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Wednesday, October 17, 2007

The Cold Civil War?

In Maclean's, Mark Steyn wonders if America is engaged in a "Cold Civil War" - that is to say, a civil war without direct confrontation.  I've been wondering the same thing for some time.

Indeed, I've been asking a simple question without getting a good answer: what if 2008 ends up being like 2000?  What are the chances that it would result in blood being spilled?  I would guess that they're pretty high - certian elements of the left are growing daily more violent and more distanced from reality.

I think that there's another - partially hopeful, partially gloomy - analogy to describe the present situation.  While we hear a lot of loose talk about "the fall of the American Empire" a la the fall of Rome - I think that the United States today is far closer to the Roman Republic at the end of its life than it is to the Roman Empire.  Niall Ferguson likes to call the United States an "empire in denial."  I think that's actually very apt.

Like Rome, circa the first century BC, the institutions of the Republic have been corrupted by a toxic brew of extreme personal ambition and misguided populism.  Few, deep down, have confidence in their ability to fairly and correctly settle the problems of the day.  Similarly, like Rome, the United States posesses great latent power which it is unable to effectively use because of the failure of its political institutions.

I'd note, in the interests of full disclosure, that this argument - to some extent - is raised in Orson Scott Card's novel "Empire" without really taking a position for or against or going into detail.

Posted by Adam T. Yoshida on October 17, 2007 in International Politics | Permalink

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Of course, the same Leftoids who make this specious argument NEVER had a problem with the real evil empire known as the Soviet Union that marched into & subjugated Eastern Europe for over 4 decades.

That's because they were comrades in thought - and that is why they are still dangerous. They would like to enslave us the way Stalin did by limiting our free speech, for starters - using "hate speech" laws as a weapon to achieve their goals.

Posted by: obc | 2007-10-17 7:51:58 AM


And the uncivil war continues in Eurabia:

"Islamic Riots in Amsterdam"

Tue, Oct 16, 2007

Following the death of a Muslim who burst into a police station and stabbed two officers, Moroccan “youths” are rioting and setting cars on fire in Amsterdam.

Moroccan-Dutch youths rioted in Amsterdam overnight Tuesday.

A group of dozens of youths in the Slotervaart neighbourhood in western Amsterdam set cars on fire, damaged several other cars and threw stones through the windows of a police station.

The riots followed the death of 22-year old Dutch-born Bilal Bajaka, of Moroccan descent.

On Sunday, Bajaka entered the police station of Slotervaart, stabbing two police officers with a knife. Although having sustained serious injuries, one of the officers, a policewoman, shot and killed her alleged attacker on the spot. The two police officers were later brought to the hospital where their condition was described as “serious but stable.”

The police and Amsterdam municipality officials announced at a press conference Monday that a national investigation had been launched into the incident. The police also added that Bajaka had a criminal record.

From the age of 13 up to his death on Sunday, the police said, Bajaka had been involved in several major criminal incidents, including armed robberies and a series of violent incidents. He was allegedly part of a criminal gang.

In addition, police said he was personally acquainted with Mohammed Bouyeri, the convicted killer of the late film director Theo van Gogh, as well as with other Moroccan-Dutch terrorist suspects.

Moroccan-Dutch residents of Slotervaart complained to reporters they were “sick and tired” of continuous “negative news reports” about fellow Moroccan-Dutch, adding they felt increasingly stigmatized.

AND THIS RIOTING WILL UNDOUBTEDLY counter those negative news reports, won't it?

Posted by: obc | 2007-10-17 8:00:07 AM


Well anyone with their ear to the pavement in the US heartland knows there is a revolution brewing....one that is garnering support from all age groups and partisan leanings. There is a concerted non partisan movement to restore and revitalize the constitutional republic.

America needs to be saved from both corpulent self-serving political parties which foul congress and the white house with anti American micro management of the individual and his personal affairs.

Posted by: bill | 2007-10-17 8:38:04 AM


Once the left and right start shooting at each other, it will get ugly fast and I put my money on the right ... they actually know how to shoot.

I think a military coup would be in order so that Washington can be purged of the current trough of politicians and some common sense be brought back to the leading country in the free world.

The monkeys have been taking over the zoo for far too long.

San Francisco value must be gotten rid of fast and a wall along the southern border ... no more muslim immigration, etc etc.

If the USA goes out of business we can all kiss our freedoms and prosperity good-bye.

Note: Michael Savage has been warning about "The Enemy Within" for years now. I guess he was right and it's heating up to a point where everyone is noticing that there are two or more Americas in the USA.

Posted by: John | 2007-10-17 9:30:52 AM


Having been an avid Steyn reader for 10 years or so, I have noticed he has been drifting away from the libertarian center of the new conservative movement towards the control freak hawkish fringe with each article he pens trying to fear monger us into accepting this global war on Islam...the solution is simple Mark...rather than degenerate 800 years of common-law civil liberty and turn North America/western democracies into a armed paranoid camp...just close the immigration gates to people who are ideologically/theologically opposed or indifferent to Judeo-Christian ethics as expressed in western democracy and constitutional rule of law and the free societies this has spawned.

Simply put we import our problems by allowing strangers in who do not fully accept western social and political mores. We further exasperate the situation by accommodating their diametrically opposed mores. There has to be a return to melting pot policy and a stricter control on immigration…no need to kill people who disagree with us if we make them stay in their own country.

Steyn’s constant harping for some multi-generational crusade to annihilate the Islamo fascist is alarmist, disingenuous journalistic politicking at it's worst.

My bottom line is that if fighting this nebulous partisan-inflected “war” on terrorism entails the truncation of civil liberty or my freedoms (as it has with the various anti terror acts and martial domestic security responses) then the "terrorists" have already won without firing a shot...they have succeeded in making our weak of mind and our own leadership so paranoid that we have willingly made a free society prisoners in a self imposed "anti terror" gulag society.

As for the "cold civil war"… ya ..it's a fact...but unlike Steyn's myopic monocular take on it, the revolution is NOT a matter of just the so called left going "bonkers" and no longer trusting government or governing regime agendas...it is a matter of ALL political persuasions seeking to put the out of control Washington political culture back into the confines of the box built for it by the constitutional republic.

The civil cold war under way in America is not left against right...it is non partisan and it is a movement towards constitutionalism and against the kind of arbitrary authoritarianism we have seen displayed in Washington the last 2 decades….it is patriot against conniving elites with their own agendas…and it will contiue if Hillary has the crown transferred to her by the Bush royal family ( as is now redily apparent in Bush prepping her for the hand over). America cannot withstand another Klinton administration and come out the other side of the term as a free republic…same for a another term of imperialist/martialist GOP regime….why is it thet Americans only have a choice between soviet styled civl control or fascist styled martial control? What happened to constitutional republicanism and the empowered citizen?

The American President is NOT a defacto "ruler" and congress, the party cliques and beltway bureaucrats are NOT some form of political aristocracy....the constitutional republic movement ( or the cold civil war revolutionaries, if you will) demands a return to constitutional strictures on executive authority, congressional oversight of militarization of civilian policing agencies and accountability of congress and the white house to civilian oversight...if that is so "wacky" by Steyn's standards maybe he should take a glance at where he has moved on the political spectrum before he labels constitutionalists “left wing paranoid exhibitionists”.

Posted by: bill | 2007-10-17 9:37:33 AM


john ~

"I put my money on the right ... they actually know how to shoot."

Plus they are the ones with the weapons!

Posted by: obc | 2007-10-17 9:43:50 AM


The Right know how to shoot alright but more importantly they're straight shooters.


As for Mark Steyn's musings about a "cold civil war", he's having us on, must have had a slow day or something. Maybe he's trying to bait the Lefties so they can show their true colors.

Posted by: LizJ | 2007-10-17 10:13:21 AM


Actually put your money on the libertarians...in a donestic shootin match they are the ones who not only are armed but who are skilled in marksmanship and have the will to shoot at any state goon sent to disarm them...just like their counterparts in the colonial revolt....they are the 2nd amendment people who believe civilan gun rights are unlimited and have nothing to do with duck hunting but are tied directly to the right to shoot paper-hanging political elites right in the ass when they start acting more like Euro-trash aristocracy than servants of the American constitution.

Posted by: bill | 2007-10-17 10:13:40 AM


just close the immigration gates to people who are ideologically/theologically opposed or indifferent to Judeo-Christian ethics as expressed in western democracy and constitutional rule of law and the free societies this has spawned.

Posted by: bill | 17-Oct-07 9:37:33 AM

See, if you would take the Judeo/Christian part out I could agree with you, what's next? Atheists are being kicked out of the country as well?

Why not take it to the next logic step, abandon the seperation of Church and State and create a Church of the United States (similar to the Church of England in the good old days) that way everybody knows what's going on.

Posted by: Snowrunner | 2007-10-17 11:05:21 AM


bill, to a large extent I agree with you, but you are deadly wrong concerning the lack of an Islamist threat especially since they are already among us. I do agree that they are not the only threat, but we ignore them at our peril. Actually I place them among all the other control zealots who are destroying the concepts of liberty and freedom on which both Canada and the U.S. were founded. One finds them across all party lines and they are no less deadly than the totalitarian communist control zealots.

I do admire the Americans as most of them are not as easily fooled nor as complacent as we Canadians when they witness the destruction of their freedom through regulation. From the contacts I have had they are aware that when their government funds various causes and programs or bails out others it is done with THEIR money not the government's.

As for what the political process has become in both countries it does indeed bring to mind the extreme corruption within Rome prior to its fall. We now have a class of what I call professional politicians or whores for the most part. The political system has become so corrupted that just about any decent man or woman willing to stand on principle is drummed out of the running thanks especially to the leftist MSM.

Posted by: Alain | 2007-10-17 11:56:45 AM


Of course, Mark Steyn is arguing for discretionary immigration. In fact that IS the law in Canada, the U.S., etc, but what the ruling elites are doing is selectively applying the laws we elected them to write, as in the case of the OPP in Caledonia (a criminal abrogation of duty, and one which if followed by many more, will make the OPP an enemy of the people. Smarten the f**k up, coppers!!!).

The Left are increasingly populating (as judges and lawyers) and using (through Charter challenges) the courts as a way to circumvent the legitmately elected government, and the governing class wish of course not to run afoul of the media (who let's face it, make or break our PM's mostly), so they are happy to shrug their shoulders on all the important issues.

I hate to say it but we are rapidly approaching the point where the duty of free people is to bring down their governing class, and reintroduce democracy. I'd start by putting the media on the same kind of collegiate system that doctors, lawyers, engineers and other professionals are on. It is time to hold their feet to the fire. Incompetence (like the Reuters "Green-Helmet Guy scandal) or deliberate falsification is grounds for revocation of licensed status, and in severe cases, criminal prosecution. You can still write what you want, but you lose your Press Card.

Believe me, it starts with the media, but doesn't end there. The courts need a severe smack-down, and these bastard lawyers put in their place. Believe me, they're mostly slimebags (Prince George, B.C., "justice" Ramsay), so they'll crawl into the hole you dig them and shut their beaks, while still collecting their paychecks...

And then, and only then, will Canada be in any position to apply any kind of discretionary immigration policy...

Posted by: bcf | 2007-10-17 1:15:40 PM


"Simply put we import our problems by allowing strangers in who do not fully accept western social and political mores. We further exasperate the situation by accommodating their diametrically opposed mores. There has to be a return to melting pot policy and a stricter control on immigration…no need to kill people who disagree with us if we make them stay in their own country."

Right on, bill. If you don't like things here stay the hell home. And then let's round up all the cultural relativists and send them on an extended vacation to that beacon of tolerance and freedom, Iran.

Posted by: Larry | 2007-10-17 1:22:55 PM


Good comments bcf and Larry. Even though the Charter needs to go and bcf is totally correct about these groups using the courts to circumvent the laws made by the elected body, our politicians are a big part of the problem. Why do they not have the guts to invoke the not withstanding clause every time the judges attempt to make laws instead of interpreting them? I am still waiting for it to happen anywhere in English Canada at the provincial level and at the national level.

As I and others have stated elsewhere there is no point in electing politicians, paying their salaries and expenses if non elected judges run the country instead.

Posted by: Alain | 2007-10-17 1:35:16 PM


Immigration-wise, I am in the same boat as Steyn (a Canadian documented-immigrant in the US) except on the left Coast. I can't agree with Bill that Steyn has evolved into a statist in his outlook. I also can't see blaming "immigration" for the problems identified in the "Cold Civil War" article. In the long run, demographics rule, but that is not what the cold civil war is about.

The US is not very different than the other advanced welfare states of the West. Their libertarian roots have been mostly forgotten by the masses but residually stronger than in our old Dominion (19th century Liberals). They still have a real Constitution.

The underlying problem, as I see it, is the drift from the notion of taxation without representation. Western societies are now comfortably stimulated by the "dominatrix state". We are there because the system ensures that the whores of politics cater to those voting majorities who receive benefits from the state in much greater proportion than what they consciously give up in the form of taxes or perceive in terms of lost liberty. The minority paying the disproportionately larger share of taxes do so as either useful idiots, systemic drop-outs, complaining business types and or rent seekers who have cut deals with the devil. Laissez faire exists nowhere within these states. The levels of regulation, even at the local government level are obscene. Envy politics prevent broad-based movements emerging to challenge this loss of liberty.

I doubt that this degeneration has gone anywhere far enough to stimulate "revolution" as posted above. Within the dominatrix state we have opted for comfort over the constant struggle for freedom and don't forget that even the dominatrix does titillate now and again.

This paralysis of real political discourse will remain until breached from events such as major terror, war, economic strife, increased Islamic incursion, eventual revolution, etc.- like the drunk having to hit bottom.

Watch what happens in the most advanced Western dominatrix states - Europe.

Posted by: John Chittick | 2007-10-17 1:41:20 PM


Good point, John. Alain, I agree with you about the notwithstanding clauses, and again, we see eye to eye on the fact that the politicians are to blame.

It is just too difficult to risk that nice comfy seat by pissing off the media and the lawyers, and I really believe the Left have done tremendous damage to the National Fabric through their media propaganda blitz and their court system. (And hey, I am a White immigrant married to a non-White immigrant about to have mixed-race babies, so all those P.O.S. Lefties who've called me racist in the past can eat my ****. And my wife has our same views on immigration and the courts!)

As an "honest" immigrant who had to scrape her way up from nothing, she howls screaming murder at these a$$hats who lawyer their way into Canada, and then suck on the Canadian Teat while refusing to adapt to Canadian ways!

The question is what does one do. Voting for Harper won't fix the problem, because his hands are tied. I don't believe he's been able to do much of what he knows needs to be done, because the media will destroy him. There may be a need for those of us concerned enough to move in another direction. I have been actively boycotting the official political process for several years now (thanks to the Librano maggots - boy Chretien and his goons make me wish for gulags just for Libranos) but I suspect we as free citizens will have to have a "Boston Tea Party" at some point, on some issue, like , ooh, confiscatory and punitive taxation for starters?

Posted by: bcf | 2007-10-17 3:41:04 PM


Will "Seven Days in May" ultimately become a reality?

Posted by: atric | 2007-10-17 3:45:49 PM


A Romanesque ending;

A member of the U.S. Army commented on the role of immigrants in the armed forces on VDARE.COM:

“Their loyalty is to the service, not the country," he wrote. "They would have no qualms about turning their weapons on U.S. citizens. A hundred years ago this meant some strikers might get fired on. Today what you see being unleashed on Iraq could be used on some place in the U.S. if the will of the central government was being thwarted."

Posted by: DJ | 2007-10-17 4:53:32 PM


"Moroccan “youths” are rioting and setting cars on fire in Amsterdam."

...was wondering why it was so quiet over there.

Posted by: tomax7 | 2007-10-17 5:42:39 PM


Wait until they do it in Toronto & Montreal. When they are done, the police will "ask the public for any information" they may have to crack the case.

Have you notice how often they "ask" after nearly every crime that makes the news? In the US, they simply solve the case within days WITHOUT asking for the public's assistance.

Posted by: obc | 2007-10-17 5:55:28 PM


Snowy

"See, if you would take the Judeo/Christian part out I could agree with you, what's next? Atheists are being kicked out of the country as well? "

Nice try? I am an atheist and I feel quite comfortable living amongst my Jewish and Christian country. Why? Because we understand each other through many centuries of common heritage.

The pendulum may swing, of course, but the current tilt is not to my liking nor theirs so I stand with them and not with the Left.

Posted by: h2o273kk9 | 2007-10-17 6:28:12 PM


Here are just a few hoax hate crimes on college campuses:

-- In 1997, at Duke University, a black doll was found hanging by a noose from a tree at the precise spot where the Black Student Alliance was to be holding a rally against racism. Two black students later admitted they were the culprits and were immediately praised for bringing attention to the problem of racism on campus. Indeed, four years later the president of Duke gave a baccalaureate address nostalgically describing the hoax as a "protest" against racism. Next stop: the Nobel Peace Prize.

-- In 2003, vile racial epithets were scrawled on the dorm room doors at Ole Miss, producing mass protests and a "Say No to Racism" march. And then it turned out the graffiti had been written by black students, against whom no charges were brought. A "Say Yes to Racism" rally at Ole Miss was later canceled due to lack of interest.

-- In 2005, obscenity-laced racist and anti-Semitic messages appeared on dormitory walls at the College of Wooster in Ohio. The fliers were instantly blamed on "typical white males," even though all the letter I's in the epithets were dotted with little hearts. Breadcrumbs left by the culprits included the message "Vote Goldwater" among the obscenities. The matter was dropped and flushed down the memory hole when the perpetrators turned out to be a group of leftist students led by a black studies major.

-- Just this year, anti-Muslim fliers were put out on the George Washington University campus -- by leftists, including a member of "Iraq Veterans Against War." When it was thought the leaflets were from the conservative group Young Americans For Freedom, the dean called for the expulsion of the culprits and the university demanded that YAF officers sign a statement disavowing "hate speech." But when it turned out leftists had distributed the fliers, the matter was dropped faster than Larry Craig was dropped from Mitt Romney's campaign.

The one real example of racism on a college campus in recent memory was perpetrated against white men of the Duke lacrosse team. As that injustice was being perpetrated, gender and ethnic professors at Duke kept droning on about the "racism and sexism" students "live with every day" -- as the professors put it in an open letter that falsely presumed the players were guilty of rape. We don't expect a rally against the prejudiced professors, but an apology might be nice.

In one recent hoax hate crime, a white woman professor at Claremont McKenna College said her car had been vandalized with racist and anti-Semitic graffiti, with the words "Shut Up!" spray-painted on the hood of her car.

She was not black or Jewish, but had recently converted to Judaism and spoke out against racism. So she was a victim! After the vandalism of her car, she promptly became Queen for a Day. Far from "silenced," this anonymous mountebank was given a national microphone to bore us with her race-gender-culture theories. The campus was shut down for a day for anti-racism rallies in the charlatan's honor. Then eyewitnesses identified her as the one who had spray-painted her own car, and the pity party was over.

Liberals claim to believe the Klan has established a beachhead at Columbia University, Bill O'Reilly is head of the Manhattan branch, Rush Limbaugh despises the troops, Ann Coulter is planning a pogrom from the heart of Manhattan, and George Bush is establishing fascism in America.

Some anonymous liberal hag on Air America Radio - Randi Rhodes - which no one knew was still on the air, fell down outside her Park Avenue apartment this week, and her liberal colleagues were claiming it was Kristallnacht. Turns out she fell down drunk but blamed some right-wing nut of mugging her.

Posted by: obc | 2007-10-17 6:51:42 PM


cool. what a coincidence. i just sent a post to Snowrunner on the "long telegram" thread, telling him to google an article by Scott Card.

you guys might want to check it out: "how our civilization can fall". excellent article.

Posted by: shel | 2007-10-17 6:58:42 PM


Only the homosexuals-feminists believe the media descripton of America's "mood(s)" or such drivel, and at the first shot 95% of Americans deep six those "girls" and the government panderers who support them.

Without George Bush's great gift for oratory the notion to unite-respond-defeat terrorism would not have captured our ears????

Balogna! STUPID Bush betrayed a tremendous majority by promoting his illegal alien invasion and destroyed Conservative American allegiance to the Republican Party.

We may even survive the droves of fine Hollywood actors who have turned their backs and sworn to leave America....soon!

Posted by: Conrad-USA | 2007-10-17 7:40:31 PM


Bill~

you nailed it on your second post, regarding the craziness of both parties lately. the Dems and the GOP are moving (surging?) toward Statism. the Dems have been trying to subvert the Constitution for some time now, but the GOP have been more and more on my radar these days.

it's kinda scary. the Constitution has been sacred and in the minds of Americans until, it seems, recently. am i wrong when i say that individualism seems to be less of a priority for the American people? someone from the States please tell me k? i'm curious.

the Constitution has, historically, protected to a large degree, property rights, free speech, and the right to bear arms. these liberties were cemented to protect the individual against the State, the courts, populism, and democracy. THIS is the foundation, and historically unprecedented genius of the Constitution.

the Dems have been trying to whittle away at this foundation for a long time now (New Deal Coalition, etc.), but it's old news now. nothing shocking there. what pisses me off is the fact that the GOP is ignoring what has been the unifying instrument of conservatism in the States: Constitutionalism. no can call himself a conservative by definition without upholding the Constitution; and more specifically, the three protected liberties.

what the f:)ck?! what is the Republican party doing?

the Constitution is self correcting, however. when things get too wonky (human nature being what it is), the Constitution itsself has historically forced common sense to prevail. hopefully, this time is no different.

Bill. i don't fully agree with you concerning Steyn. i would be quicker to judge Coulter and Savage as domestic policy neocon interventionists.

Posted by: shel | 2007-10-17 8:11:15 PM


Nice try? I am an atheist and I feel quite comfortable living amongst my Jewish and Christian country. Why? Because we understand each other through many centuries of common heritage.

The pendulum may swing, of course, but the current tilt is not to my liking nor theirs so I stand with them and not with the Left.

Posted by: h2o273kk9 | 17-Oct-07 6:28:12 PM

How surprising, you missed my point (again).

Posted by: Snowrunner | 2007-10-17 11:38:02 PM


"See, if you would take the Judeo/Christian part out I could agree with you, what's next? Atheists are being kicked out of the country as well? "

You better get over this cry-baby leftoid sloganeering and understand that western commonlaw and constitutions, our conventional ethics of social justice, civil liberty and freedom are all premised on the 10 commandments and the teachings of Christ/Moses....you don't have to subscribe to a church to know that these ethics have elevated the western culture and its law above the swamp of despotic cultures premised on agnostic or pagan beliefs.

You need not be Christian or particularly religious to accept western law...just have the common sense to accept that it is a good idea to live decently and free and leave others alone to do the same....but as an atheist if you think that law and justice should be premised on a right and wrong diviner as "relative" as your theology....take a boat to Russia/China/Cuba/Venezuela/Hati/Africa...atheist relativism is in full play in these nations and their so called constitutions and legal systems.

Law does not equal justice, just law based on empathetic ethic equals justice. Relativism has no place in determining the nature of civil liberties....relativism is the term of entitlement and the cornerstone of kleptocracies like communism and marxism.

Posted by: bill | 2007-10-18 7:14:23 AM


bill, extremely well said. The very decay we see is a result of what you describe so well.

Posted by: Alain | 2007-10-18 10:55:49 AM



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