Another Warning of Why Civil War is a Really Bad Idea

From John Wesley, Rawles:

If people feel genuinely disenfranchised, then they tend to start to feel combative. This has happened many times, all over the world. Ditto for times when people feel singled out for repression, or over-taxed, or censored, or under-represented. The recent steamroller of Wokeness has justifiably made a lot of people angry. If situations like these are forced on a populace for an extended time, then civil wars or guerilla wars often result.

DREAD AND FOREBODING

I must emphasize that I absolutely dread the prospect of a Second Civil War. I recently read about some liberals who are itching to see a Second Civil War. Let me remind folks of some facts about America’s last little Tiff of Unpleasantness:

• US Population in the 1860 Census:  31,443,321.
• Estimated number of combatants killed 1861-1865:  618,200, with 360,200 Union deaths and 258,000 Confederate deaths. Those figures do not include civilian deaths.
• US Population in the 2020 Census: 331,464,948. (A more than 10x increase.)
• The projected proportional number of deaths in a Second Civil War: About 6.3 million.

He makes many of the same points that I have made.  And a few that I have not:

There will probably not be state-level lines drawn in a Second U.S. Civil War. At least in the first few months, there will be no clear-cut “front lines” and there will be no safe “rear” areas. There could be fighting nearly everywhere: Fighting between states, between counties, between neighborhoods, and even between individual neighbors. It will probably resemble the 1920s Irish Civil War or The Troubles, in Northern Ireland in the 1970s more than it will America’s First Civil War of the 1860s. (The photo at the top of this article dates from the Irish Civil War.)

There also could be multiple factions formed — not just two sides. There will probably be massive repression doled out by tyrants in many of the more populous states. There could be large numbers of casualties and full-scale displacements of civilian populations. And if the war goes on long enough, then I predict that there will be wholesale arrests of dissenters, summary trials, POW internment camps, civilian concentration camps, and attempts to disarm the citizenry.  (With more than 350 million guns in private hands in the USA, good luck, with that, tyrants!) 

I can easily see individual Blue terrorist groups headed into Red states to indulge in random acts of mass murder, killing in some cases, Blues who still live in Red states.  (Not every white person wth a pickup or SUV is Red.)  This will certainly provoke revenge attacks, even within states.  There are some fiercely Red counties in California, Oregon, and Washington.  White supremacists will crawl out from under their sline-covered rocks and engage in racist attacks where inevitably, they will kill black conservatives, Asians, and Hispanics.

Assuming that a 2024 election is allowed (and the popular vote isn't 95% Biden, 3% Trump), we are in real danger of things going very badly.