The Marjorie Taylor Greene thread.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Go to your room until you can learn how to behave in polite company!

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

And yet they were not lacking in military veterans or police officers.

So what? It was a piddly few compared to what one would need for an actual civil war.

Their effort to stop Congress and keep Dump in power was a joke. If you think those weekend warriors consist of an actually effective secret rebel army you need to look again.

Or better yet, start a thread on it in the CT forum where it belongs. It really is on that level.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Well, presumably neither will the defenders, who also didn't seem to be well prepared for the situation. Notice that on the day of the inauguration, the precautions were of an entirely different class. It would have taken a regular military unit to breach them, and I suspect even that would have failed.

On Jan 6th there was a double surprise effect:

1) The defenders (for some strange reason) didn't see it coming.

2) The attackers basically didn't know what they were doing.

Neither of these is likely to happen again.

Hans

And/or said defenders were willfully blind to it for any number of reasons.

I agree with your post.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I think we are likely to find that #1 was simply untrue. I think they were hobbled. Not necessarily by some central mastermind--possibly by various people in positions of opportunity that were sympathetic to the attackers.

That too.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

To your last question: White privilege. To your main point: White privilege. And well justified to a point. Imagine the bloodbath had the insurrectionists been BLM.

Now that these disgruntled whites fearful of demographic change know that their privilege will get them only so far, any future action will entail less stupidity.

To blithely dismiss initial bumbling efforts is to be blind to the terrible harm that can be wreaked by a passionate few.

It only took 2 people to blow up the OK federal building. I am in no way dismissing "the terrible harm that can be wreaked by a passionate few."

I am however dismissing the nonsense that they represent any kind of threat to the federal government or any kind of threat of civil war. And that includes with the people still in Congress like MTG.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I'm not saying the world is magically safe and back in order. I'm saying at the moment the trend is not toward civil war.

So your view is that the partisan divide is shrinking then?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

So your view is that the partisan divide is shrinking then?

No, not the divide. But the numbers on the right are shrinking, albeit slowly.

 

[ponderingturtle]

No, not the divide. But the numbers on the right are shrinking, albeit slowly.

How much of a civil war is driven by the relative sizes vs the breadth of the divide?

And then there is the question of what a modern civil war looks like is it just lots of political violence or does there need to be the holding of territory by standing armies?

 

[dudalb]

I think there is middle ground between being Pollyana on the one hand, the the "The US is going fascist and there is nothing we can do to stop it" gloom and doom we see from a few people here.
I note a number of the latter seem not to like the US anyway.....

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

How much of a civil war is driven by the relative sizes vs the breadth of the divide?

And then there is the question of what a modern civil war looks like is it just lots of political violence or does there need to be the holding of territory by standing armies?

Get back to me when one of you has some evidence besides a couple dozen weekend warriors who think they are going to reinstall Dump to his former glory.

 

[MRC_Hans]

Get back to me when one of you has some evidence besides a couple dozen weekend warriors who think they are going to reinstall Dump to his former glory.

I don't think most people realize just how difficult a civil war would be these days, in terms of infrastructure.

Hans

 

[shemp]

I don't think most people realize just how difficult a civil war would be these days, in terms of infrastructure.

Hans

Even China slave labor factories would be hard pressed to produce millions of blue and gray wool uniforms on short notice.

 

[Jim_MDP]

I think there is middle ground between being Pollyana on the one hand, the the "The US is going fascist and there is nothing we can do to stop it" gloom and doom we see from a few people here.
I note a number of the latter seem not to like the US anyway.....

WTF bro... that was damned near you for much of the past two years. Exhorting all Dems to get strapped ASAP because the Nazi hordes were gonna get their shooting war sometime in the near term.
But I wouldn't have ever stooped to saying you "seem not to like the US anyway". [emoji52]

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Even China slave labor factories would be hard pressed to produce millions of blue and gray wool uniforms on short notice.

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

Can you provide a cite for these numbers? I just cited numbers from the link that SG provided.


Not sure it's necessary though, given the original point. Even you apparently low numbers don't change the point.

It is in the Wikipedia article. It has links to a number of studies. Here is one study:

https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/

Of the US population, about 25% are Evangelicals. Of the US population, about 80% are religious. That means, the US religious population, about 30% are Evangelicals.

I don't remember what the point was. But it would be more accurate to says that about a third of US is Evangelical rather than a half. That is a significant difference, whether or not it is related to some point.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

It is in the Wikipedia article. It has links to a number of studies. Here is one study:

https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/

Of the US population, about 25% are Evangelicals. Of the US population, about 80% are religious. That means, the US religious population, about 30% are Evangelicals.

You're still citing a subset of evangelicals. Note that category you are citing is not named "Evangelicals". It's named something that indicates it is a subset of Evangelicals.

A better number for total Evangelicals has already been cited. If you missed it just type "what percentage of the us population is evangelical" in to google. Google will likely cite the relevant number that is already cited, 35% or so. It might be as low as 30% by some estimates, but those estimates will be factoring our Evangelicals that aren't even relevant to the original point.

I don't remember what the point was.

Yeah. No kidding. Just for the record the original point is still true even with your low estimate. You two are wrong about something that doesn't even affect the point.

 

[smartcooky]

I don't think most people realize just how difficult a civil war would be these days, in terms of infrastructure.

Hans

I think many people don't realise that a civil war doesn't have to be two armies fighting each other in big battles like the US Civil War of the 1860s

The definition of a civil war is "a war between citizens of the same country."

As SG pointed out, just two people planned and executed the destruction the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma, killing 168 people, injuring over 680 others, destroying or damaging 324 other buildings within a 16-block radius, destroying 86 cars, and causing an estimated $652 million in damage.... two men, a rented truck and a few barrels of ANFO!

There are many ways to fight a war, and not all of them involve armies. The US has between 150 and 200 mostly right leaning anti-government militias, with a total active membership somewhere in the region of 15,000 to 30,000. More than likely, these militiamen know that if they tried getting into a shooting war with well equipped, well trained professional soldiers, they will be handed their arses double quick, but if only 1% of those are serous enough to think about making and planting bombs, that is still 150 to 300 nutjobs out there.... and that is a lot more than two, they could wreak some real havoc, kill or maim a lot of people and do masses of damage.

 

[MRC_Hans]

I think many people don't realise that a civil war doesn't have to be two armies fighting each other in big battles like the US Civil War of the 1860s

The definition of a civil war is "a war between citizens of the same country."

As SG pointed out, just two people planned and executed the destruction the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma, killing 168 people, injuring over 680 others, destroying or damaging 324 other buildings within a 16-block radius, destroying 86 cars, and causing an estimated $652 million in damage.... two men, a rented truck and a few barrels of ANFO!

There are many ways to fight a war, and not all of them involve armies. The US has between 150 and 200 mostly right leaning anti-government militias, with a total active membership somewhere in the region of 15,000 to 30,000. More than likely, these militiamen know that if they tried getting into a shooting war with well equipped, well trained professional soldiers, they will be handed their arses double quick, but if only 1% of those are serous enough to think about making and planting bombs, that is still 150 to 300 nutjobs out there.... and that is a lot more than two, they could wreak some real havoc, kill or maim a lot of people and do masses of damage.

The crucial word is "war". I know that when two biker groups start shooting at each other, the press calls it a "war", but sensibly the term requires something on a national scale.

What I meant was:

In the middle 19th century, countries were mainly rural and armies could live off the adjacent land, whether it was friendly or not. Now, what we eat and use is mostly produced far away. Same for fuel, ammunition, spare parts. Keeping an insurgent army running when half your suppliers are suddenly your enemies is no small challenge.

Hans

 

[dudalb]

That may be so, but the underlying stuff that brought him to power; the racism, the far right philosophy, the white supremacism - that is all still there simmering below the surface.

In 2016 you got an unqualified, bumbling, failed businessman for a President, one who didn't really know how to be a leader beyond barking orders. He thought being President would give him the ability to do anything he wanted, get anything he wanted, and make others do what he wanted. It took him four years to take down the guard rails that prevented him from getting his way, and by then, his term was up, and it was too late.

Next time, you might not be so lucky, you might end up with a Ted Cruz or a Josh Hawley. Don't underestimate these two, they are smart, and politically savvy - they will have observed what Dump did that failed, and they won't repeat those mistakes... the guard rails will all be gone by the end of January.

If Democracy dies in the US, it will cause Democracy world wide to go into a crisis.
I admit, I do have anissue with a lot of Kiwis...they think they live in Middle Earth, and what happens outside does not effect them.
And I am not ready to write the US off like so many here are.
If the US does implode, I hope you like a world dominated by Xi and Putin.

 

[dudalb]

The crucial word is "war". I know that when two biker groups start shooting at each other, the press calls it a "war", but sensibly the term requires something on a national scale.

What I meant was:

In the middle 19th century, countries were mainly rural and armies could live off the adjacent land, whether it was friendly or not. Now, what we eat and use is mostly produced far away. Same for fuel, ammunition, spare parts. Keeping an insurgent army running when half your suppliers are suddenly your enemies is no small challenge.

Hans

A second civil war in the US would resemble the Spanish Civil war much more then it's first Civil War.