The Liberal Gun Club Forum

FrontSight wrote:Several here have (and continue) to laugh at my assertion that the US will break up during my lifetime (I'm in my 40's).

I'm in my forties too, and I am sure I will die an American. We, as Americans, all celebrated the death of OBL. The Super Bowl is still the most watched sporting event in the U.S. And the rest of the world still wants our money. The Pax Americana won't end for a few more years. This will lead to a decade or two of denial followed by a decade of trying/fighting to regain the top spot in the world. A decade of acceptance and finally the great American pawn shop and then the breakup. I'm sure I won't make it to the break up.

While not impossible, I tend to think a real shoot it out type civil war and break up of the United States is unlikely in my lifetime. The closest we came in recent history might have been during the height of the civil rights protests and federal enforcement of school integration in the south. I'm trying to think of an issue that has the potential to be that divisive and inflammatory, that could incite people enough to take up arms against other Americans. Gay rights? Abortion? Immigration? Yeah, plenty wing nuts willing to commit violence and bloodshed over these issues, but could enough folks get stirred up enough to go to war? I'm not so sure.

If civil unrest and violence do occur, I believe the catalyst will be some kind of disaster of such magnitude that the country's infrastructure and economy is severely damaged, badly enough that large populations have to fend for themselves without government assistance. At that point I think it could break down into region vs. region, state vs. state, neighborhood vs. neighborhood in desperate struggles for limited resources. I'm thinking some post nuke strike scenario, asteroid collision, or massive disease pandemic rather than the squabbles that will always characterize this nation.

AdAstra wrote:

FrontSight wrote:

AdAstra wrote:I'm interested to read about what you think you can do to help the situation, because it's naive to think that only political differences are the issue. How do you reconcile your discriminatory religious beliefs to what you seem to be railing against in the political sphere? This is not a malicious prod, I'm genuinely interested in your perspective and how you mesh your contradictory beliefs into practice.

You lost me there….

I wasn’t aware my beliefs are contradictory, can you elaborate on what you’re getting at?

I'm not surprised you're not aware of it, and that pretty much answered my question.

I think I've just been insulted; but I'm not smart enough to know. I'm not sure how I have offended you, but I apologize if I have. I try to be what I believe a Christian ought to be, but that seems to offend you. Sorry, but I will continue to speak my mind hopefully in a non-offensive manner.

I'm still rather confused...Kinda wish you'd bring me in on the joke.

what's all this about the world going to shit in a hand basket? of course that's inevitable but it will happen after we officially change our name to the corporate states of america, not before.

gendoikari87 wrote:what's all this about the world going to shit in a hand basket? of course that's inevitable but it will happen after we officially change our name to the corporate states of america, not before.

Yeah right the CSA thats been done before and it didn't work then.

I think the corporations have way too much control and would never allow something as economically devastating as a break up to occur.

marcgo2 wrote:I think the corporations have way too much control and would never allow something as economically devastating as a break up to occur.

I agree that America worships at the alter of the corporation and that they have far too much control. But we must remember that corporations are not all powerful, and nothing lasts forever.

My belief is that the right and left are so divided that it's becoming a hatred. Such hatred will eventually lead to this nation breaking apart. I can't tell you how much I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see any responses that give any data that suggests I'm wrong. I think people believe things and often with such furvor that they sort of wish it to be true. Also, often if someone says something like my obersrvation that I beleive that the US will break up; they think that means I'm all for the US breaking up, and I'm not. This is merely what I think will happen during my lifetime. I really hope I'm wrong but when I read the news, I see more and more evidence that supports division.

The problem with that theory is that no one region is unified about anything the way it was in 1860. There's plenty of hatred but it's spread around pretty good.

FrontSight wrote:

marcgo2 wrote:I think the corporations have way too much control and would never allow something as economically devastating as a break up to occur.

I agree that America worships at the alter of the corporation and that they have far too much control. But we must remember that corporations are not all powerful, and nothing lasts forever.

My belief is that the right and left are so divided that it's becoming a hatred. Such hatred will eventually lead to this nation breaking apart. I can't tell you how much I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see any responses that give any data that suggests I'm wrong. I think people believe things and often with such furvor that they sort of wish it to be true. Also, often if someone says something like my obersrvation that I beleive that the US will break up; they think that means I'm all for the US breaking up, and I'm not. This is merely what I think will happen during my lifetime. I really hope I'm wrong but when I read the news, I see more and more evidence that supports division.

It's not so much the particular corporations that matter. It is the ownership class that, at least now and in the foreseeable future, doesn't have a vested interest in seeing someone turn the lights out at this party. To paraphrase: The rich will always be with us.

?

Speaking of hatred did not some of our founding fathers have pistol fights. Like to see some of the wimp ass politicians do that today.

Oldskool wrote:The problem with that theory is that no one region is unified about anything the way it was in 1860. There's plenty of hatred but it's spread around pretty good.

Yeah. Hence there are people in NJ driving around with bumper stickers proclaiming the purpose of guns is to eliminate gays, and there are people in AZ driving around with bumper stickers proclaiming the desire for a liberal state to be named Baja Arizona.

Oldskool wrote:The problem with that theory is that no one region is unified about anything the way it was in 1860. There's plenty of hatred but it's spread around pretty good.

Often my neighbors and I have wondered aloud if perhaps we live in a bubble, particularly after the 2004 election. We note that even though the Northeast and the West Coast are reasonably aligned, there are pockets within of ultra right wing conservatism that are in lockstep with the bible belt.

Many years ago Oregon had a governor named Tom McCall, a republican who would make most current liberals look quite conservative. He advocated the conservation of our natural landscape and farm land, instituted 'green' back in the late 60's and 70's. The bottle bill, public beaches and access to waterfront along our rivers and the only state sanctioned music festival in history are all part of his legacy. He also proposed, more tongue and cheek that anything else, that Oregon secede in order to prevent people from moving here. He envisioned an Oregon crowded and lacking the capability to deal with the numbers. He was correct.

I am trying to draw a mental map of what the two Americas would look like, if left and right can't get along, and it seems hopeless.

The op question is interesting, but I think it depends in buying the idea that the US once was extremely cohesive in some real way. I don't think the differences are any bigger now than they generally have been all along. I think what may be different are the moral and social norms governing how we deal with those differences. In particular, I think that many on the right have stopped being interested in any kind of cooperative approach to change. They have no room for the plualism that has always been the US. Will we fly apart? How much more apart could we get? In many places neighbors don't know each other, schools can't provide a common experience, and religions keep the differences alive. Poverty, racism, and sexism are still with us, softened a bit by capitalism's need for a calmer market. We're already flown apart. It is how we started.

JayFromPA wrote:

Oldskool wrote:The problem with that theory is that no one region is unified about anything the way it was in 1860. There's plenty of hatred but it's spread around pretty good.

Yeah. Hence there are people in NJ driving around with bumper stickers proclaiming the purpose of guns is to eliminate gays, and there are people in AZ driving around with bumper stickers proclaiming the desire for a liberal state to be named Baja Arizona.

As an Arizonan I'm "sorta" all for a Baja Arizona, but the problem is that it's in the ass-end of the Southern part of the state, removed from all of the tech industry much of the left-leaning community in Arizona encouraged in the first place!

I think if you look at some key differences between Russia and America you'll see why what happened to the USSR won't happen to the US.

Historically the population of Russia lived in serfdom for hundreds of years which I'd see as almost a prerequisite for life under Soviet oppression.
The US, on the other hand, was founded by independent minded people who set out to find freedom, be it from religious or political oppression or in many cases incarceration. You also need to look at the stark differences between the British parliamentary system, with it rudiments of Democracy, that America spawned from vs. Russian feudalism.

As for the Soviet satellite countries, they represent a diverse group of cultures with no common religion, race, lifestyle or language.
Though in America today there can be seen many sub-cultures, as a whole, our culture spawned from Anglo-Saxon roots with an overwhelming majority of people coming from a Christian English speaking background. Basically we have cultural commonality.

Russia, as a monarchy, survived for hundreds of years through the harshest of oppression and had many uprisings amongst it's satellite populations that continue to this day.
The US has had only one major internal conflict since it's inception and, let's face it, we don't have anything as divisive as slavery to deal with today.

The USSR only lasted 70 years before it collapsed under the weight of it's own internal strife and external conflicts.
The US is 5 years away from it's 150th Bday, we've survived a civil war that cost the lives of nearly 10% of the population, multiple economic collapses, political corruption, turmoil, upheaval, assassinations, etc. and we're still here.

The Civil War
The monopolies of the industrial age
WW1
The Great Depression
The attempted assassination of FDR by corporate robber barons
WW2
The McCarthy Era
Vietnam and the 60's in general
Reaganism (which way the kickoff point for the shit mess we're in now)

…we're not dead yet

There has always been a struggle in this country between the left and the right, and there always will be.
There is no challenge we face now that's worse than anything we've faced before.
Even with our problems and internal hostilities, our cultural commonality and self identity as Americans will carry us through.

This too shall pass.

I don't know how you can compare the US to the USSR at all or the European Union, The USSR was made up of states that have a national identity that goes back a few millenia, we don't. People from all over the world have immigrated here and for the most part have settled all over the continent. I can see the European Union breaking up and soon. They don't even have a common language. Yes Front site your right in your assumption that your wrong.

Actually, I keep thinking that Arizona (well, maybe not "Baja Arizona) will start an effort to secede from the Union any time now. After all, we are now trying to pass and uphold laws that are Federally unconstitutional, and I see nothing but hate around me for the Federal Government.

FromThereToHere wrote:Actually, I keep thinking that Arizona (well, maybe not "Baja Arizona) will start an effort to secede from the Union any time now. After all, we are now trying to pass and uphold laws that are Federally unconstitutional, and I see nothing but hate around me for the Federal Government.

As a fellow 'Zonie, as much as it would be a wet dream for Brewer and "Sheriff Joe", an attempt to secede would fall flat on it's face. The simple fact is that they can't get rid of enough brown people. They own much more land, control more businesses and spend way more than even the nutty-talkign-to-god Governor realizes, the Catholic Church is now throwing it's weight against SB1070 and some of the Liberals in AZ are finally getting a little bit of a backbone. I'm sure an attempt will be made, but the climate is perfect for another Cesar Chavez-like community leader to take the stage. All the elements are there and all it takes is for Palin to say something stupid in our state to give them a chance to get exposure. Who that is and how that will come about... dunno. But, many elements are right to make the Tea-baggers look REAL bad if the planets align, sort of like what happened when OBL got offed while Obama was making some pretty bold moves himself.

It's all in the timing, and I think it's coming shortly. At least, a boy can hope.

FromThereToHere wrote:Actually, I keep thinking that Arizona (well, maybe not "Baja Arizona) will start an effort to secede from the Union any time now. After all, we are now trying to pass and uphold laws that are Federally unconstitutional, and I see nothing but hate around me for the Federal Government.

I think i missed your intro, but welcome!

FromThereToHere wrote:Actually, I keep thinking that Arizona (well, maybe not "Baja Arizona) will start an effort to secede from the Union any time now. After all, we are now trying to pass and uphold laws that are Federally unconstitutional, and I see nothing but hate around me for the Federal Government.

I wonder what all those Free Arizonans are going to drink when we divert our Colorado River away from their pissant Republic?

Put a coal fired power plant just upriver, with a food coloring dye plant.

Never know what's in the 'Free Market' water!


Life Is A Highway - I'm on Tapatalk

I'm much more sanguine, we've been through similar periods in the past. It's just that now all those rich wingers have access to better communication so they can spew their negative tripe 24 hours a day. There has always been chatter about uniting with Canada, but we've developed in a different directions over the years and it would be difficult without major changes to our Constitution.

I'm for real reforms such as abolishing the Electoral College dominated by right wing rural states, let's elect our presidents by popular vote. Do we really need 50 states, all those layers of government are nice by we pay for them. In the county where I work there are 26 school districts, it's very costly and we could probably survive with a single district or ones that cross county lines. Do we need all the counties and townships we have, again they are costly if one is looking for efficiencies. These are just reforms on the government side, the business and corporate side needs even more reforms.

We have new challenges ahead of us, dissolving the union is a very cheap fix, instead I believe we have to come up with new solutions to new problems.

FriqueNationale wrote:What would a modern Civil War look like? A bunch of apathetic, obese couch potatoes blasting away at each other for control of the last standing Hardee's? Color me unconvinced. The only danger of civil war in the near future is if Congress and the Supreme Court remove all restrictions on corporations assuming state power and Coke declares Jihad against Pepsi.

How true this statement is. Few Americans, regardless of where they fall in the political spectrum, are willing to sacrifice comfort for their beliefs. Still though, if global warming keeps it up and we see a five foot rise in sea level, the ensuing migration of people from the coast would make things interesting.

I really do not think this will ever happen in our lifetimes, but it is fun to speculate. A lot of parallels can be drawn about what you are describing to the Spanish civil war, when the conservatives attempted a military coup against the democratically elected liberal government, the result was 1/2 a million dead..

But in that conflict, the conservatives were emboldened by support from the Nazis & facist Italy, giving them a HUGE advantage.

The difference now is that there is not another nation on the face of the earth that supports the American right wing, an unfortunate by-product of nationalism & isolationism on their part. If a conflict were to break out & the moderates called for help, I believe we would find it in NATO & the UN. (every other western country on the planet would be eager to see the US right stomped on). The conservatives on the other hand would be left with no allies except their isolationist ideals.