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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

#261

Post by watwut »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #32

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…

> 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.

First, civil wars in fact happen despite the above. Second, badly trained soldiers go to wars and then commit horrible atrocities there.

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

#262

Post by foolinaround »

buscoquadnary wrote: post #119
tjstankus wrote: post #67

A full-blown civil war, circa 1800s? Probably not, although a growing number of fascist types are fantasizing about it and planning for it. More frequent and extreme episodes of violent civil unrest? Yes. I think it's going to get worse. https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/03/08/they-are-...

See that's an important thing people don't realize about a new civil war. In the civil war you had various clearly defined government apparatuses that chose to withdraw themselves from the union to form a new nation state. This time however it isn't a certain group of geographic area it is divided along urban vs rural lines. If a "civil war" were to come again it is much more likely that we'll see something more alon…

the ideological split seems to pit people in urban vs suburban & rural areas.

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

#263

Post by CalChris »

Enginerrrd wrote: post #16
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #6

Source is apparently a preprint (that is, not peer-reviewed) uploaded here: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.07.15.22277693v...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 wonder if that's in the context of a civil war. As in was the question something like: "In the event of a civil war, would you...?" Because than it makes more sense to me. It's one thing to be willing to fight in a civil war, which involves all of the things you just mentioned, and another thing entirely to want to instigate those things.

No, the questions are listed in the Supplement section of the paper. They aren't prefaced by anything like In the event of a civil war, would you ....

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

#264

Post by _-david-_ »

joe_the_user wrote: post #65
thr0wawayf00 wrote: post #29

One of the biggest problems is that most current gun violence doesn't necessarily represent any sort of targeted pattern (i.e. shooting up a political convention or party headquarters). It's malls and schools because that's such an easy way to create shock and awe. If we do wind up in some sort of civil conflict, I imagine it will look a lot like Ireland from the 60's to the 90's, which was by no means a good time.[0…

Several of the recent shooting involved white supremacists targeting minorities, so it's not entirely untargeted.

Several recent shootings have involved black supremacists as well. This isn't exactly one sided.

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

#265

Post by watwut »

SoftTalker wrote: post #97
notch656a wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how accurate it is, but I've heard it said only 3% of Americans actually fired a weapon in the American Revolution (and likely the Civil War as well). Still those unfit to fight did often fulfill a role by supporting the economic engines supplying those who did fight.

Subtract all women and children, and all men over about age 30 or unfit for some reason. That doesn't get you to 3%, but that's the maximum number who would be involved.

The cutoff for draft wad 45 years old.

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

#266

Post by krallja »

School-Cotton wrote: post #257
krallja wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no legal requirement for a 60% supermajority to pass anything in the Senate; it’s just a Senate rule. The filibuster has been modified before, and could be modified at any point in the future. I personally am a fan of leaving it, but you HAVE TO TALK. If you stop talking, you yield. If you want to grind up the gears of Congress, you have to actually do something.

> I personally am a fan of leaving it Why?

It’s a check on populism. Also, changing the rule slowly seems more likely to have good outcomes than removing the rule altogether.

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

#267

Post by akira2501 »

t_mann wrote: post #248
dQw4w9WgXcQ wrote: post #197

Whenever I read this trash I wonder who is pushing the narrative. Is this writer even an American? What does he have to gain by fomenting a narrative that Americans want to go to war? Who's in his back pocket? Americans need to wisen the fuck up that so much of this "America divisive, we disagree so much, civil war coming" is manufactured. Especially in the age of GPT-3 where it can be as simple as telling an AI bot…

Take off your tinfoil hat, Science is one of the most respected academic journals in the world, and it is a US-based publication (its twin is the British journal Nature , together they form the pinnacle of academic achievement). This specific article is about a preprint, not a Science publication yet, but do be aware that the organization behind that website has a lot of reputation to lose if they were to engage in t…

I'm not particularly clear.. was this article published in one of their journals? What is the relationship of "Science Insider" to these other publications?

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

#268

Post by chasd00 »

snapetom wrote: post #222
chasd00 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the whole secession thing blows me away. I live in Texas and had a couple friends who were on that bandwagon. I asked them had they thought about going toe to toe with the US Marines while bombers are over Austin and drones over everywhere else. All i got back was silence. The union will be preserved at any cost, there's precedent for that. No state will secede without defeating the US military first.

Except the South, presumably Texas sympathizers, are way over represented in the military. The next largest region of over-representation are your flyover states, which political lean red. https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/costs/soc... You assumption that Texas would have to go toe to toe with the US Marines is a big assumption when many Marines are from Texas or would be politically sympathetic. If…

even if they were politically sympathetic they would have to abandon their oath to the constitution and turn and fight the rest of the Marines. Also, there's a lot more to the party than just Marines. I doubt there would be as much hesitation by drone operators sitting in office buildings firing on any armed citizen in any city in Texas. Let alone AI feeding targets of opportunity to a queue where operators just click the "approve" button...

I just don't think the secession people have thought about the level of violence required to actually secede. And even then what happens next? A blockade and sanctions then the entire state slowly starves to death or submission. Maybe Texas could form an alliance with Mexico.. ok now the United States declares war on Mexico. I don't think Mexico would want that.

the whole secession story just falls apart after 10 minutes of thought.

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

#269

Post by wyldfire »

joe_the_user wrote: post #65
thr0wawayf00 wrote: post #29

One of the biggest problems is that most current gun violence doesn't necessarily represent any sort of targeted pattern (i.e. shooting up a political convention or party headquarters). It's malls and schools because that's such an easy way to create shock and awe. If we do wind up in some sort of civil conflict, I imagine it will look a lot like Ireland from the 60's to the 90's, which was by no means a good time.[0…

Several of the recent shooting involved white supremacists targeting minorities, so it's not entirely untargeted.

That certainly has happened more than once in recent history, but I thought it was interesting when I learned that many mass shooters are actually committing suicide [1].

> POLITICO: You’ve written about how mass shootings are always acts of violent suicide. Do people realize this is what’s happening in mass shootings?

> Peterson: I don’t think most people realize that these are suicides, in addition to homicides. Mass shooters design these to be their final acts. When you realize this, it completely flips the idea that someone with a gun on the scene is going to deter this. If anything, that’s an incentive for these individuals. They are going in to be killed.

[1] https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/27/stopping-m...

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

#270

Post by jonnycomputer »

notch656a wrote: post #149
jonnycomputer wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The civil war happened because the abolition of slavery threatened the wealth and power of Southern elites. It was about wealth. I just don't see a similar situation right now.

I reject this notion. The civil war happened because the North didn't accept the peaceful right to secession. I do not think there would have been a war at all had the nation simply allowed the south to secede.

Sure. I guess the war wouldn't have happened if the North said, sure, see you later, bye. But then, again, the South wouldn't have seceded without Southern elites being frightened that the North would take away the foundation of their wealth. So, exactly what does it mean to "reject this notion"?

And what would have happened when the Confederacy demanded that the United States return escaped slaves, and the United States refused? How long before Southerners decided that the North was an existential threat?

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