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Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon

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Re: Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon

#151
post #30

Source is apparently a preprint (that is, not peer-reviewed) uploaded here: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.07.15.22277693v... > Participants: Cross-sectional nationwide survey conducted May 13 to June 2, 2022; participants were adult members of the Ipsos KnowledgePanel. 8,620 respondents, but I don't see how they were recruited or how potential bias was accounted for. Given how weird some of the interne…

I guess it depends on what you count as "over politics" - I think a lot of people would be willing to engage in violent resistance to something like "the president declares the constitution suspended and all elections indefinitely postponed", but not to something like "the Supreme Court overturns Obergefell vs Hodges". I find the referenced numbers perfectly plausible if they interpret the question to mean something…

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Re: Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon

#152
For a publication named "Science"... this seems to be a pretty slanted article. It makes no distinction between types of violence, instead lumping them together.

"Firearm deaths in the United States grew by nearly 43% between 2010 and 2020,[...]" conveniently omits the distinction between homicide, suicide, and accidental deaths. It also ignores any type of comparison between criminal gangs having a turf battle, mentally ill people shooting up schools, and Nazi/Antifa type disputes. It conveniently lumps all into a single "guns are bad" bag.

Their assertions about conspiracy theories all conveniently target conservatives as well as ignoring the possibility of any truth in those perspectives. With a reproductive replacement number below 2.1, the US population is shrinking. Adding more than 1M who crossed the US southern border this year already and were processed, with an additional number nearly half that size who avoided he border patrol completely, most who have historically supported a single party... what would informed people think?

Re: Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon

#153

more than half of americans are unfit for a bar fight let alone a war. I hate to say it but these kinds of surveys are pretty weak. I recall a friend who's a history buff telling me something along the lines of non-professional soldiers often refuse to shoot their firearms, or intentionally miss, because people often don't truly want to kill. A quick google suggests some credibility to this claim[1]. I always try to…

Why this is so remains contested; Marshall argued that even with their own lives at risk, the resistance of the average individual “...toward killing a fellow man" was such that "he will not...take life if it is possible to turn away from that responsibility and at the vital point, he becomes a conscientious objector".[2] Others argue so-called 'low fire' is a function of training and discipline, and is a positive attribute.[3] These debates continue since understanding is crucial to overcoming them through training, as well as dealing with actual or potential combat-stress disorder.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.L.A._Marshall

Re: Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A deeply religious conservative America, or a secular progressive America. Groups are not seeing eye to eye on the fundamental role of government, and lines in the sand are being drawn.

Which side has 95%+ of the guns and land?

Neither.

Re: Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon

#155
post #48

The Civil War was preceded by a constitutional issue divided geographically. The question of slavery in new states was forced by pro-slavery presidents, congressman, and justices. They sought to erase all middle ground, the tenuous bridge maintaining the union. Once it came to blows, the geography of slavery allowed the slavery states to band together. The upshot is that not all of these factors seem possible at once…

Further on this... Free states refused to honor slaves states' "property rights." If a slave were to make it to a free state, they could get away and the authorities wouldn't do anything about it. If someone owned (I hate this language) a slave and traveled through a free state they could potentially lose "their property" with no recourse.

I don't know which states have actual fighting forces that makes a civil war like situation possible, there is the whole mob mentality thing where maybe a group of really angry citizens would start to take actions on their own. Something else to consider is that the bluest of states still have a fairly large red contingent (north of 30%) and the same is true for the reddest states. I think that dilutes the mob. There might be places like rural Montana and Idaho where things could light up but I couldn't see Texas taking up arms against New Mexico. I think there would be a lot of obvious build ups.

The abortion laws create a lot of interesting inter-state problems. If we were willing to have a shooting war because of "property," it doesn't seem far fetched that there could be one if one state supports the "murdering" of "killing" of lives from another state that tries to protect them.

Re: Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon

#156
post #24

The great majority of that 50 percent belong to one political party, that is fond of carrying around gallows, encouraging people to be locked up after being chained, etc. They're willing things to happen, as Q predications let them down.

Q was a deep state run operation, everything they did was to misdirect public opinion about election fraud. They would plant stories about voting machines being hacked, and other such nonsense. They basically disappeared after the election was settled. I don't see how you think they helped the populist movement.

Re: Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon

#157

Not convinced at all that civil war is likely to happen. But then again, I probably would've said the same about Russia invading Ukraine at the start of the year. Part of me thinks this is the result of countless foreign adverserial brainworms slowly trying to push Americans over the edge. Do you have plans if civil war were to break out? The dark part of me thinks it would be interesting to see how a modern civil wa…

No criticism intended. I didn't expect it either.

However, anyone following the story probably did expect it. Russia has been in Ukraine since 2014. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_War

It's not just Ukraine. In 2008 they entered Georgia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_(country)#Russo-Georgi...

Re: Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon

#158
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't want to fix/improve the society to suit your preferences through existing democratic and legal mechanisms, so you decide destroying the opposition via violence/intimidation is easier.

I would argue that today, the median partisan of both political colors is of the belief that Democracy is at risk, today, because their opposition color is ignoring the rules, not playing fairly, and generally wants bad things to happen to people of their political color. I've seen an awful lot of posts by both flavors of political partisans that "we're already in a war, we're just losing because we refuse to fight b…

I didn't make a partisan distinction, only described the thought process for how someone justifies the use of political violence instead of the legal and democratic process.

Re: Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon

#159
post #56

Source is apparently a preprint (that is, not peer-reviewed) uploaded here: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.07.15.22277693v... > Participants: Cross-sectional nationwide survey conducted May 13 to June 2, 2022; participants were adult members of the Ipsos KnowledgePanel. 8,620 respondents, but I don't see how they were recruited or how potential bias was accounted for. Given how weird some of the interne…

Hasn't 60% of the population of Texas expected a civil war soon for the last 100 years? And what are those rebel flags all about? It's posturing. Just like all of those surveys that say 50% of tech workers anticipate quitting this year. Nearly all the places that talk about secession are the same states that generate less federal tax revenue than they spend. Which is both why it would be a terrible idea, and why peop…

Reliance on the federal government, by state: https://www.moneygeek.com/living/states-most-reliant-federal...

Re: Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon

#160
This is a serious topic of discussion in our family. I personally think that the USA will collapse within the next 10 years. Specifically, I worry that the rumblings that the Independent Legislator Theory will be used to hand the next election to the right are true and that it's a viable strategy. And that this will lead to an Brexit-type situation where states vote to leave and the Federal government is happy to let (some of) them in order to solidify one-party control of the country.
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