The home of South Carolina Circuit Court judge Diane Goodstein was set on fire after she had reportedly received death threats.
State law enforcement is investigating the house fire on Edisto Beach which began at around 11:30 a.m. E.T. on Saturday, sources told local news outlet FITSNews.
Goodstein was reportedly not at home at the time of the fire, but at least three members of her family, including her husband, former Democratic state senator Arnold Goodstein, and their son, have been hospitalized with serious injuries. According to the St. Paul’s Fire District, which responded to the scene, the occupants had to be rescued via kayak. Law enforcement have not disclosed whether the fire is being investigated as an arson attack.
If this is a civil war, then what are the two sides? Where are the front lines?
Yeah, the 60s had more violence and tensions than now. A civil war requires actually distinct combatants engaged in combat. That doesn’t exist as of now.
People forget this. There were bombs. Political assassinations. Armed revolutionary groups with foreign support. The racial divide was HUGE. It needs to get way better, but aside from politics, people are more like each other than they were then. Then they ever have been anywhere and at any point in history. Hence the death throes of division being absolutely bombarded at us by the media. But we know better. It takes time, but we know better. It’s fucked now, but let’s keep that perspective. They tried to wash that period of unrest from the schools in the 90s.
Modern wars lack defined front lines – just look at Ukraine and the accompanying conflict between Europe and Moscow.
While historically there has been only peace and war, nowadays cold and hybrid wars are states between peace and (hot) war that are real.
The current state of the US is not the hybrid state of the Second US Civil War, btw, it’s the North American theater of the hybrid state of WWIII.
I hope WWIII will be resolved before it gets too hot.
The front lines of the Ukraine war are well defined. You can see them on a map.
Texas is sending their troops (National Guard) to Oregon to fight people in Portland.
The Oregon National Guard, State Police, and all county sheriff’s along the Oregon border should place roadblocks, and refuse entry to their state by any out-of-state armed military or law enforcement entity.
California should also close off their roadways to Oregon. Make them come in from Idaho or Nevada.
If you want in so bad, try to shoot your way in. See how well that works out for you.
The truth is the voters in states like Oregon don’t actually have command of their own police forces. The police don’t answer to elected politicians. They’re an independent occupying force that answers only to themselves. And they support the regime.
The governors can’t arrest sherrifs? Mayors cant fire chiefs of police? Officers don’t follow orders?
Well I agree that is a bad move; it’s authoritarian, violent, expensive, unnecessary, and most likely unconstitutional.
But does sending National Guard troops to another state constitute a civil war?
They are military forces from one state being sent to another, and the target state did not ask for it.
Does the US deploying “peacekeeping” troops to an African nation constitute war? The people of Somalia who participated in the Battle of Mogadishu would probably think so.
So it was a civil war when National Guard troops were deployed in an attempt to quell the George Floyd uprising?
The governor of MN invited them there, so no.
“invited” is questionable, I know my governor was pressured and put under duress in order to accept Trump’s national guard deployment during George Floyd.
But what about a clearer example: President Eisenhower deployed National Guard troops to Arkansas to enforce the desegregation of schools. The national guard was explicitly not invited by the Governor of Arkansas. Was this a civil war?
That was Arkansas’ own National Guard, and the Mayor of Little Rock had actually asked for it to happen. The school district itself was also supportive. So no.
Correction, trump is trying to take the Texas troops. Texas is not involved in this dispute.
“I fully authorized the President to call up 400 members of the Texas National Guard to ensure safety for federal officials”
That’s Texas Gov Abbott giving the rubber stamp to do it. The government of Texas is completely on board with this.
That’s not how civil wars work anymore, it’ll be akin to a Balkanization where there are multiple different factions, upstart states, militias and insurgencies. The second will be nothing like the first. The Syrian civil war is a decent smaller scale modern example
Edit: if you’d like a good idea of what it will look like I HIGHLY recommend the fist season of the excellent podcast It Could Happen Here by Robert Evans. It’s from 2019 but wildly prescient
You’re right, saying things like “front lines” is an oversimplification. I have listened to a lot of Robert Evans, and I agree that if a civil war happens it will Balkanize America.
With that being said, you agree none of this is happening yet? Surely we are backsliding into fascism and violence, but you would agree we are not in a civil war, because we do not yet have multiple different factions, upstart states, militias and insurgencies?
I think that if there are historians left to analyze this in 30 years they’ll probably drop the start line around the assassination of Charlie Kirk. There definitely are multiple different factions even within the conservative movement they haven’t completely turned on one another, the left is similarly at odds with itself.
When we see the White House calling on generals to be prepared to invade American cities with the military, judge’s houses are being burned down after giving verdicts disliked for political inconvenience, Chicago, Portland, LA, DC are all seeing extreme escalations in state sanctioned violence, states sending their national guard to other states to quell chaos that isn’t there, and mass shootings nearly everyday, sometimes several. To me that’s civil war that’s started heating up.
But if you’d rather call what were currently seeing and experiencing something like The Troubles in Ireland and wait until the conflict is even more overt feel free.
In the 60s we had everything you just said: extreme state sanctioned violence, mass shootings, national guard being sent in, judges houses being burned, many political assassinations…
And they all happened in much larger numbers. There were so many bombings and bomb threats, and tons of plane hijackings, and the overall crime rate was so much higher, and there was so much racial violence, and and…
So do you think the US went through a civil war in the 60s?
I agree that things are looking bad, and getting worse, and this may end up in some sort of a civil war. But it seems you and I have a much different definition of “civil war”.
I have listened to part of the It Could Happen Here vision for what could go down, but I’m on the fence. In the 2020 election and Jan 6th, I could see that version of things more: militias creating general lawlessness with a weak federal government that can’t maintain peace.
But since Trump arrived on the scene, people have been increasingly geographically sorting themselves by political affiliation. Additionally, we are seeing blue state coalitions form around vaccines and climate change. And now we are seeing folks band together at the state-level and pressure their state governments to take stands against the federal government. Additionally, we are seeing more punitive behavior between states (busing of migrants from Texas, financial punishment of blue states, trying to criminally charge ObGyns providing abortion services across state lines, red states offering Trump their national guard to punish blue states, redistricting based on the actions of another state).
Regardless of how people feel about the federal government, they seem to still see legitimacy in their local governments, and are increasingly using those local governments as vehicles for negotiation.
With all this there is no way we don’t divide in some form within a lifetime
My personal guess is the tipping point comes when the 2026 elections are either brazenly fraudulent or disregarded by the sitting majority leaders. If that doesn’t happen, then my next bet would be on the 2028 elections tearing us apart like those of 1860.
I will admit, my guesses have some big caveats around international relations. The Trump administration has shown disinclination to stand up to China or Russian, and have all but said they won’t defend Taiwan against China. Their calculus may change if they believe participating in a world war will help them cling to power I guess? Trump is kind of a Russian pawn though, and Russia would much prefer the US be torn apart in Civil War than jump in to defend Europe or democratic Asia.
Yes this is a massive boon. Finally the first faltering of the trend started in the 40s towards massive federalization.
It’s a boon in that people still want law and order and have a means to pursue it.
But the collective action, unimpeded by conflict, of 150-300 million people is a huge factor in what has made the US so prosperous for 80 years. We are giving that up.
America was already largely prosperous, but it wasn’t the sole superpower. I am not sure if that was a worth it exchange(if it was an exchange)
I mean… The first American civil war didn’t work like that either. Officially succession happened over the course of a couple years, but we’re baking for much longer.
Just because red states have blue cities and blue states have rural red areas doesn’t mean we won’t divide down red state / blue state lines. States and their respective sides weren’t homogenous during the first civil war either. Texas took a vote on whether or not to secede, and something like 1/3 of the state voted to stay in the union. Maryland considered seceding, so the federal government immediately occupied it so that DC wasn’t cut off from the union.
We are already seeing balkanization with states forming coalitions on climate change action and vaccination guidance. What I’m still unclear of is whether blue states will secede or whether they will attempt to root out an illegitimate regime.
It’s also worth noting that Maryland remained a slave state until the end of the war. The Emancipation Proclamation only covered states in rebellion.
Those are real 20th century metrics for a war.
I’ll edit to add this article about someone in the Whitehouse thinking we’re in a civil war
So what are the 21st century metrics for a war?
Well, anything digital comes to mind. Cutting undersea communication cables is another. But you can generally look in the direction of Russia for most of it. In the US they have corrupted an entire political party with out drawing any “front lines”
Russian interference