Americans, probably like everyone in the West, just assume that the shape of our countries will remain the same forever. Conquest is something you read about, but that’s all in the past so the map will stay the same forever. Similarly, we tend to think that revolution is no longer a part of civilized life. The savages have revolts maybe, but the civilized countries have elections to sort out problems.
Of course, maps are not written in stone. There’s no reason to think that France will stay the same shape forever. The people of Normandy could decide they have had enough of being French and break off to form their own country. The people of Catalan are trying to do just that by voting for independence and then going to court over it.
But, those Spanish are hot blooded and all that. The English speaking countries don’t have those problems, other than in Scotland, Wales and Quebec. Even so, these are more symbolic than anything else. There are protests, votes, court cases, more votes, but that’s it. No tanks in the streets or men with guns preparing for the revolution, because violent revolts are things of the past.
What if they’re not? What if the Scots and English can’t resolve their differences peacefully? What then?
On the other hand, what if the people in charge keep going down the road they are going and the people finally get fed up enough to do something about it? In the US we have protests at the Mall, but never anything serious, at least not for a long time. But what if we’re just overdue and things are slowly coming to a head and revolution is just around the corner?
There’s a new book that argues the US is long overdue for a revolt and the current consensus is breaking apart, suggesting the revolt is right around the corner. James Piereson is a think tank guy at a fancy think tank called the Manhattan Institute. His book is one of those “theory of the world” sort of things where he has this theory that explains parts of the past. He then uses it to make some predictions about what’s coming next.
I’ve never written a book review and I have no intention of starting now, so you can read this one or you can read this one. There’s also a podcast here with the author. As an aside, I suspect the future of book selling is going to be podcasts. A thirty minute discussion of a book is a great way to sell books.
Anyway, I’m not entirely sold on the thesis. My own view of US history is as an extension of the English Civil War. For instance, Piereson argues that a consensus emerged in 1800, but the New England states were ready to split from the Union up until the outbreak of war with Britain. Similarly, those same states would have signed off on the slave states seceding if not for the foolish assault on Fort Sumter.
Putting that aside, one can’t help but wonder if we are headed for a crackup of some sort. If you look at the map of recent presidential elections something jumps out. That is, very few states are actually in play now. In 2016, the fight will be over Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Colorado and Nevada. The rest are firmly in the Roundhead or Cavalier camps. For the candidates, the only reason to campaign in most states is to raise money and put on a show for the folks in the toss-up states.
The chaos in the GOP primary is mostly due to the fact that no one really represents the sensibilities of the regions that support the GOP. Bush is from Florida, but he may as well be from Boston. Rubio is from Florida, but the part wholly unlike the rest of Florida. The only two candidates that represent the GOP regions are Kasich and Huckabee and both have too many other problems to be serious candidates. Trump is from New York and it has never been in the Roundhead or Cavalier camp. Otherwise, the people running are foreigners to their voters.
Having the country divided into camps is one thing. Having one camp ramming through stuff just to spite the other is where things get dicey. The crazy ObamaCare bill was mostly spite. Homo marriage was entirely spite. The revolt brewing on the Right is really a revolt among the troops over their leaders refusal to fight. Students of the Crisis of the Third Century are familiar with this phenomenon. At some point, there will be a fight, whether it is with these leaders or new, more rambunctious ones.
The thing few notice because the people in charge tend to keep it quiet is the Roundheads would not mind it if the other part of the country seceded. Progressives hate the South and southerners with the intensity of a thousand suns. For a long time now, Progressives have been thinking, if you will, that it is time for the South to leave the Union. For obvious reasons this does not get promoted by the people in charge, but a lot of them hold this opinion.
The assumption, an incorrect one, is that the Old Confederacy along with Texas and Oklahoma would be cut loose, while the rest of the states would make up the slimmer and trimmer United States. Reality is probably something else. Look at that map and the lands of the Roundhead are mostly Yankeedom. The few other blue states would mostly likely go with the red states for practical reasons.
But, maybe the southern states will insist on marching from Worcester Mass to Boston, burning everything along the way, just for old time sake.
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I live in about as rural and geographically, and culturally, remote place you can be in America of 2015 and still be physically located in America.
I look out from my home and I marvel at the things being done by the State and Financial/Corporate entities.
They are a banana republic regime without the death squads, yet.
I have not the slightest inkling of what kind of revolution is going to transpire.
But one thing that I can not deny is there will be a breakup/breakdown of what I see right now.
No doubt in my mind.
Its already begun. Its quite possible it stays this creeping decline for awhile, each passing day and event a new normal, till one day it isn’t normal.
Guns are going to be the catalyst of dramatic events not witnessed in America for better than a century and a half. Every activity, economic, cultural, spiritual, and political will pale in comparison.
Who has guns, who doesn’t have guns, who is controlled by guns and who controls everyone with guns.
Guns are the last word on self determination and primal freedoms there is, those running things have not managed to corrupt the culture and concept of liberty and prosperity they originate from and signify as they have with almost every facet of life in America.
Guns are absolute. They are exactly what they are. Property, defense, security, individualism, dignity, tools.
Guns are for a unique sport, for acquiring food, for self defense, for killing living things or destroying inanimate objects.
Guns project not only a projectile, they project a persons will. Both violently, philosophically, and politically. Remarkably efficiently. The modern rifle especially so. As the long bow was to the English citizenry against the tyrannical aristocracy of kings and lords, so is the rifle to the tyrants of our time. On an order of magnitude or more.
Guns are the ultimate in defending and projecting a persons legitimacy.
The ultimate, and the last and best word in consent or resistance.
It is really difficult to destroy guns and what they signify. In particular the existential threat guns naturally signify in the hands of people who are not afraid of tyranny or its actors is manifest. Even more so the dignity and motive power of ones primal liberty
There is a lot that is good in this country, much worth fighting for. There are millions who are good in their heart or spirit too. Those guns a lot of these good folks own, are really all that keeps the barbarians in Brooks Brothers suits at bay.
At some point, the state being a state, the actors who constitute the state that rules over most of this place we call home are as tyrants are, will come for those guns. It, they, can’t help it. It is as the axiom goes, what do men with power want? More power. It is very close, this transformative event. Almost all forms of control and power, instruments of administrative tyranny, forms of wealth accumulation have reached their limits, and it is guns in the hands of the people which is the only remaining bulwark against the totalitarian finality of absolute power obtained only over a disarmed defenseless citizenry.
That is the paradigm of breakdown I am watching for.
It is close this event. The final instruments of disarmament are assembling for one nation wide effort. It is all or nothing. Any other method is fraught with unknowns and unintended consequences, will take far too much time and consume inordinate political capitol to pursue. And time is growing short for those who wish to rule with total impunity. The tide of history is on the turn. The window of tyrannical opportunity worked towards for two century’s will close soon.
Those guns, and will to use them they are all that stands in the way.
Well, I live in RI, but I hate it. If the south burns everything from Worcester to Boston, Id sure would like to help. 🙂
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The good news: there are more of us than there are of them.
The better news: people are beginning to realize that
Try this scenario on for size. Led by Texas, the oil and agricultural rebel states of central flyover land join up. Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Alaska, maybe even Alberta, Saskatchewan, the Yukon and British Columbia. With the offshore assets we’d control a large chunk of the oil and gas production and more grain than we could ever need. Not to mention the cattle, cotton, mining, and wildlife. PLEASE don’t throw us in that briar patch!
More likely, all 50 states will secede from DC, essentially dumping the worthless and evil federal government, and recombine in local confederacies of 2 to 5 states.
http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2008/tle485-20080921-03.html
(for some reason TLE is out of order so the above link won’t work at the moment)
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A more accurate map to use would be the individual counties and not the state. It will show that the red portions of the US gobble up the majority of the land mass – including all of Central CA, OR, WA eastward. The Blue areas are the larger, coastal cities. Though any split would deprive the Red portions of the west any deep water ports or access to the Pacific.
I’d imagine that San Diego to Orange County would be in play and that any succession would result in a push west for port cities.
UKER – I’d suggest reading the r/K selection theory as written by anonymous conservative (http://www.anonymousconservative.com/blog/) to get a glimpse behind the human nature process involved. It’s amazingly descriptive and informative overall.
It’s a wonder this county has lasted so long, but the longer is it forced together the less a well deserved nostalgia will survive into the future. Our sorry state leads one into a glorious appreciation for federalism.
The only way to predict the future on this one is to have thrown enough spaghetti against the wall so that the future will be left stuck on it. But all of these possibilities are better than a manged descent into the progressive dreams for the future. That’s my bet, though. The meek will inherit the earth, meekly. They just won’t run it.
Tocqueville
Despotism corrupts the man who submits to it much more than the man who imposes it. The unity, the universality, the omnipotence of society’s power, and the uniformity of its rules represent the outstanding feature of all the political systems invented in our day. They recur at the heart of the strangest utopias. The human mind still pursues these images even in its dreams.
The vitriol we are seeing over the past 10 or so years will, IMHO, lead to a break up of the USA. Perhaps the first incision could be the N/S divide, but having spent a LOT of time in BiH and Kosovo, it is my belief the more likely split will be balkanization of the FUSA along about these lines:
1. Texas, deep and mid South maybe TX, LA, OK, MS, AL, GA, SC, NC, AR, maybe TN and KY. This could also morph into several lesser entities.
2. Southwest to include Southern California (thank goodness), NM and AZ (reconquista).
3. Next will be Cascadia (OR, NORCAL, WA, ID, WY, MT), but only after bloodshed in Portland/Seattle and perhaps Spokane & Bozeman (The state of Jefferson may also re-emerge from the Cascade zone in Southern OR and NORCAL. UT will likely go this way. I don’t think the reconquista will get them thanks to the JCCofLDS.
4. Midwest will include KS, OK, IL, IN, OH, IA, MN, MI, WI. Dakotas will probably split between Cascadia and Midwest. Big Midwest cities will be nasty. Just look at Rahmbo’s crime rate in Chicago!
5. CO could split into Cascade and Nuevo MX.
6. New England through VA will be a battlefield.
7. AK will go it alone and HI will be left out to be devoured by a volcano or tidal wave.
Washington, ID, Oregon, Montana are already slated to be in the Northwest Republic. The Mormons will form the “Free State of Utah”. The Southwest will go to Aztlan (La Raza) with the worst fighting in Western Texas to settle the Border there. Libs will flee East and North, Probably finding San Francisco the most hospitable area. Alaska with have its Independence, though with its short growing season it will be dependent on food imports.
The worst areas will be “New Africa” (deep South) and the area around Chicago/Detroit which will form the new Caliphate. You risk your life going there.
What about FL? This is a SERIOUSLY Divided state.
Cuba will reclaim it. Sorry
I call BS on “New Africa”. White folks in the South are the most fiercely independent thinking people in this country. We are well armed, well trained(ex military), and we are not about to give up our homeland to a bunch of ferals. Try “New Africa” along the DC, Baltimore, Philly corridor. Florida is indeed seriously divided and you can count on everything north of Palm Beach to join the New South.
I have finally come to the conclusion that I simply do not want to live or associate with lefty democrat socialists. Sure they’re nice people, many of which are very talented artists and creative types, but I am at odds with the way they think and what they think. I can’t change them and they can’t change me, so let’s cut our losses and go our separate ways. I mean I want liberty and they want control, or at least to be recognized for their purported brilliant solutions. It’s just not going to work. People who want to be left alone can not co-exist with people who want to control everyone. Maybe we can divide up the country and I am actually willing to give the lefties all of the good states and cities. I’ll take the rest because I am confident that my type of folks can make lemonade out of any lemons whereas the lefties will squander their resources. Yes, it’s time to say good bye and good riddance.
There are quite a number of artists who prefer “to be left alone” so please don’t paint all of us with the same brush. You might be surprised to hear that some of us former lefties have actually seen the handwriting on the wall (the immigrant invasion) and have, consequently, changed our tune lately.
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Yet if you were to ask the average American whether they worry about their country falling apart, you would get an incredulous look and a question of whether you were a little bit insane.
The average American is a sheeple totally disconnected from politics, the economy, (past their own accounts) or any signs of devolution or dissolution.
ProgreSSives and Patriots are despised by each other. Once the economy actually implodes and the society frays these cracks become gorges.
I no longer fly the flag of the obamanational USSA, a big change from 9/11, but CA, IL,MD, NY, etc may as well be Bosnia or Croatia to me.
To a certain extent I agree with you, but where I live in NY ( around 90 minutes of NYC) the Manhattanites despise us the same way they despise Southerners and cowboys. They consider people who have: Fireman’s Carnivals, church bake sales, 4th of July parades, CYO car washes, fishing & gasp – HUNTING – as nothing more than a bunch of backwater primitives who have to be dragged into the 21st century.
Last year there was an effort here to sever the state into two: NYC, it’s five boroughs plus Westchester County ( the county directly north of NYC, for those of you who don’t know the area, sometimes known as the “6th borough” because of all of the damage the aforementioned Manhattanites have caused to it. A generation ago it was a solid, deep-red county, now it’s the exact opposite.) and the rest of the state.
The effort failed because the city got it derailed. Hell, one of the councilman in the city admitted in an interview that the city needed the revenue from the rest of the state in order to do everything it needed to. This, despite the fact that those same politicians refer to those same people who live “upstate” as “toothless, inbred hayseeds.”
So this is why they pile on, but won’t let go, it’s all about money. They admit that once the producers jump ship, their house of cards goes up in flames.
I too consider NYC, as well as most Westchester County where I grew up to be a foreign country as well.
If nations have fundamental splits built into them (Cavaliers/Roundheads; Confederates/Unionists; Kurds/Iraq; Catalan/Basque/Spain and so on) then there will come a point where the welding together of disparate beliefs must — under stress — come apart.
What we don’t understand however (and perhaps never will because human nature will always be something of a mystery) is why our so-called leaders insist on putting more stress on this potential fault-line. Outwardly they talk of unification and solidarity, and then go right ahead and come up with a plan as divisive as it is possible to be.
The weight then is put on a society that never quite saw eye-to-eye even in the good times, but was willing to paper over the cracks.
I have talked before here about the curious insistence that in the UK we have all the evidence we need that importing muslims by the lorry load isn’t helping at all. When alien people arrive and say “We don’t like you and your ways and we won’t integrate no matter how much free stuff you give us” then the outcome isn’t going to be great. (The other day we had the remnants of the Church of England in the guise of bishops demanding that we take more muslims in, even though not one of the mob pouring in will ever go to church, unless it is to burn it down. Perhaps ultimately it is a death wish made flesh)
Pepper such acts with ludicrous laws and MSM propaganda as well as social media stigmas and the pressures quickly become intolerable. It isn’t just that essentially the UK is Cavaliers and Roundheads, or Scots and English or even all the tribes and regions, but it is under strain from the EU as well as muslim invaders, and so we come to see that while the big picture seemed nice at first it is the smaller picture that finally attracts our attention.
That’s the way we have to go, and when we finally go that way, it will include borders. Real, proper borders.
On reflection, perhaps our leaders are trying to force us, despite their outward protestations, to make us go smaller because they can handle that better.
Outwardly they talk of unification and solidarity, and then go right ahead and come up with a plan as divisive as it is possible to be.
I think the insularity of the political class explains most of this. We tend to forget how small the ruling class really is, and how closely connected. I spent some time in an Ivy in another life and was shocked at how buddy-buddy the whole thing still is. Not only did all these people go to college together, they went to kindergarten together. [ZMan, don’t you do something at Yale? Can you confirm or deny this?] The only people they know who didn’t got to Choate or Sitwell Friends before the Ivy League are their housemaids. 99.9% of the American public might as well be Martians to them.
And, as you might expect, they’re as successful at “representing” us as we would be “representing” the few Martians we can see in our telescopes. History’s just chock full of examples of how well that works out. The Cavaliers were all about unity, you know — the problem is religious dissent, so let’s standardize the Book of Common Prayer and make everyone use it. Problem solved!!!!
Our “representative republic” works the same way. There were, what, 100 peers of the realm when the English Civil War broke out? I’d be surprised if there are more than 1000 people who really run things in America today. Page through the senior class yearbooks of Andover Prep, 1960-1990. Those are your peers, and all our political fights are just old high school cliques trying to one-up each other.
Thanks, Severian, for your thoughts.
I have heard that not only in the UK all the parties know each other well, but that when Cameron wanted to be big in politics he thought about joining the Labour party but as they already had Blair in position he chose the Conservatives.
Therein is the problem: it did not matter to Cameron then one little bit who gave him the leg up to power because the voters’ beliefs were of no interest to him. Politics is just a well-paid game and you can argue a case for either side between sipping champagne with your ‘rivals.’
I imagine it’s much worse in the UK, with the Oxbridge clique in control of everything. On the other hand, at least most UK folks (is it un-PC to say “Britons”?) that I know realize the Oxbridge clique controls everything. Here in the good ol’ USA, most of us still believe all the fairy tales about hard work and rising from humble origins. Since most of us will never spend any time at Harvard, we have no idea how the scam really works.
In reality, Bush and Clinton are no different from Cameron and Blair. They think it’s their birthright to rule us — for our own good, of course — and if…..sigh…. they must go through the kabuki of “elections,” they’ll choose the path least stressful to themselves.
“James Piereson is a think tank guy at a fancy think tank called the Manhattan Institute.”
Maybe the US will split in the future but one thing I know is that these think tanks from the NYC-Washington(-Tel Aviv) axis have to be burned to the ground.
It is good to read all around issues, from competiting perspectives.
The antithesis of the “think tank” crowd is a book written by murdered writer Edgar Steele named “Defensive Racism”. In it Edgar writes about the “Balkanization” of America. No longer a north/South thing, there are now a number of extremely competing interests and regions.