My guess is IF there is a civil war, it will be fought by lawyers.
And the mainstream media.
I’m not sure how we’ll find out who won.
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You ask FOX and I’ll ask CNN! 
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Though I see little difference between them today. That was perfectly timed.
All I ask is the facts… and let me decide.
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This simply comes down to numbers. There are about ten times more people in the US than in 1860. We lost 620,000 soldiers in the first civil war. No reason to expect less than 6.2 million if there were a second. People would die. End of story. It all comes down to the right conditions.
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I was thinking about this just from a strategy point of view after watching a right wing break down of advantages and disadvantages (listed above)… I don’t think we will have civil war. I think we will get to a point where our leadership isn’t constantly stoking the fires of division, and I think we will calm down on both sides… That said, for fun I think a strategy conversation is in order.
One thing that I think a lot of the right is failing to consider is the power of youth and the power of concentrated forces. It is widely believed that a concentrated force was the deciding factor in the original civil war… When Georgia Howled: Sherman on the March | GPB Documentaries - YouTube
If we were playing a boardgame… this is how I would play…
I believe that the BALL OF DEATH strategy would be very effective against the right. They are already more spread out and their lines would be easily punched through if the left acted in a timely manner. Target infrastructure and resources… Take cell towers down. Make them flee from towns by overwhelming numbers… Leave the woodsman in the woods…take away everything beyond the woods…then burn the woods… Leave the folks that retreat to the mountains…in the mountains… Take the cities…set up command centers in their governors offices and wait for them to offer peace via carrier pigeon.
The youth edge is important. The average age of this forum is late 40s according to a recent poll if memory serves… that’s getting to a point where electricity is important… many people have sleep apnea at that age and need machines to breath at night… many people at that age just aren’t fit to travel long distances and endure the elements. These people would give up for comfort after a short wait… the hardened badasses would be able to sustain themselves in the woods and mountains for as long as they wished though… but the more noise they made, the more the woods would just get burned down to push them deeper …and the mountains would be cut off from supplies and access.
Also, those that have the cities…have the air… so that would be an interesting tool.
What’s your strategy in this game?
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The revolution was won in large part because the red coats formed 'en mass and sought frontal combat while the founding fathers fought largely from the bushes.
What a large formation ‘ball of death’ would face is a frontal line that essentially didnt exist, but which never quit shooting while it molded to the situation…
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That was a different age and the two sides were playing by different rules… Sherman showed the power of the death ball…march right through the enemy and towards their homes and the lives they dream of returning to…then burn that life to the ground… kill their spirit and you don’t have to kill their bodies…
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OR leave a man with nothing to loose and find out how passionately he hunts…
Just saying
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Very true… but The south fell because not enough were willing to fight once their homes got burned and their families got brought into the affair…the war left the battlefield… and that killed the spirit of the south.
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Hopefully we never find out. When it’s all over and we judge men by their character and not their appearance I’ll buy the first round (but I get the first toast if you’ll drink it)
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I know we won’t…Im sure of it…but this would be a cool board game.
Honestly, we are on edge right now. That will pass. Things are being blown out of proportion by both sides…and I think the lack of sports is a slight factor…lol…
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The Revolution showed how there would not truly be lines, as many Americans fought guerrilla warfare. There would not be any lines for the ‘left’ to punch through, and you assume the entire ‘youth’ population sides with the left… when in fact there is a sizeable segment of the youth population that are Conservative in their views.
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Not exactly.
The South surrendered due to lack of materials and personnel. The North had the means of manufacturing to bring more firearms, to rearm and provide for troops, to bring more troops. The South had limited troops, limited firearms, and materials.
They were slowly starting to lose more and more battles and were in retreat in many locations.
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Well, on one point you are right. We won’t have lines, but I couldn’t make this game work without them…lol… I mean, you are going to be fighting your neighbor…your cousin… etc…
That said, the Revolution was a completely different beast. We had experience that they didn’t have. We knew what the Native American population did to resist our superior firepower and we incorporated that vs. an inexperienced and …stupid… enemy…lol… “let us line up and take turns shooting at each other please good sir!”…lol
I agree that the conservatives have some youth, but surely you will concede that the left has a significant edge there.
Lastly, supplies were important…but it was Shermans unconventional warfare that assured the enemy that they were not going to be able to return to their sweet tea making wives and their plantations…that caused them to surrender…Sherman literally marched into the south with limited supplies to encourage his men to leave a trail of depletion and destruction…and that was the key to victory.
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I would not say that was unconventional, as it had been used in times past, ancient times… antiquity.
Rome, Carthage, Greece.
As far as it being a game? I am not sure, but I recall something similar being discussed as a game a couple of years ago,… might want to check, and maybe look at an ‘expansion pack’.
Not going to say on the youth, as I honestly do not have the numbers even in a rough estimate, but I would question some (SOME… not all) of the youth’s efficiency in warfare, with those that have lived more or less without any hardship.
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Good point on the ancient wars…It was unconventional by American standard we will say…
As far as hardship goes, we have very different ideas of what that looks like, but I have always been of the opinion that you can see hardship reflected in our most successful sports figures. I was a boxer and I love boxing…and MMA… all that stuff… My favorite fighter of all time was Carmen Bosilio… and also Joe Frazier… both guys that had a tremendously challenging life and that built resilience in them that was apparent in the ring…Joe and Carmen each had a very different experience of what hardship looked like…but it showed it’s face in the same way once they were tested. That said, Ali had an easier life than both…and he still fought with heart and technique… The point… we don’t know what anyone is capable of until they are in it…that’s why they don’t assign leadership positions at the beginning of bootcamp…they stress the recruits out and observe their reactions…see what they are made of…
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As far as Ali… perhaps a good boxer, or great, some would say he ruined boxing… just opinions I have heard… personally I think he LOST to Ernie Shavers.
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Some would say he saved boxing as well… I think people were very divided back them, but he wasn’t a bad person. He lived a peaceful life and raised a good family…he just wanted Americans to care about him and the people that looked like him before he was willing to go fight to represent America in other countries… and he had the spine to choose jail over violating his moral code…which is pretty inspirational…
As far as fighting goes, I think we can all agree that he was exceptional and he fought during the most exceptional period that the heavyweight division has ever known…
That said, Frazier is my favorite fighter because when Ali told him he was god…Joe said “God’s getting knocked on his ass tonight” and then he did that…lol
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Oh, I like Frazier also, though I am not a big boxing fan.
I had to laugh… divided back then???/ How about now?
I will reserve my opinion on Ali. I will say, I have both positive and negative views.
I think we are divided in a play sense by comparison right now… back then there was literally half of our citizens that believed a little black girl shouldn’t be allowed to drink out of a white fountain, swim in the same pool, or go to the same schools…
I think they understood hardship like we never will tbh… I used to work with this kid…english kid… I called him my “little red coat” as a joke…we had a lot of laughs together… One night, when I was off, this little red coat stole the company vehicle…it was a group home… while the staff were sleeping. He got arrested and went to juvenile hall. When he came back to the group home, he was calling me blood…and I was like… “Stewy! How are you going to find time to read all the Harry Potter books and gangbang?”…
the point of this story: People manifest reasons to pick a side and reasons to fight during times of peace…it’s naturally built into us…that doesn’t mean that our reasons aren’t valid… but they aren’t as severe as the issues that people had to overcome back in Ali’s day…
Just my opinion there… That’s why I think calmer heads will prevail…because it isn’t going to take too many war like incidents for people to start weighing out costs vs. rewards…and really digging into the issues that were upset about and the diplomatic options we have to solve those issues…All we need to do is care about each other a little, and we can work through this…we need to oust war mongering and divisive leadership though…imo.
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