Civil War

[1sickbastard]

How much Meth do you do? Never mind don't answer that.

Not nearly enough (aka zero) to think you have anything like a valid point.

See, if you had anything like a valid point, you'd have a better response than an ad hominem.

 

[Ishmael]

Not nearly enough (aka zero) to think you have anything like a valid point.

See, if you had anything like a valid point, you'd have a better response than an ad hominem.

Let's start with what's a 'shitkicker'? And are these 'immigrants' you speak of here legally?

Ishmael

 

[Hard_Rom]

So your saying Shite Muslim fanatics (revolutionary guards or 12 er's) would not be willing to go on a suicide mission against the great Satan?

If launching the missile would sink the boat how do you pin it on Iran? I think sending 2/3 of the country back to the 19th century would be a bit more pressing a problem than immediately finding out who did what? Your point is well taken yes there would be retaliation eventually when we could prove who did it assuming the Iranians left a trail of bread crumbs

Not if it meant the nuclear destruction of their country. The loss of Iran could possibly be the death knell of Shia Islam in the ME. Saudis would dance in the streets (as long as prevailing winds blew from the southwest). No ayatollah would condone such an action. And a fanatic would seek religious approval first. There would be lots of warning signs that Iran has crossed over from being fanatical to berserk.

Israel using a nuke to stop Iran from getting nukes might set them off. But I am betting Israel will bow to world and US pressure and not do anything that stupid.

Half of Iran's threats are political grandstanding. Bombastic proclamations of their own greatness. In line with N. Korea. A true threat, not likely. An attempt to distract their own people from internal problems. I've met many a cab driver from Iran who talks of how the best medical care and schooling goes to ruling elite. Not a unified country. Hell Iran could fall apart on it's own without any help from the US or Israel.

Fanatic does not mean berserk.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

You do understand that if you have no fear of anything, you're a psychopath don't you? But it seems to me that you're afraid of damn near everything. And that makes you almost as dangerous.

You throw out numbers, like 350 million, as if that is a fact. And the only fact is that you are projecting that number without any basis. If nothing else 15 years of electoral results put lie to that supposition.

I have no idea where you live or what you do for a living (if anything). but you seem to be living in a bubble.

Ishmael

Youre right. Us psychopaths aren't afraid of much, and will try almost anything. But its imagination what's dangerous.

 

[1sickbastard]

Let's start with what's a 'shitkicker'? And are these 'immigrants' you speak of here legally?

Ishmael

Shit-kicker would be a poorly educated, low information rural conservative.
Immigrant would, yes, be an illegal immigrant, one who shows up for work, is grateful to have work and will keep his/her mouth shut so as not cause the sort of attention which would get him/her deported to whatever shit-hole country from which he/she immigrated.

But, we're discussing a future in which the central authority in practically non-existent and a multinational has sufficient cash to make sure such illegalities are overlooked (which is pretty much like the present day, except Federal authority still means something). Or, even if a central authority is still present and functioning adequately, minor infractions like immigration status will be secondary to making sure that the bulk of the population (which are urbanites) as well as the armed forces under it's control are sufficiently supplied and/or dissent within it's areas of control are kept in check.
Don't let us forget that during the War Between the States, Lincoln suspended Habeus corpus (arresting the Copperheads), during WW1 a film maker was arrested for sedition for a film about the Revolutionary War (because it portrayed our British Allies in a bad light) and during WW2, known, convicted organized crime figures (like "Lucky Luciano") were released so US troops could garner support from the Black Hand in the invasions of Sicily and Italy.

Either way, there is plenty of incentive to keep food production going, regardless of who has de facto authority.

The point I'm making is that snugglestruggles idea that the cities will starve because the farmers won't sell them food is based on an erroneous assumption; i.e. that rural citizens, meaning actual humans, have control of enough food production to starve out the cities. My assertion is that said food production is largely in the hands of corporations, which could give fuck all about people, either as individuals or as groups, so long as said corporation maximizes ROI.

Remember, a corporation's first and foremost goal is to make money for its investors.

Period.

 

[Hard_Rom]

So your saying Shite Muslim fanatics (revolutionary guards or 12 er's) would not be willing to go on a suicide mission against the great Satan?

If launching the missile would sink the boat how do you pin it on Iran? I think sending 2/3 of the country back to the 19th century would be a bit more pressing a problem than immediately finding out who did what? Your point is well taken yes there would be retaliation eventually when we could prove who did it assuming the Iranians left a trail of bread crumbs

Not if it meant the nuclear destruction of their country. The loss of Iran could possibly be the death knell of Shia Islam in the ME. Saudis would dance in the streets (as long as prevailing winds blew from the southwest). No ayatollah would condone such an action. And a fanatic would seek religious approval first. There would be lots of warning signs that Iran has crossed over from being fanatical to berserk.

Israel using a nuke to stop Iran from getting nukes might set them off. But I am betting Israel will bow to world and US pressure and not do anything that stupid.

Half of Iran's threats are political grandstanding. Bombastic proclamations of their own greatness. In line with N. Korea. A true threat, not likely. An attempt to distract their own people from internal problems. I've met many a cab driver from Iran who talks of how the best medical care and schooling goes to ruling elite. Not a unified country. Hell Iran could fall apart on it's own without any help from the US or Israel.

Fanatic does not mean berserk.

 

[Ishmael]

Shit-kicker would be a poorly educated, low information rural conservative.
Immigrant would, yes, be an illegal immigrant, one who shows up for work, is grateful to have work and will keep his/her mouth shut so as not cause the sort of attention which would get him/her deported to whatever shit-hole country from which he/she immigrated.

But, we're discussing a future in which the central authority in practically non-existent and a multinational has sufficient cash to make sure such illegalities are overlooked (which is pretty much like the present day, except Federal authority still means something). Or, even if a central authority is still present and functioning adequately, minor infractions like immigration status will be secondary to making sure that the bulk of the population (which are urbanites) as well as the armed forces under it's control are sufficiently supplied and/or dissent within it's areas of control are kept in check.
Don't let us forget that during the War Between the States, Lincoln suspended Habeus corpus (arresting the Copperheads), during WW1 a film maker was arrested for sedition for a film about the Revolutionary War (because it portrayed our British Allies in a bad light) and during WW2, known, convicted organized crime figures (like "Lucky Luciano") were released so US troops could garner support from the Black Hand in the invasions of Sicily and Italy.

Either way, there is plenty of incentive to keep food production going, regardless of who has de facto authority.

The point I'm making is that snugglestruggles idea that the cities will starve because the farmers won't sell them food is based on an erroneous assumption; i.e. that rural citizens, meaning actual humans, have control of enough food production to starve out the cities. My assertion is that said food production is largely in the hands of corporations, which could give fuck all about people, either as individuals or as groups, so long as said corporation maximizes ROI.

Remember, a corporation's first and foremost goal is to make money for its investors.

Period.

An illegal alien then. An individual, whose very first act on crossing the border was a criminal act. No further discussion necessary.

Ishmael

 

[Colonel Hogan]

So your saying Shite Muslim fanatics (revolutionary guards or 12 er's) would not be willing to go on a suicide mission against the great Satan?

If launching the missile would sink the boat how do you pin it on Iran? I think sending 2/3 of the country back to the 19th century would be a bit more pressing a problem than immediately finding out who did what? Your point is well taken yes there would be retaliation eventually when we could prove who did it assuming the Iranians left a trail of bread crumbs

Identifying the bread crumbs

 

[1sickbastard]

An illegal alien then. An individual, whose very first act on crossing the border was a criminal act. No further discussion necessary.

Ishmael

Right, because a civil war, i.e. a revolt against the governing authority isn't an illegal act.

Or are you trying to say that your hypothetical civil war will be against the legal, governing authority to restore respect for the laws set down by the governing authority?

Did you have some your sort of point you wanted to make with that statement, and if so, what might that point be?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

This is a topic that I was exploring yesterday:

Between the dying tangible economy and the intangible economy?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/08/are-we-heading-for-an-economic-civil-war.html

Warning for Libs, it's a really long article. It takes an attention span...

In conclusion:

"Hillary Clinton may praise the economic progress under President Obama, and win the nods of those in the tech, media, and financial community who have done very well on his watch. There’s enough momentum from these industries to guarantee that the entire West Coast and the Northeast will fold comfortably, and predictably, into the Clinton column, despite rising concern about crime, homelessness, and loss of middle class jobs. But the very same policies that attract the tech world voter to Clinton will just as certainly alienate many working class and middle class Democrats in places like Appalachia, the Gulf Coast, and particularly the politically pivotal Great Lakes.

"The stakes could be huge. If the Republicans can convince most voters in the middle of the country that the coastal-driven policy agenda is a direct threat to their interests, the GOP will likely carry the day. But if the Democrats can convince the country that coastal California and New York City represent the best future for us all, then get ready for Hillary, because nothing else—certainly not the old social issues—will stop her."

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Of all the growing divides in America—red-blue, conservative-liberal, Republican-Democrat, white-nonwhite—none is sharper than that between city and country. The nation’s urbanites increasingly govern those living in the hinterlands, even as vanishing rural Americans still feed and fuel the nation. At the nation’s birth, it took nine farmers to feed one city dweller. Today, one farmer supports 99 urbanites—evidence, supposedly, that almost everyone has been freed from the drudgery of agricultural work.

City and country are not coequals by any demographic, political, or cultural measure. The urban is growing and ascendant; the rural shrinks and becomes increasingly culturally irrelevant. California is now the most urbanized state in the nation. Over 95 percent of the population lives in what the census classifies as urban clusters of 50,000 people or more—an underappreciated phenomenon, given the huge size and mostly open areas of the state. America’s most densely urbanized area is currently the Los Angeles–Long Beach–Anaheim basin, where almost 7,000 people crowd in per square mile. Second place goes to the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Area (6,266 people per square mile), and third to the Silicon Valley–San Jose corridor (5,820). Aside from these and the Sacramento and Fresno urban clusters, in terms of geography, California remains mostly an empty state. Housing is cheap in Sanger and is out of reach in Santa Cruz, three hours away, in part because people don’t wish any longer to live in small towns or on homesteads when they can enjoy a culture that puts a premium on going to concerts, the community beach, basketball games, or shopping malls—or, at least, being among people who do.

...

The urbanization of California and the United States is part of a larger global trend where high-density populated areas extend beyond traditional cities to vast swaths of suburban sprawl. A uniformity of fashion, habit, and dress spreads as regionalism fades...

But what, exactly, causes city and country people to become so opposite politically, culturally, and socially?

Rural living historically has encouraged independence—and it still does, even in the globalized and wired twenty-first century. Other people aren’t always around to ensure that water gets delivered (and drained), sewage disappears, and snow is removed. For the vast majority of Americans, these and other concerns are the jobs of government bureaucracy and its unionized public workforce. Not so in rural areas, where autonomy and autarky—not narrow specialization—are necessary and fueled by an understanding that machines and tools must be mastered to keep nature in its proper place. Such constant preparedness nurtures skeptical views about the role and size of government, in which the good citizen is defined as someone who can take care of himself.

...

By contrast, city dwellers own few machines. Even “man caves” are not necessarily garages stuffed with tools. Urbanites thus have fewer worries about maintenance and upkeep and more time to read, brood, and mix with others. Urbanites may work long hours at the office amid thousands of people, but they often remain in a cocooned existence shielded from the physical world. Essential to the neurotic buzz of 24/7 cable news, Twitter, and Facebook is the assumption that millions of Americans are not busy logging, hauling in a net on a fishing boat, or picking peaches. We have forgotten the Roman urban-hipster poet Catullus’s warning to himself: otium, Catulle, tibi molestum est:/ otio exsultas nimiumque gestis/ otium et reges prius et beatas perdidit urbes. (“Idleness is a troublesome thing for you, Catullus: In idleness you revel and delight too much: idleness has destroyed both kings and blessed cities before.”) Note how Catullus did not reference the countryside in his worries about idleness and its wages of destruction.

...

The cursus honorum of the elite that runs the country in politics, finance, journalism, and academia is urban to the core—degrees from brand-name universities, internships at well-connected agencies, residence in New York or Washington, power marriages. The power résumé does not include mechanical apprenticeships, work on ships or oil rigs, knowledge of firearms, or farm, logging, or mining labor—jobs now regulated and overseen by those with little experience of them.

...

Urbanites now prefer natural granite counters to tile, wood floors to nylon carpets, and stainless-steel appliances to artificial white enamels. But these supposedly natural tastes don’t lead to a greater appreciation of the miner, the logger, or the fabricator—much less of the abstract idea that before there exists a polished floor or counter in the city, lots of messy operations are needed to force nature to give up its bounty. Like bored Hellenistic court poets who romanticized shepherds’ lives in never-visited Arcadia, Silicon Valley techies like to wear heavy-duty hiking boots and flannel and drive four-wheel-drive SUVs with mud tires. The cause of the delta smelt or the San Joaquin Valley salmon fills a spiritual need for the Sierra Club activist; the livelihood of the Hispanic grape pruner in Caruthers and the poor children of the field irrigator in Five Points do not.

...

Another symptom of the urban-rural disconnect is trivialization. Given the existential problems facing California—clogged freeways, failing schools, millions of illegal aliens, idled acreage, obscene prices for houses, sky-high power and fuel costs—among the least of worries for the state legislature should be banning plastic bags or mandating gender-neutral school restrooms. Such distractions are possible only because necessities such as food and fuel are plentiful, and their acquisition has become boring to the urbanite in a way that a transgendered march in San Francisco is not. Or is the problem that urban man has no answers for the existential challenges, so he finds psychological refuge for his impotence in obsessing over the trivial?

How did the new Californians deal with the drought? Not as in the past. Water projects like the huge Temperance Flat reservoir on the San Joaquin River were canceled. Millions of acre-feet of precious stored water were released out of rivers as urban environmentalists hoped to increase the population of three-inch delta smelt and to restore nineteenth-century salmon to the upper San Joaquin River. Despite millions of acre-feet of released water, both fish projects have so far failed. (See “The Scorching of California,” Winter 2015.)

Common sense would have warned that droughts are existential challenges, the severity and duration of which are unpredictable. Droughts are times to bank water, not to release it for questionable new green initiatives. If Californians wished for a state of 40 million people and wanted it to remain the nation’s leader in agriculture and for its dry coastal corridor to continue to host Cal Tech, Stanford, UC Berkeley, USC, UCLA, Apple, Google, Facebook, Hollywood, Wells Fargo, Safeway, and Pacific Gas & Electric, it seemed obvious that they would continue to build water projects—and to stop releases into the Pacific never envisioned by the architects of the huge transfers.

Such common sense would assume, though, that millions of Californians had seen a broccoli farm or a Flame Seedless vineyard and had made the connection that what they purchased at Whole Foods was grown from irrigated soil. But the drought has reminded us that urban Californians don’t wish to think about, let alone visit, the farms that feed them. As long as the lights flick on in the morning, the Google bus arrives at the corner stop at the designated time, and the lattes are made at the corner coffee house, these benefits are considered either natural processes or birthrights ensured by distant others—perhaps less bright and less important and certainly less cool.

...

From Hesiod’s Works and Days to Virgil’s Georgics, the connection between farming and morality was always emphasized as a check on urban decadence and corruption. What was gained by the city’s great universities, monumental edifices, churches, and pageantry was often lost through the baleful effects of being cut off from nature and defining success through intangibles such as transient goods, status, and material luxuries. Physical and mental balance, practicality, a sense of the tragic rather than the therapeutic—all these were birthed by rural life and yet proved essential to the survival of a nation that would inevitably become more mannered, sophisticated, and urban. Jefferson idealized an American as a tough citizen who couldn’t be fooled by sophisticated demagogues, given his own steady hand guiding the plow or digging irrigation ditches. Rural folks didn’t romanticize the city, but rather, like characters in Horace’s Satires or the content rustic mouse of Aesop’s Fables, saw it as a necessary evil. Yet urbanites, though cut off from nature, dependent on government for their sustenance, and embedded within the politics and trends of the day, idealized the farm and pasture—if certainly from a safe distance.

The twenty-first century may at last see the end of a venerable consensus that rural citizens prizing liberty and freedom provide a necessary audit on the democracy of urbanites who prefer uniformity and demand equality at all costs....

Victor Davis Hanson

http://www.city-journal.org/2015/25_4_urban-rural-divide.html

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I also submit this as a triggering warning:

...

The law of diminishing marginal utility states that while keeping consumption of other products constant, there is decline in marginal utility that a person derives from consuming an additional unit of that product. In this case, the product is free speech. New leftists may have proposed unfettered free speech back in the early 1960s, but that was just because the right was the one in power culturally at the time. Free speech had a high utility to the left at the time and low utility to the right.

Now the situation has reversed. The right is at the disadvantage so it appeals to free speech. The left is ahead and no longer needs free speech, so it has discarded it.

If that statement sounds hyperbolic, just think of all of the campus speech codes and the ever expanding list of mostly trivial microagressions that can be taken for “hate speech.” Here is just a small sampling of examples to illustrate how absurd this has become:

See more at https://mises.org/library/when-youre-popular-you-dont-need-freedom-speech

...

Discerning what exactly free speech is can sometimes be challenging, as in cases of libel, slander, and direct threats. But these are really not the issues at heart here. The vast majority of speech being “regulated” today is simply that of an unpopular opinion. Yes, many ideas are bad. And they should be refuted. Moreover, resorting to the use of political force to silence adversaries is a sign of the weakness of one’s own position. But, in using force to silence others, anti-speech crusaders are making another argument. They’re arguing that political force can and should be used to silence people we don’t like. What idea could be worse than that?

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Shitkickers are subsistence farmers. If your farm provides your needs only youre a shitkicker. Plenty of shitkickers are black, and I cant name one black conservative.

 

[RobDownSouth]

Right, because a civil war, i.e. a revolt against the governing authority isn't an illegal act.

Or are you trying to say that your hypothetical civil war will be against the legal, governing authority to restore respect for the laws set down by the governing authority?

Did you have some your sort of point you wanted to make with that statement, and if so, what might that point be?

"Civil War", first promulgated by Eyer and now by both 4est_4est_Gump and Ishmael, is the last great fantasy of the waning Great White Patriarchy.

The bitter-clinger Fox News core demographic realizes the times, they are a-changin'.....and they don't like it. All the gerrymandering in the world, which has helped them keep a majority in the House...doesn't translate well to statewide elections or national elections. They howl about having to cede political power that they jealously hoarded over the years with "Those People"....minorities, Hispanics, single women.

They won't go quietly into the night, although the age of the Great White Patriarchy draws quickly to a close. So they do what they do best: complain, and prophesize dooooooooooom 'n glooooooooooom.

They entertain the fantasy of the United States military rising up and doing their fighting for them....it's not like any of the Fox News Hoverround brigade is in any shape to fight!

I've said this before: if and when the Civil War II ever starts, the majority of the Fox News core demographic will be dead in five weeks. They're dependent upon that gummint check for food and gummint socialist medicare for their myriad medications. Five weeks.

Sure, in the interim it'd be fun to watch (the ground squirrel population would be decimated as Wingnut Nation tries to provide "food on their family") and the accidental deaths from gunfire-related injuries would skyrocket.

Civil War is nothing more than an elaborate conservative fantasy.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Shitkickers are subsistence farmers. If your farm provides your needs only youre a shitkicker. Plenty of shitkickers are black, and I cant name one black conservative.

In KANSAS, we used the term shit-kicker and goat-roper interchangeably. Perhaps you can enlighten us as to the difference...

 

[about_average]

15 years ago it was inconceivable that anyone could topple the twin towers.

No it wasn't. They tried 22 years ago and, I assume, conceived of it even before then.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

No it wasn't. They tried 22 years ago and, I assume, conceived of it even before then.

The uncovered plot was called Bojinka.



That was 1995.

 

[richard_daily]

I heard that the rapture is also coming "soon".

 

[RobDownSouth]

I heard that the rapture is also coming "soon".

*nods*
That's why we need to rape 'n despoil the enviornment in the interim, dontcha know. Can't leave anything pristine for the Godless who are Left Behind.

 

[richard_daily]

Identifying the bread crumbs

While the tests did not include any radioisotope releases, the pods were able to collect and identify naturally occurring radioisotopes of lead and bismuth produced from the radioactive decay of atmospheric radon. In addition, radioactive beryllium-7 produced from cosmic ray-induced break-up (spallation) of naturally occurring carbon-14, also showed up on the filters, providing a uniform measure for debris distribution.

So the tests don't actually test for the thing that the expensive project is supposed to do.

This reminds me of another DoD project involving a couple of blimps... You know, the ones who cost over a billion dollars and that can't do the only task they're designed to do. Lots of hot air.

 

[zipman]

Yes, and there's a black man running for President as a conservative. Do you think he's representative too, like your Latina? Methinks maybe it's you who is trying to interject the beliefs and opinions of your own peer group into the tableau that is America. Your opening post tries hard to imply that their is a distinction between the coasts and the rest of the country but that's an old notion (kinda like you, dear). We have this thing called the internet these days which means that ideas (good or bad, new or not) hit all parts of the country at exactly the same time. There is no innovation on the coasts that then leaks slowly into the heartlands. Those days are over. We're much more homogeneous than you think. I'm not necessarily saying that's a good thing. It's just a fact.

Do you have anything to back up your "press is trying to foment" comment?

Ish has just seen Hunger Games too many times. He really rocks the Katniss braid.

 

[phrodeau]

So the tests don't actually test for the thing that the expensive project is supposed to do.

This reminds me of another DoD project involving a couple of blimps... You know, the ones who cost over a billion dollars and that can't do the only task they're designed to do. Lots of hot air.

They're designed to detect and trace radioactive isotopes, and the tests showed that they do that very well. No, they didn't explode a nuclear device in order to detect it. There hasn't been an above-ground nuclear detonation since 1980.

 

[PoppingTom]

The uncovered plot was called Bojinka.



That was 1995.

Bojinka was something different, though it was Al-Qaeda.

He meant this.

 

[1sickbastard]

"Civil War", first promulgated by Eyer and now by both 4est_4est_Gump and Ishmael, is the last great fantasy of the waning Great White Patriarchy.

The bitter-clinger Fox News core demographic realizes the times, they are a-changin'.....and they don't like it. All the gerrymandering in the world, which has helped them keep a majority in the House...doesn't translate well to statewide elections or national elections. They howl about having to cede political power that they jealously hoarded over the years with "Those People"....minorities, Hispanics, single women.

They won't go quietly into the night, although the age of the Great White Patriarchy draws quickly to a close. So they do what they do best: complain, and prophesize dooooooooooom 'n glooooooooooom.

They entertain the fantasy of the United States military rising up and doing their fighting for them....it's not like any of the Fox News Hoverround brigade is in any shape to fight!

I've said this before: if and when the Civil War II ever starts, the majority of the Fox News core demographic will be dead in five weeks. They're dependent upon that gummint check for food and gummint socialist medicare for their myriad medications. Five weeks.

Sure, in the interim it'd be fun to watch (the ground squirrel population would be decimated as Wingnut Nation tries to provide "food on their family") and the accidental deaths from gunfire-related injuries would skyrocket.

Civil War is nothing more than an elaborate conservative fantasy.

I get your point. That's why my first post on this thread was an attempt to get Ishmael to outline who would make up the various factions and what would be the polarizing issue(s).

Unsurprisingly, there was no response.

Snugglestruggle (sounds like a date-rape pseudonym) did a bit better, going with the country folk versus the city folk meme, but in the end, couldn't substantiate his position.

 

[richard_daily]

They're designed to detect and trace radioactive isotopes, and the tests showed that they do that very well. No, they didn't explode a nuclear device in order to detect it. There hasn't been an above-ground nuclear detonation since 1980.

I get that... But if you trust the DoD when they tell you "it will totes work!, like for sure," I've got a couple of Sara Palin's bridges to nowhere in Alaska that I'd like to sell you.