Jeff Lukens
Is a Second Civil War coming?
By Jeff Lukens
Civil wars are horrendous and bloody affairs. That's why we should avoid them. They happen when two sides cannot settle on who runs the country. When they can't reconcile the matter through elections, the country falls apart. When one side does not accept the election results, we have a countdown to a civil war.
This is the thesis put forth by journalist Daniel Greenfield. It rings true on many levels.
Does the fact that Democrats are rejecting a duly elected Republican president really mean they don't accept the results of any election they don't win? If so, we may be already nearing America's Second Civil War.
It is no secret that Democrats and Republicans are more ideologically divided than in recent years. Parts of the country detest the other parts. Coastal elites dislike flyover country. The blue states despise the red states, and vice versa.
We may now be near a point comparable to 1860. Modern Democrats hate President Trump as much as the Democrats of old hated President Lincoln. Democrats repudiated Lincoln for opposing slavery, and modern Democratic leaders are repudiating Lincoln's belief that the government is of the people, for the people, and by the people. Then as now, Democrats are on the wrong side of history.
The average conservative and the average liberal disagree on the vast majority of the issues, and in the few cases where they can agree, each won't support the other out of sheer tribalism for his side. Since Democrats can't win the argument with reason and facts, they try to intimidate us into silence. While Trump is their focus, we should know that the loathing is really against normal everyday Americans.
The Constitution plays a central role in the disagreement. On the right are those who believe in its use as a restraint on government that can be altered only by a broad consensus through the amendment process. Conservatives believe that natural rights are created by God and that government cannot invent or alter them.
On the Left are those who believe in the living Constitution. This is a notion that the document is outdated and should change easily. The main method for doing this would be judicial rulings bypassing Congress and the voters. Basically, they just make it up as they go along.
The Left's reach is broad. Leftists have been able to take over schools and indoctrinate our young people. They have taken over nearly all the news and entertainment media. The conservative side, conversely, has lost in these areas because it never fights back with the ruthlessness of the Left.
Lawlessness is now reaching across the United States, which the news almost totally ignores. The same networks that spent two years with wall-to-wall coverage to push the Russia collusion hoax are now refusing to report the documented attempt to remove our duly elected president by means of a Deep State silent coup.
The Left overwhelms the courts with legal actions designed to bog them down so that nothing conservative can be accomplished by Trump. Democrats will concede nothing without a confrontation. Lefty goons clash and threaten aggression with open immunity. They shout down speakers at colleges; they block airports, bridges, and highways. They take over college buildings, offices, and state capitals, and they terrorize individuals in their homes. Not only does their violence succeed, but they succeed just by threatening violence.
Democrats threaten the peace by advocating programs intended to deny the rights of average people to speak and worship freely and to defend themselves. Never mind that millions of Americans are ready to hazard life and limb to preserve these rights. Moreover, many of them vowed to do so when they served in the armed forces. When push comes to shove, they will not shy away from defending their families, their homes, their values, and their country.
While leftist liken their behavior to combating tyranny, they are actually combating anyone with whom they disagree. While their socialist agenda is losing ground with average Americans, leftists are doubling down, assaulting verbally, and sometimes physically, anyone who opposes them.
Ask yourself, why are liberals always angry? Why are they so vulgar? Why do they slander and push fake labels like racist, sexist, and homophobic? Why do they engage in "emotional outbursts" when challenged? Why are they violent?
The answer is that when they don't have facts to support their arguments, they must resort to intimidation. The narrative is designed to keep people in a constant state of fear, thereby forcing rage and violence. They want us divided by race, class, religion, political affiliation, and more.
All they care about is control, and they will do anything to hold on to it. They want to keep people poor and in need of government assistance. The bigger the government, the more power leftists possess. When we are in need, we are weak. Divided, we are weak. When we are weak, we do not fight back. When we are united, strong, and independent, we think for ourselves and challenge what we are told to believe.
This is a dangerous time. Americans in 1859 had no idea of the cataclysm that lay ahead for them just a few years later. Nothing is certain, and hopefully we will avoid a similar disaster. We may have differences, but America is profoundly good and needs only sensible corrections that reasonable people can agree upon. We hope and pray that our differences do not escalate into a Second Civil War.
© Jeff Lukens
February 28, 2019
Civil wars are horrendous and bloody affairs. That's why we should avoid them. They happen when two sides cannot settle on who runs the country. When they can't reconcile the matter through elections, the country falls apart. When one side does not accept the election results, we have a countdown to a civil war.
This is the thesis put forth by journalist Daniel Greenfield. It rings true on many levels.
Does the fact that Democrats are rejecting a duly elected Republican president really mean they don't accept the results of any election they don't win? If so, we may be already nearing America's Second Civil War.
It is no secret that Democrats and Republicans are more ideologically divided than in recent years. Parts of the country detest the other parts. Coastal elites dislike flyover country. The blue states despise the red states, and vice versa.
We may now be near a point comparable to 1860. Modern Democrats hate President Trump as much as the Democrats of old hated President Lincoln. Democrats repudiated Lincoln for opposing slavery, and modern Democratic leaders are repudiating Lincoln's belief that the government is of the people, for the people, and by the people. Then as now, Democrats are on the wrong side of history.
The average conservative and the average liberal disagree on the vast majority of the issues, and in the few cases where they can agree, each won't support the other out of sheer tribalism for his side. Since Democrats can't win the argument with reason and facts, they try to intimidate us into silence. While Trump is their focus, we should know that the loathing is really against normal everyday Americans.
The Constitution plays a central role in the disagreement. On the right are those who believe in its use as a restraint on government that can be altered only by a broad consensus through the amendment process. Conservatives believe that natural rights are created by God and that government cannot invent or alter them.
On the Left are those who believe in the living Constitution. This is a notion that the document is outdated and should change easily. The main method for doing this would be judicial rulings bypassing Congress and the voters. Basically, they just make it up as they go along.
The Left's reach is broad. Leftists have been able to take over schools and indoctrinate our young people. They have taken over nearly all the news and entertainment media. The conservative side, conversely, has lost in these areas because it never fights back with the ruthlessness of the Left.
Lawlessness is now reaching across the United States, which the news almost totally ignores. The same networks that spent two years with wall-to-wall coverage to push the Russia collusion hoax are now refusing to report the documented attempt to remove our duly elected president by means of a Deep State silent coup.
The Left overwhelms the courts with legal actions designed to bog them down so that nothing conservative can be accomplished by Trump. Democrats will concede nothing without a confrontation. Lefty goons clash and threaten aggression with open immunity. They shout down speakers at colleges; they block airports, bridges, and highways. They take over college buildings, offices, and state capitals, and they terrorize individuals in their homes. Not only does their violence succeed, but they succeed just by threatening violence.
Democrats threaten the peace by advocating programs intended to deny the rights of average people to speak and worship freely and to defend themselves. Never mind that millions of Americans are ready to hazard life and limb to preserve these rights. Moreover, many of them vowed to do so when they served in the armed forces. When push comes to shove, they will not shy away from defending their families, their homes, their values, and their country.
While leftist liken their behavior to combating tyranny, they are actually combating anyone with whom they disagree. While their socialist agenda is losing ground with average Americans, leftists are doubling down, assaulting verbally, and sometimes physically, anyone who opposes them.
Ask yourself, why are liberals always angry? Why are they so vulgar? Why do they slander and push fake labels like racist, sexist, and homophobic? Why do they engage in "emotional outbursts" when challenged? Why are they violent?
The answer is that when they don't have facts to support their arguments, they must resort to intimidation. The narrative is designed to keep people in a constant state of fear, thereby forcing rage and violence. They want us divided by race, class, religion, political affiliation, and more.
All they care about is control, and they will do anything to hold on to it. They want to keep people poor and in need of government assistance. The bigger the government, the more power leftists possess. When we are in need, we are weak. Divided, we are weak. When we are weak, we do not fight back. When we are united, strong, and independent, we think for ourselves and challenge what we are told to believe.
This is a dangerous time. Americans in 1859 had no idea of the cataclysm that lay ahead for them just a few years later. Nothing is certain, and hopefully we will avoid a similar disaster. We may have differences, but America is profoundly good and needs only sensible corrections that reasonable people can agree upon. We hope and pray that our differences do not escalate into a Second Civil War.
© Jeff Lukens
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
