Dixie redux

A dress rehearsal?

A recent report from an American university makes the extraordinary claim that 28% of Americans believe that it will, at some point, be necessary to take up arms against the government. Granted, this report is not out of Harvard or Yale, but it is out of the University of Chicago, and if they don't know a thing or two about violence, no one does.

Well, this goes some way to explain why the government are trying so desperately to annul the Second Amendment and take away your guns. Over a quarter of you want to march up Capitol Hill carrying something a bit more potent than a flaming brand and a pitchfork.

If there is a second civil war - and I have pointed out its distinct possibility for years - then it will not be over slavery but wider cultural and political concerns. This administration - and those in Europe have followed suit - has made it as plain as a pikestaff (as the English used to say) that they despise anyone patriotic, anyone who does not agree with modern teaching methods, anyone who wants less, and more controlled, immigration, wants (in the USA) to hold on for dear life to the First and Second Amendments, anyone who believes in biological gender and anyone who is not happy to suckle the teat of the state.

And the only way to make them change their minds might be to take up arms.

One thing we know to a certainty, in a situation of urban and rural struggle, the soy-sipping, NYT-reading, post-feminist academic fussing about personal pronouns is not going to fare as well as a man who can build his own log cabin. This is increasingly looking like the preppers were right, and a lot of people are in for a rude awakening once the law of the jungle kicks in.

The stakes in the first American Civil War were the Union. What are stakes in the second? Cultural hegemony? If you lost that to begin with, that was your fault. No, it is a good deal more basic than that. Victory to the right side would enable them to do something that has needed doing across the West for some time - slap a few faces, knock a few heads together, and generally beat some sense into people who threaten the very possibility of a decent life for decent people.