America - are you ready for your next Civil War?

reply to post by GogoVicMorrow


Here's what would happen, I think. At first you'd have a united resistance against the government, and a very nasty insurgency to deal with. Best case here is the government destroys all trace of them, because if they're not stamped out, as soon as the government is gone the entire US will descend into a civil war the likes of which have never been seen before. Think about how divided the American political and socioeconomic landscape is right now. Every little disenfranchised, angry group of lunatics will think their vision of America is the one "true" version, and it'll be a bloodbath.

To answer your question? YES.

Do I look forward to it? No.

reply to post by ShadeWolf


No we wouldn't.

reply to post by olaru12


If they go all "tyranny" hell yes we have to.
The govt ain't the big bad wolf,the vets are in this circumstace.
I would also be marginally easier if an incompetent President in office like Obama is calling the shots.

reply to post by neformore

Princeton's Annual Review came out with a study on media and political polarization. What they found was rather surprising in that what was being broadcast on tv was generally more centrist than polarized and where the more extreme positions were found within the media was through the paper press and radio. This particular quote from the article is very likely describing what you are seeing here on ATS as the tendency of ATS members, through personality type, is to be rather intensely inquisitive and pattern seeking:

The correlation between party ID and ideology is considerably higher for more politically knowledgeable individuals (Abramowitz & Saunders 2008, pp. 545–48; Hetherington 2009, p. 438). Evans (2003, pp. 80–81) finds that “the politically active are becoming more polarized—and particularly polarized on the most political of matters, feelings towards liberals and conservatives.”

www.princeton.edu...

So, media, in general, doesn't necessarily increase polarization but cable may have some effect as the study found that households with cable had an increased level of political polarization. The assumption made is that, because of the diversity of choices including non-news media choices, the cable news has become more polarized to draw viewers. They also suggest that this may be the link between decreasing voter turnouts as moderates are more likely to watch something other than the news.

Perhaps 10–15% of Americans watch a considerable amount of cable news. A majority of these
“news junkies” appears to specialize in one of the three cable news channels and select mostly
ideologically matching content on other media. Regardless of the precise number of ideologically
indiscriminate casual news consumers and ideologically driven news junkies, it will be beneficial
to define and distinguish these two population segments more clearly.

I would say that "news junkies" are likely to reflect a significant portion of ATS users who strongly associate themselves with a political party or stance (liberal or conservative). 10-15%, however, when placed upon the bell curve would also represent the extremes of a given population. Using ATS as a primary source of assessment, therefore, is really just going to reflect the more politically active and polarized than the majority of the US population. However, considering that the moderates are less likely to vote or be politically informed, this scenario does have a strong effect on our political parties as it encourages them to be more polarized. A more centrist politician is more likely to be viewed as "weak", a "flip-flopper" or "wishy washy".

Whether this increased polarization of a small segment of the US population will result in a civil war or not is pretty questionable. Moderates tend to be moderate and disinterested. Things would have to be a a heck of a lot worse to motivate the closest on the bell curve to engage in party-affiliated warfare in lieu of watching HBO. Whereas the strong party affiliation of users on ATS may make it seem like it's just around the corner, the actuality of it happening is fairly slim. As things do become more polarized on the extremes, what would be more likely to increase would be politically motivated terrorism. However, even that would be representative of an even smaller population that would be capable of such acts and maybe less than 0.00001% of the US population overall based on factors for prior politically motivated terrorists (ie Kaczinski, McVeigh, Loughner).

Personally, I'm less scared of the outbreak of a civil war and more concerned of the effects that a more polarized political party may have. If we look at the past 12 years as an example of what occurs legislatively when the bulk of the populous is more interested in Game of Thrones than what their politicians are doing (with the exception of social media outrage at gaffes), then we could have some serious trouble on the horizon. Where there should be concern is not where politically differing opinions clash as that has a tendency of balancing itself--it's where the politicians agree.

GogoVicMorrow
reply to post by ShadeWolf

 

I expect that's what a revolution in the US would be today. It would leave the country in ruin. It would be like some of the violent former soviet states and parts of Russia that have terror attacks. Minus the jihad of course. It would be a few thousand to tens of thousands of people fighting and mingling in with civilian populations. They would be labeles domestic terrorists by gov and media, but they would have split support among civilians who prefer them to the extreme police state that would arise. It would drag on for decades of assymetrical warfare. Eventually other smaller groups eould join in as the econony collapsed and people start choosing sides. The smaller groups wouldn't be fighting, but would be like vultures traying to step in at the end of the mess and grab sone power and offer solutions.

USA is not some middle eastern country with religious fanatics and military dictators each pulling their way. America is and should remain a secular country, with basically two sides going at it after they get rid of the banker, war monger parasites. Liberals and Conservatives. It shouldnt get too ugly after the first couple shots are fired. Look at how pissed BOTH D and R supporters are AT BOTH PARTIES. Neither can stand their own party.

Tea Party and Occupy dont hate each other 1/10 as much as they hate THE REAL ENEMY!

Sooner or later the military will abandon the tyrants, just like egpyt abandoned morsi. Common sense says so.

reply to post by neformore


to tell you the truth;I don't believe there will be a civil war here.
people are so into their miserable lives their tvs cell phones and so on.I remember when we did'nt have these things,and we were all just as happy.man is accelerating faster and faster,I do hope your wrong.

reply to post by ShadeWolf


That's the thing. There would eventually be all these little groups, but they would be nothing and probably not last long. The ones with the real focus, the actual rebela that are fighting for a cause and would avoid hurting civilians would last and create some change even as they are called domestic terrorists. They wiuld have a lot of civilian support (like a legit percentage of the population) from vocal support to aiding them, putting them up and hiding all the way to joining the cause.

I don't think the government could ever wipe out the actual rebels because A.) They will be impossible to root out of civilian populations B.) Every action used on them wikk drive more people to the cause.

My guess would be that the rebels would go on for decades and eventually create change as the government offers diplomacy and compromise to stop the vioence.. or it just never ends like in Russai and divides the nation. We are a very young nation and prone to it. This may not be our final form if the govt wants to keep playing Roman Empire and screwing the people over.

reply to post by EarthCitizen07


I'm not implying it would be a civil war at all. No civilian vs civilian at all. I wasn't saying left vs right. It would be civilian vs government. Revolutionary rather than civil. But not just govt because I dou t they could use the military. It woukd be civilians and vets vs police/dhs/fbi/atf/coast guard.

dellmonty
reply to post by neformore

 

to tell you the truth;I don't believe there will be a civil war here.
people are so into their miserable lives their tvs cell phones and so on.I remember when we did'nt have these things,and we were all just as happy.man is accelerating faster and faster,I do hope your wrong.

I'm with you! I think we both know that secretly many here on ATS actually want a civil war, even though they claim not to. They also seem perfectly content to let "others" risk their lives for the cause while they sit comfortably at their computers and are nothing more than glorified "cheerleaders".

This so called revolution will be fought by poor people with nothing left to lose; however it won't be a real revolution, just a collection of angry mobs burning the cities to the ground. Unbridled hatred directed at anyone they perceive as better off economically. Politics and ideology won't even be given the slightest consideration.
Martial law will be installed and the mobs will be quickly neutralized.

GogoVicMorrow
reply to post by EarthCitizen07

 

I'm not implying it would be a civil war at all. No civilian vs civilian at all. I wasn't saying left vs right. It would be civilian vs government. Revolutionary rather than civil. But not just govt because I dou t they could use the military. It woukd be civilians and vets vs police/dhs/fbi/atf/coast guard.

I hope the military is wise enough to abandon the elected government, otherwise yes there could be enormous bloodshed and something NONE would like at all. With all these "scandals" such as libya, iraq, 9-11 inside job, threat of ww3........the military officials would have to be complete morons to follow such leaders to their grave.

300 million americans that although disorganised would put up a hell of a fight, not like the united kingdom with their lousy shotguns and .22lr rifles.

reply to post by olaru12


So you are siding with evil? Because that is the tone of your post. Its a lost cause, give up, dont care, let "nature" take its course.

I really hope there is no civil war. Maybe there wont be. But we are having a discussion on a public forumn discussing possiblities. Voting responsibly is always the best choice, its just that lately things have taken a grave turn for the worst, where some politicians seem unfit for public office under incompetance or worst insanity.

Voter recall, impeachment and/or resignation seem likely!