This is part two (2) of Arbalest’s series on United States On The Cusp Of A Modern-Day Civil War. (Part 1)

USA – -(AmmoLand.com)- “We don’t see things as they are. We see things as we are.” ~ Anaïs Nin, French-American diarist, essayist, novelist, February 21, 1903 – January 14, 1977
“The clash between the two visions is not over the actual or desirable degree of freedom, justice, power, or equality—or over the fact that that there can only be degrees and not absolutes—but rather over what these things consist of, in whatever degree they occur.” ~ from A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles, by Thomas Sowell, Economist, and Social Theorist; Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
The Nation sits, today, at a crossroads, just as it did at the juncture of the American Civil War. With each passing day, trust between the two sides further diminishes. The feelings of the one toward the other become more corrosive; the differences between the two ever more apparent, ever more stark; the convictions of each, ever more entrenched.
In an atmosphere of strong animosity and deep suspicion, compromise and negotiation between the two sides are impossible. Each side holds faithfully to a different vision of America. Each is insistent that its vision comes to fruition. But, the two views for the Country, grounded, as each is, in different belief structures, in different value systems, in various possible notions of justice and fundamental fairness, the two are inherently incompatible. So, even if the two sides were willing to negotiate, to compromise, any negotiation, any compromise would not bear fruit; would be sterile.
Where a path diverges, one or the other can be taken, but not both. Only one vision for this Country is capable of realization.
One side, one faction holds to a vision of America that proceeds from the view that the Nation, conceived and created as a sovereign, independent Nation State, must always remain so, and must remain so in fact, not merely in name. That faction also holds to a vision of the Nation, where: the American people are the supreme authority. Government is understood to be a construct created by the people for the benefit of the people; certain fundamental rights and liberties preexist in the people, bequeathed to the people by the Creator; and, as the Government does not create those fundamental, natural, preexistent rights and liberties. Government lacks lawful authority to eliminate those rights and freedoms. That faction’s vision coheres clearly, cleanly, and categorically with the concept of the founders of the Nation, the framers of the Nation’s Constitution.
The other faction’s vision of the Country is predicated on an entirely different set of precepts. It does not accept the view that the people are the supreme authority; instead, it is Government itself that is deemed the supreme power. This faction also does not adhere to the idea that rights and liberties are to be perceived as fundamental, natural, forces, preexistent in the people. This faction doesn’t see some rights and liberties—or any rights and freedoms, for that matter—as immutable forces endowed in man by the Creator at all; but, views rights and liberties as man-made artifices, no different than any law, rule, regulation, code, or ordinance. And, as such, this faction sees that rights and liberties may be lawfully modified or eliminated when Government deems it beneficial to do so for the good of the people as a whole, even as that “good” manifests as detrimental to the individual.
This faction has, then, a vision of the Country entirely at loggerheads with that of the founders of the Republic. But, this doesn’t faze the faction’s adherents. This faction has determined that the foundation of the Nation, its Constitution, the bedrock of a free Republic, along with the Nation’s most celebrated canons and cherished values, can and ought to be and must be altered or eliminated outright, consistent with what this faction perceives to be a new reality emerging in the world at large.
The differences between the two factions cannot be reconciled for those differences rest upon mutually exclusive inferences—inferences that establish both the structure of government and society and the relationship of man to those structures and each other. And those inferences themselves follow from an entirely different set of axiomatic premises—premises at once elemental and primordial.
The two sides that fought each other in the American Civil War—the Union and the Confederacy—did not perceive their differences, profound as they were, as a vast existential divide between them, not to the extent seen today. The American Civil War was perceived as a confrontation between States’ rights advocates and advocates for a strong centralized Federal Government.
Arguably, the nineteenth-century conflict between the Union and Confederacy may be viewed as a continuation of debate–a longstanding debate–commenced among the founders of the Republic. One side, the Federalists, espoused a strong central Government; the other side, the Antifederalists, suspicious of a strong central Government, espoused decentralization of authority. But, for all that, the South, in the American Civil War, still professed to hold to the relevance of the concept of the ‘Nation State.’ Its concerns were directed to the allocation of power within that Nation State; nor did either the Union or the Confederacy contest the inherent importance of and sanctity of the Bill of Rights. That is not the case today.
Unlike the two sides that fought each other in the American Civil War, the Union and the Confederacy, one side, the leftist faction, has, in this present conflict, questioned the very meaning and meaningfulness of the concept of ‘Nation State’. In this age of Globalization and massive movements of people across national boundaries. That helps to explain why that faction would question and abhor, and mock, President Trump’s* campaign slogan, ‘America First;’ for that faction sees the slogan as an affront to their bedrock principles; an unacceptable return to an archaic worldview in contrast to their “modern” worldview; and an obstacle to fulfillment of their goals.
That faction, too, believes that rights and liberties are subject to modification, or even elimination, when, their usefulness does not cohere with—as they see—changed circumstances in the world.

The other faction holds to the vision of this Country that the founders of the Republic held. This faction believes in the continued relevance of the concept of ‘Nation State’ and, therefore, professes a strong need to preserve this Country as an independent Sovereign Nation; to preserve the supremacy of the Nation’s laws, and to preserve the integrity of the Nation’s physical borders.
This faction also believes in the sanctity of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution. Modification, much less, elimination of any of the rights and liberties set forth therein is an anathema.
This faction, then, holds to a vision of and for the Country that has stood the test of time; a vision that has endured for over two hundred years. The other side seeks to undo that vision of the Country. The other side seeks to construct the Nation anew. Its “modern” vision for this Country distorts and contorts the foundation upon which this Nation rests, as articulated in the Nation’s Constitution, and questions the very meaningfulness of the concept ‘Nation State’ and the concept of ‘citizen of the United States.’
Democrats seek to recover their lost power on behalf of the faction they belong to and represent. They try to regain control of Government, to continue to work toward completing the items on their agenda, as their efforts to remake the Country into the image they envision had been rudely interrupted and disrupted through loss of 2016 U.S. Presidential election to the populist, Donald Trump. To regain control, Democrats have reprehensibly dispensed with adherence to our Nation’s laws even as they claim to abide by them. They are masters of deception. They are cunning, dispassionate, hypocritical, ruthless. They have plowed ahead with their agenda, even though doing so skirts the law and extends well beyond the bounds of common decency. To assist them in their efforts they co-opted the feminist #MeToo movement. They have formed alliances with left-wing progressive groups on and off university campuses, and with the far-left radical anarchist group, ‘Antifa.’ Their echo chamber, the mainstream media, work on their behalf, as do media moguls, actors, and directors in the entertainment business and the technology sector; and, as do bureaucrats of the “Deep State” and left-wing jurists, sprinkled in federal courts across the Country by Obama.
The police often stand at the sideline, forbidden by Leftist State Governments that control them, to interfere. But, police, and the military too, will need, eventually, to take a side, to take a stand in the conflict.
Unless one side capitulates to the other—and that won’t happen—further and more severe clashes are inevitable.
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I heard the term “cold civil war” 2 days ago. Seems more descriptive. Yes, the left is bouncing up with brownshirt feints. but not all out military action. The right doesn’t do the whole rioting in the streets thing, but still the runs the whole Voice of America/Radio Free Europe (Cali?)thing. My inclination is that the reactionary Left is going to keep pushing to see how far it will take to bring forth a violent reaction by the Normals. That is actually what they want and need for fawning Media fodder. The hope is that if it happens at just… Read more »
California. Lost cause. Make it a liberal sanctuary state, exile all the liberals and Democrats there, then build a wall around it and let them live like they want and suffer the consequences while the rest of the country enjoys the freedom of living under the Constitution with laws, rights and accountability.
We ARE in a civil war now. There has been violence, but nothing significant . . . yet. The Left – aka, Marxists – have been marching this country further left every decade since the early 1900’s. With the election of Obama, he made MAJOR changes in our society and changed the values of many. Consequently the divide in our society has grown substantially. Now, we are at each other’s throats with little reason or active ‘listening’ existing in that conversation. As a result, we are at war with each other too often. The only way to alter this path… Read more »
It will give one a tremendous amount of clarity as to what is REALLY going on if one reads Romans Chapter 1, and Matthew Chapter 24. EVERYTHING that is in the news today was foretold nearly 2,000 years ago by Christ. Since few will take the time to read these passages in the Bible, the following are excerpts that relate to present day turmoil: Romans Verse 31- “undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; (Verse 32) who knowing the righteous judgement of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death {Spiritual}, not only do the same, but approve of… Read more »
TERM LIMITS
The sooner this country gets put back on the right path the better.