Are We on the Verge of Civil War?
Hanson is usually a good read and this article is relatively clear on why the US is such a polarized environment. But I have to wonder if it’s even necessary to ask the question any more as to whether the country is going to go through an (at least metaphorical) civil war. We’re already engulfed in it now. For the most part it doesn’t involve pitched battles and mortar rounds but the two sides are inextricably locked in a winner take all struggle. And unfortunately it’s also going to last for the rest of our lives (unless it does come to bullets and bayonets).
I think that is the reality I have finally come to terms with. The progressives will never change course. If we are to successfully resist imposition of the hive existence they are working toward, it will be necessary to formulate strategies that will succeed in the long run, not just for a day or an election cycle or even two. We need to build structures that are self sustaining and self correcting. The family is, of course, the basic unit and much needs to be done to strengthen it and protect it. That will require building local associations to replace the ones that have been infected. In the old day you had your church and the local civic organizations and organizations to promote children’s activities like sports teams and the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. Those are mostly in ruins. But that is where the most constructive effort can be directed, right at the grassroots. And I think this where the baby boomers might actually become part of the solution instead of the source of the plague. Parents are so busy with work and child rearing, they hardly have the time to start up new organizations. but grandparents do. It would be fitting that grandparents help to re-establish the world that increasingly is only remembered by people who were alive before the 1960s bulldozed traditional family values into oblivion.
This is something I’ve started to think about and I’ll try to formulate something coherent in the future but it’s good to acknowledge that we’re beyond the point of thinking things will go back to normal and that we’ll coalesce back into one nation anytime soon. We’re going to have to move forward.