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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

#361

Post by notch656a »

travisgriggs wrote: post #130
smm11 wrote: 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.

I have thought about this and the whole right to bear arms that seems to be rampant in those circles (I live in a more rural community and work in Ag Automation). On a careful reading of the lengthy 2nd amendment ("A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."), I realized that ownership or property is not actually en…

I'm heavily pro 2A and I heavily support every free person having a machine gun. Quite a bit of people wouldn't give you a weird look at all if you suggested that.

Re: funding that would actually be pretty easy. An AR-15 from PSA is like $400-500 and the manufacturing cost between a semi-auto and auto is negligible. There's about 258 million adults in the US, so that puts the cost at roughly 125B, or under 3% of the federal budget and well below what was spent on COVID relief. With every citizen armed with a a machine gun, and by ending unnecessary foreign military operations I'd say we could easily shrink the military budget enough to make up the difference. Bonus points if the Department of Labor, department of Education, department of energy, medicaid/medicare, food stamps, ATF, DEA, CIA, and other costs were slashed to make way for supporting arming the citizenry.

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

#362

Post by grandmczeb »

giardini wrote: post #279
grandmczeb wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The core research that "On Killing" was based on (S.L.A. Marshall’s "ratio of fire") was probably fabricated[1]. I'd treat any claims in the book with a lot of skepticism. [1] From https://www.gwern.net/docs/history/s-l-a-marshall/1988-spill... : > His surviving field notebooks show no signs of statistical compilations that would have been necessary to deduce a ratio as precise as Marshall reported later in "Men Agai…

Grossman devotes almost an entire page to the history of controversy over Marshall's results in the Notes of "On Killing"*, p. 336 (Section 1: Killing and the Existence of Resistance") . IOW Grossman clearly acknowledges the debate and welcomes more research.

So out of 400 pages, Grossman only devotes part of one page to the fact that the entire basis of the book is probably fraudulent? That doesn’t seem very reassuring.

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

#363

Post by yencabulator »

antonymy wrote: post #144
jokethrowaway wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very interesting! Generally, in the country in the Europe I've lived in, the people who want to secede are those who don't want to see their taxes go to the country's lazy and scammy region (almost all countries have one).

While the USA was once a true federation of sovereign states that really hasn't been the case since at least the Civil War, over 150 years ago. States depend heavily on the federal government for assistance, standardization, and regulation, and even depend on their neighbors for logistical support in various industries as well as energy and water. For all its touted net-contribution to the federal budget California w…

You do realize countries routinely buy electricity from other countries? Just because there's a country border doesn't mean trade can't flow over it.

Now, of course, if you were at war, such dependency would hurt, for sure. But on the long term, country borders don't mean that much to capitalism.

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

#364

Post by mrep »

taylodl wrote: post #241
lgbrandon wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

just look to Vietnam. The military can occupy but it gets expensive. To win a true war you have to keep the local population happy and bombing them Won't achieve that. Plus you have to think the people in the military are going to be ok bombing local populations and possibly areas they have family. It isn't so cut and dry. I think a break could happen. We are at the end of this empire and the fall is going to be bad.

You must not be American otherwise you'd know the answer to the (rhetorical?) questions. The American Civil War showed us the atrocities each side was willing to commit. It was warfare at a level the rest of the world wouldn't experience for decades to come. And unlike the first Civil War, the United States didn't have the means to destroy the rest of the world should their weapons fall into the wrong hands. The worl…

Not OP but am a born and raised American. That civil war that was a freaking 160 years ago! In what aspect would a civil war today be any similar to that one?

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

#365

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

moduspol wrote: post #330
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are 120% the number of guns in the US as there are people. Only a great fool would believe they are all in the hands of a group that can't even muster up a popular vote win in a presidential election.

Not all. But the vast majority. And they're the ones that have experience using them, too.

No post body was provided.

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

#366

Post by notch656a »

Apocryphon wrote: post #358
klyrs wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American citizen who listens to talk radio on roadtrips, I've thought that we were headed towards a civil war as early as Obama's presidency. I largely kept that prediction to myself, but it turns out that a lot of Americans feel that way or even want it to happen. My prediction was largely based on the language that radio hosts and call-ins were using to describe their elected leadership and their fellow citiz…

After 9/11, when mass violence happened on American soil and the cultural atmosphere became one that was paranoid for safety and ready to fight, exacerbated by the divisive War in Iraq, all bets were off. Not to mention 2000 was also the presidential election that would throw all future elections into doubt.

To be fair 9/11 was when the government really kicked in its war against the populace in overdrive. TSA, 4th amendment violations, harder to travel across the border, mass expansion of DHS, the patriot act.

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

#367

Post by mgdlbp »

nomel wrote: post #229
notch656a wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you lay out the conditions under which you'll accept references? I've had a lot of issues before where I provide this sort of evidence and the counterparty relentlessly and tediously explains why every single source is either wrong or doesn't meet their arbitrary standards, so I want to be sure this won't be turned into one of those situations.

I'm genuinely interested in how that perspective came to be since it is, to my world view, a shocking and hard to believe claim. But, my surprise isn't worth anything. I'm unable to find search term that gives something relevant, so anything would help. But, I think it's a bit unfair to make, what appears to be, a very bold assertion, without explaining it or allowing criticism. I have no interest (or qualification)…

I've only heard of evidence against, that interviews of US soldiers post WWII found only 1/4 had shot to kill. I've never really looked into it; the claim is somewhat disputed, I think.

The two commonly cited books: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.L.A._Marshall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Killing

r/AskHistorians doubts it: https://redd.it/22o24j https://redd.it/2od6eg

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

#368

Post by _8j50 »

chasd00 wrote: post #350
_8j50 wrote: post #324

I don't want there to be one but I am at least 65% certain there will be a civil war between the states in 5ish years to the point it is affecting my future plans. IMO, it will come down to state national guards supporting a secesion or rebellion against the federal government. The packing of the supreme court and all levels of state and federal judges is a strategic move by an ethnonationlist movement in America. Lo…

you lost me here > But it comes down to Republicans accepting black and latino people are here to stay because, at least in Texas, Democrats have been losing black and especially latino voters to Republicans hand over fist. It's borderline racist to assume black and latinos are automatically Democrats and not accepted by Republicans.

Then you misunderstood me. I very well know there are many republican voters that are black just not actual senators and congressmen. In NC and other southern states too. Conversley there are a lot of racist people in the PNW where states are mostly blue. Republicans will accept votes from anyone and at least right now will not engage in open and explicit public racism. They even have a few black law makers they use to say "see we have a black guy, we are not racist" because they can't get a majority at the state and federal level by alienating independents and not so extreme conservatives.

Even the proudboys had a black person as their leader who supported them all the way until they called him a "token negro" and had an internal coup lol.

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

#369

Post by cyberge99 »

_AdAstra_ wrote: post #219
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.

Does not seem to be a democratic way of handling secession. Makes me wonder why Hong Kong should be free in the view of most westeners, but not Texas...

Because China signed a 50 year pact saying as much.

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

#370

Post by marginalia_nu »

giardini wrote: post #224
marginalia_nu wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A civil war isn't always a war by civilians. Consider a scenario where the government is increasingly turned into a mexican standoff between completely entrenched branches of government. Supreme court is completely doing its own thing, the president starts abusing emergency powers to circumvent a ceaselessly filibustering congress and senate. Nothing gets done, and the country starts suffering from neglect and misman…

A question, a statement and a proposal: - is your proposed "military coup" a "civil war"? - This entire discussion is fruitless b/c no two of us have the same definition (or even a clear conception ) of the term "civil war". And we have for reference only past civil wars (especially the USA's war between the states). - We could speculate loosely using and poor surveys unleashed on the great unwashed masses (and us) b…

I don't think there is a super well defined criteria for what's a civil war and what's a military coup and so on. Military coups can turn into civil wars (Caesar's coup is an example). Doesn't always happen, sometimes they fail (or succeed) so spectacularly that there isn't much of a war to follow.

I do agree that speculation is sort of pointless. I think circumstances may increase or decrease the likelihood of such an event, and circumstances look like they are more conducive to one now than in 1992, but I don't think you can say that when such-and-such happens, civil war is almost inevitable.

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