This is why I caution what people should expect when imagining a second civil war.
It's not going to be formed lines of men in pitched battles.
It's going to be warlords engaging in terror tactics with the fronts emerging along urban rural divides as opposed to state lines.
This won't be the battle of Gettysburg, it'll be the Troubles with rigged quad copter drones instead of car bombs.
Depending on who wins this election the US military isn't going to be either "side"'s ally, in fact they'll probably be the fighting parties' worst enemy since their goal is basically just going to be to kill all the people taking up arms until the terrorists and counter-terrorist terrorists knock it all off.
It'll probably lead to a purge of the most extreme folks in politics, as they'll either be found in cahoots with the terror cells covertly, or actively be leading one or more of them out of a misplaced sense that they'll be able to parry it into running the country.
It won't be glorious, it won't be honorable, it won't be anything for people to be proud of. It will just be bloody and then deeply regretted by all but the most unrepentant cretins, who still won't be able to publicly express that sentiment or risk ostracism at best, and lynching if they are discovered to have had a hand in ruining everyone's lives for however long it goes on for.
Nailed it! A modern civil war would almost certainly take the form of the Troubles, unless there’s a state secession, which I find highly unlikely.
I think Texas would make a move towards it, and then Austin would catch on fire as the very liberal city population mutinees against the republican leaders trying the stunt.
My guess is that it will be more like Syria
We had that in the first one...
Kentucky fought for both sides. A family could even split with brothers going to each side, and possibly both making it back.
That's what the whole Hatfield's and Mcoys shit was. Was side was union, one confederate. One side was made about a member that died in war, and killed a member of the other.
They were the most famous feud, but all over Kentucky the civil war kept playing out for years after it ended.
The resulting exodus to escape the violence is why you see rebel flags still in Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota and other northern states.
Sounds exactly what I would expect.
And it's already happening. Local government buildings getting bomb threats and packages with apparent explosives. Mass shootings. It's just gonna get worse, and more painful to observe and experience.
Since that quote in 1875, "patriotism" has wandered over to the other side of the line, inbred with superstition, ambition, and ignorance, and turned into nationalism.
That just leaves intelligence, by its lonesome, on the other side.
Grant isn't referring to "ruh ruh 'Murica" as patriotism, he's talking about appreciation of what we have. Different political alignments just appreciate different things; the left, liberty, and the right, supremacy of rich, white males.
The most patriotic thing an American can do is criticize politicians and hold the ones they vote for accountable.
Blindly insisting your country/party is perfect and excusing every fault is nationalism.
That's what the nazis had, the Republicans have, and I swear moderates want Dems to adopt.
holy shit, he fuckin nailed it
I'm starting to think we need more wartime generals and less businesspeople in politics.
Unfortunately, you get Pattons from the military just like you get Grants.
we'd also get shermans though.
Pretty sure Grant is widely considered to have been a lousy president.
He committed the unforgivable sin of actually trying to do Reconstruction, and no modern American historical revisionist can tolerate that shit.
Except that both sides will call themselves patriotic and intelligent.
So anyone just looking at the situation with their peripheral vision, will not know which one they are looking at.This is a fundamental problem with any kind of civil conflict. You're inevitably going to have inteliigensia at the highest levels of each side of the dispute. You're going to have mountains of propaganda to justify the need for the conflict and the existential nature of the threat of the opposition. You're going to dehumanize your opposition in order to de-legitimize any kind of dispute. And you're going to tap a rich vein of low-income, low-education civilians to fill out the rank and file of your military.
Plenty of liberals lined up to march into the deserts of Iraq and mountains of Afghanistan and jungles of Vietnam. Plenty of conservatives are still part of the Soy, Woke, and Gay modern military, NSA, FBI, and CIA. Even if you're looking dead center, you're only going to see the view that your lens of observation affords. Its not like Bezos owned WaPo or Bill Gates's MSNBC is above filling your eyes with Murdoch-tier bullshit. Just look at how the clusterfuck in Gaza has been covered.
What we have, at the end of the day, are all the same tools of dividing and conquering our own nation that we have historically inflicted on our colonial territories. Fascism is just imperialism returning to the core. And when your wild-eyed gun totting next-door neighbor breaks in to your house, convinced that you've got an adrenachrome factory in a non-existent basement, it'll be under the same conditions that turned Rwandan Hutus and Tutsis against one another or Serbs and Bosnians or Koreans and other Koreans or Texans and Mexicans time and time again before.
the thing is, only one of those sides is deluded into thinking they're actually patriots.
And the problem being that, that side is easier to propagate than the one which tells you to observe properly and use more of your brain.
Sure, they'll say they are, but their actions will make it obvious which one it is in actuality. Did you attempt to violently disrupt the peaceful transfer of power? Do you ban books? You're not on the "intelligent and patriotic" side.
Did he really fucking say that?!?!?! Goddamn prophetical
Someone on Shermanposting posted more of the speech. It's even more prophetic than it seems - Grant speaks on the dangers of religious instruction in schools and the need for separation of Church and State.
I do not bring into this assemblage politics, certainly not partisan politics, but it is a fair subject for soldiers in their deliberations to consider what may be necessary to secure the prize for which they battled in a republic like ours. Where the citizen is sovereign and the official the servant, where no power is exercised except by the will of the people, it is important that the sovereign — the people — should possess intelligence.
The free school is the promoter of that intelligence which is to preserve us as a free nation. If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon’s, but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition, and ignorance on the other.
Now in this centennial year of our national existence, I believe it a good time to begin the work of strengthening the foundation of the house commenced by our patriotic forefathers one hundred years ago, at Concord and Lexington. Let us all labor to add all needful guarantees for the more perfect security of free thought, free speech, and free press, pure morals, unfettered religious sentiments, and of equal rights and privileges to all men, irrespective of nationality, color, or religion.
Encourage free schools, and resolve that not one dollar of money appropriated to their support, no matter how raised, shall be appropriated to the support of any sectarian school. Resolve that the State or Nation, or both combined, shall furnish to every child growing up in the land, the means of acquiring a good common-school education, unmixed with sectarian, pagan, or atheistic tenets. Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate. With these safeguards, I believe the battles which created the Army of the Tennessee will not have been fought in vain.
Ain’t it the truth
Too bad for him. Nowdays americans only understand things in terms of Harry Potter and comic books. The usamerican brain has turned into hamburguer long ago
Which ones you taking about? Because this is a pretty ignorant take, painting with a very wide brush.
An odd way to word that, but they're not necessarily wrong. The way all forms of media have become long running franchises and contained boxes has worked as a constant distraction to the majority, and allowed for very easy information control. Movies, TV, news sources and radio stations are all owned by a few big companies, and the internet is really just meta, Google, and Microsoft. If every other website disappeared right now, the majority of Americans wouldn't even notice. It's not their fault, it's just a captive industry designed to appeal to as many people as possible.
It seems like the Roman empire is too busy with their carnivals to see it crumbling around them.
