!”
I’m saying things have been getting better, and therefore I don’t buy into the ‘criminality is just going to get worse and worse in the States’. You can look at the stats I provided in the post I made a few days ago for reference.
I suggest you also include reliable data in your responses because without data backing up your point of view I cannot validate your claims.
Whether you know or not doesn’t cross my mind. I feel as if this notion of a war to save America has been romanticised by some. Especially those who harbour accelerationist narratives (let’s ensure society burns!)
It’s very easy to talk the talk, not as easy to walk the walk. It would hands down be the most traumatic and unpleasant experience of your life, there’s a good chance you’d never be the same again. If you could compromise, or live your life minding your own business while others mind their own business… would you not prefer this to civil war?
You live in long island… you are in the wrong place at the wrong time. You hate liberalism with a passion… yet you live in one of the most liberal areas of the USA. Do you see how this could breed resentment from within?
Don’t you think you’d be happier in a middle ground or conservative leaning state? Also, if you go rural and conservative you are looking at a far better cost of living, public schools that have an educational curriculum you’d be happy with, less worry about who your kids are hanging out with considering you’d be in a tightly knit community where everyone knows everyone.
New York isn’t for you… Urban settlements are not for you… Left wing policy (due to pre-conceived bias or legitimate grievances) is not for you. I think you’d be far less anti-US if you lived in a more conservative area. I could be wrong.
I’ll ask again, do you think people who speak of civil war don’t know this? Do you think I don’t know this?
Maybe some do. I have no clue.
Why do you keep telling me such obvious things? I have two children who are only 4 and 6 years old, an aging mother who I will soon have to care for, a home, friends. Are you asking as if I have a deathwish?
Do you think that I’m actually someone chomping at the bit for this like some bloodthirsty lunatic? Are you implying this?
When I speak here and about such mattered I obviously have included some of my own thoughts. But this topic isn’t about me. Why do you keep making this about me? I’m talking about the USA.
I live in a nice town with a low crime rate and, not to brag, my social life is jam packed with events with friends and family. Do you actually think I walk around like Michael Douglas in Falling Down like some walking time bomb in a perpetual state of disgust by all that is around him?
With that said I likely will move in the future for various reasons.
So that makes those cities terrible also! And I’m well aware of them too! Do you think I think that those cities I mentioned are the only undesirable ones? I also don’t even look at everything through the lens of red and blue or “democrat-run cities” or “democrats ruin everything” which is so typical of conservatives.
How many of those cities have Democrat-majority city councils, mayors, and DAs?
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Are they blue cities though? What is the culture like, what are the demographics? That is a conversation that is not allowed. Better to blame rich people and the white man.
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You can have a civil war that isn’t the function of Balkanization (the U.S. in the mid-1800s, Spain, Russia, and China in the 1930s).
I don’t think the U.S. is capable of breaking down into multiple, distinct “new states” at this point - not in the way that the USSR or Yugolslavia, for example, have.
Those cities have been run by democrats for decades regardless if they are in a red state.
Yes, multiple and it is not pretty.
This is true, but it will also be inevitable. I am guessing in my lifetime or shortly after.
Of course, but they are making this impossible. Thinking they will leave you alone is naivety at a bare minimum.
You are wrong. I am on the same page is @BrickHead and I live in one of the most conservative states in the US. The left-wing policy garbage is flooding in everywhere - even into deep red territory. It is like a cancer. They want to tell you how to live and what is best for you. The right does this too just not to the same extent or fervor.
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If that wasn’t balkanization, I don’t know what is…
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Who makes the laws and policies in those cities? Who do they answer to? You can point to culture and individual behaviors that create a dysfunctional community but when those who govern put laws and policies into place that perpetuate the status quo and even encourage and enable the status quo, what kind of results should we expect?
Defund the police is an idea that originated outside of the communities affected by that policy. Lowering education standards for black students is an idea that originated outside of those communities affected by that racist antiracist idea. Restorative Justice has made schools worse and who came up with that failed approach? Who in the media is pushing a victimhood mentality that only holds people back? Then add in the corruption among those in government in those cities. De Blasio put his wife, who was completely unqualified, in charge of an initiative called ThriveNYC and they can’t account for almost one billion dollars that are missing. I lived in a ghetto and the mayor, who was eventually charged by the fbi after years in office, drove a Rolls Royce.
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Where the extremists on the right fail is that they lack access to children, meaning they are not influencing education be it at admin or classroom levels. They couldn’t get school prayer legalized but the extremists on the left can get drag queen story hour. Meanwhile, most American parents would be fine with neither of those things happening in their kids’ schools.
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Agreed.
Schools need to be a place of learning - not indoctrination of any form.
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Teaching programs are actively recruiting and attracting activist types to become teachers. A vision that those who govern public education have is creating kids who will become activists with a Marxist mindset. This isn’t opinion but based on personal experience. In some of my classes I felt they were trying to indoctrinate me. What was scary is how at times I would be the only one who pushed back or questioned things we were told while the rest of the class just willingly went along with what they were told was true.
You know the other side is winning when you hear a white person say, in response to hearing about some legitimately screwed up event or situation, “I’m embarrassed to be white.” And that is exactly how they want you to feel so you’ll keep your mouth shut and suffer all of the indignities that come with teaching. You’ll accept the blame for student behavior, “I must have done something to trigger it,” and academic failings, “I need to be more culturally responsive and have different standards.”
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Historians don’t tend to think of the American Civil War as an instance of balkanization. The term does have a fairly specific meaning. After all, the word “Balkan” refers to a specific geographic region where this type of political fragmentation has occurred - chronically.
I think the definition matters because Balkanization tends to happen along fairly distinct, deep lines (see the below map of the former Yugoslavia). Calling what happened in the U.S. in the 1860s Balkanization overstates the division between average Americans at the time - and their desire to live separately.
That said, divisions between American elites - Northern industrialists chafing at the enduring power of Southern landowners - were a major problem, hence the war.
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Individuals do things. Sometime they do them together (groups), but it requires the individual effort of each member of the group.
I think, in the context of pwi, people expect able bodied individuals to contribute, at the very least, enough to support themselves so the rest of the individuals in whatever collective is being discussed doesn’t have to worker harder to support someone that could support themselves.
We live in a very strange time where people feel entitled to necessities simply by virtue of birth. Any other time in history or in any impoverished area of the world, that entitlement can’t exist.
But does it? The country is still voting pretty much along those lines even today. The only thing keeping the two together is the threat of force. You can see this in any discussion on splitting up-the argument against it never mentions benefits, only “The U.S. would crush them”(whoever “them” is in the discussion), and sometimes nothing more than “but nukes.”
Short of living in a cabin in the woods and foraging and hunting for one’s own food, there is a leftist somewhere who is going disrupt one’s life, and even then he might not be scot-free.
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