I recently heard discussion on a September 29, 2020 article
in The Nation titled “Should the United States Stay United” by Richard Kreitner,
an editor at that magazine and an author of a book on the same subject. In this article, Kreitner calls for Democrat
controlled states to succeed from the Union.
Such a call is disturbing to me on multiple levels:
First, because this nation went
through this already with a loss of life estimated to be 620,000. That is, roughly, 2% of the population at
that time. Translating that to today’s
population, the number rises as high as 6 million souls.*
Second, this country’s
infrastructure, especially electricity and communications, is integrated. The potential chaos any such split(s) would
cause is incalculable.
Third, I don’t believe any such
split(s), even if the red states did not contest them, would stop the Blue Team
from exporting their treason and sedition across the lines.
And, I took an oath to defend the
Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That oath does not expire and I’m not willing
to stand by while my nation is truncated.
With that said, I have trouble seeing a path forward towards
anything like “healing”. My
understanding of the founding principals of this nation contains the notion
that free discussion of ideas among an informed citizenry allows citizens to
apply reason and logic to the facts to reach consensus. Therein lies the rub. A subset of our people operate from
principals that are inimical to our way of life. Free discussion of ideas is no longer
tolerated among them and apply great effort to squash ideas they don’t like and
such behavior appears to have the full support of many political leaders.
Also, Big Tech (BT), and it’s handmaiden, the mainstream
media (MSM), are both relentless in ensuring that conservative ideas and
thought is buried, disparaged, demonetized and ignored. Yes, there are alternative sources of information,
but the MSM is equally relentless in painting those sources as vile, racist, et
cetera. BT uses it’s algorithms to limit
the number of people who see these alternatives. Together, it seems, they set the frame and
the agenda, the lens, if you will, that many Americans view the world through.
All the above is nothing anyone here doesn’t already
know. I state these things to set the
stage for my question and the discussion I would like to have.
Given the environment discussed above, what steps can be
taken to get to that place where people with opposing views can use reason. Is this even possible now?? If it’s not
possible, then are we fated to fight another Civil War?
I appreciate your feedback.
·
Civil War Battlefield casualty numbers from – https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/civil-war-casualties
One reply on “Can We Solve our Differences Without Another Civil War?”
Back in the mid-1980s, Richard Mitchell detailed the disintegration of the American education system, therefore American thought, in his periodical, The Underground Grammarian. People today talk about nonexistent “systemic racism” but what has happened to American minds both exists and is demonstrably systemic. The ability to reason has been destroyed, at first by those deliberately trying to do so then later by those whose minds were destroyed first and merely perpetuated the system.
No, I don’t think it’s possible for the left to use reason. Not any more. They used to claim that they were on the side of reason (communism) while the right was on the side of unreason (religion). Now they don’t even try to look reasonable. They follow whatever whims strike them at any instant, exactly like children, because they have never developed past that childish mentality. They change the meaning of words and ideas without a thought so that it suits their demands of the moment. They have no idea that they’re doing this because they are incapable of recognizing it.
I see one of two outcomes following the election, no matter who wins: either the left will mount a successful, physical conquest of the country because the government and the right won’t step up to stop them or will use thinking like the absurd Just War Theory and let the conflict drag on forever, or the left will run screaming and crying like the babies they are, never to seriously rise again (like al Qaeda and ISIS) because the government and/or the right will stand up to them and quickly crush them so they’re forever terrified by the first few days of losses.