(This opinion was a comment to a statement by the ZMan that people will choose safety over freedom – photog)
Not everyone chooses safety over freedom. People defying mask and social distancing orders are choosing freedom over what the elite says is safety (masks are little more than a placebo). Even more importantly, brave humans still man the wall in our military and police and firefighting forces.
Of my tribe, there are the Chief Mountain Hotshots, a Blackfoot force of para-jumping firefighters who fight wildfires in forests. They owe no fealty to the federal or state government and the overwhelming majority of the fires they fight are not on the reservation.
The police are still working, even in areas where sissy politicians are trying to defund them. They are still responding to assist citizens even in areas where they are supposedly forbidden to go by protesters.
There are things going on in our military that seldom if ever see the light of day. We have exceptionally brave and skilled people doing almost impossible things to protect us every day. Heck, just working on the most dangerous four-and-a-half acres in the world, an aircraft carrier flight deck, is hazardous even in peacetime. We lose more GIs to training accidents than to enemy action these days. They chose to protect freedom for others, almost all of them who they will never meet and in many cases would not like, over their own personal safety.
When you put your own body between home and the war’s desolation, you prove your fitness to be a citizen. Soldiers do not fight because they hate what is in front of them, but because they love what is behind them. To place your own frail body between home and danger is the ultimate test of citizenship. No sunshine patriots, these GIs and cops and firefighters. They are patriots to the bone.
I do not believe most conservatives fantasize over a civil war. It’s more of a nightmare. It will be pretty damned bloody and Americans killing Americans is not what any conservative wishes, even if we are willing to do it when push comes to shove. When aroused, Americans are insensate fighters. To awaken the berserker spirit within us is not a good idea. Ask the Japanese of the Pacific theater in WWII. There is a reason our civil war was our bloodiest in history. With well over 20 million veterans among the citizenry there are enough trained people to make even a foreign enemy think twice let alone a domestic enemy. That is why a civil war in the US is any true patriot’s worse nightmare.
War Pig, I agree that no sensible conservative wants a civil war. But nobody wants to be a slave either. I personally don’t think it will be anything like the Civil War. My guess is states will start picking and choosing what they obey out of the federal law. I’m not saying it will be violence free but neither is the current state of affairs. Antifa may find out there are smarter fighters out there than they’ve met so far.
I agree, that is the most likely scenario. I was responding to ZMan. A civil war is not a conservative fantasy. States and cities are already defying the federal government. Liberal states, that is. If the left gets power in this election you’ll see how fast they clamp down on any state or city that tries to defy Them. Crime is rampant. Ordinary citizens are not safe on their own streets or in their own parks. Oregon is trying to decriminalize all drugs. Glad it’s them and not Ohio. They say they want to make drugs a public health issue.… Read more »
I will say I’m hoping to see one of the reddest states tell the SCOTUS to shove it on one of their latest excesses. In fact some kind of official state document mentioning Justice Roberts by name would suit me to a tee.
“John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!” – Andrew Jackson, President.
I’d just replace one word, Marshall, with one word, Roberts.