"Anton should consider himself lucky. The Civil War he dreams of will never happen, so he’ll be spared the ignominy experienced by his precursors. "
How do we know that a Civil war will never happen? Anton's ideologic peers are spoiling for a fight. The Duel is also a tradition befitting old-school masculine ideas of "gallantry, chivalry, and honor".
They keep testing the boundaries of institutional norms trying to get a response...they want the equivalent of a duel to avenge slights against their honor, and I worry that the provocations will continue until some kind of fight ensues. Bloodshed is 'unthinkable' but it has already happened.
US Grant did not think that the Confederate inability to recruit slaves was a disadvantage. He viewed it as a Confederate advantage, if anything. Somebody had to stay home and do the work on both sides. btw, Confederate general Pat Cleburne advocated for recruiting slaves in return for manumission--an old Revolutionary War trick. Nobody listened to him while he was alive, and the desperate Confederate attempts to do so in 1865 were too late.
Grant halfway bought into Confederate martial ideology. He granted the Confederates more "dash", but saved persistence for the Union side. (The Japanese in WWII made the same calculation as the Confederates--that their purportedly greater fighting spirit would compensate for their patent material disadvantage.)
When I game out the concept of dividing the U.S. in my head the thing that sticks is the prohibitive strength of the legacy government's bargaining position against the breakaway republics. Look at the problems the UK is having with Brexit when (a) there was a mechanism for voluntarily leaving the EU, (b) they had only been in it for 40 years, and (c) the UK had retained their own currency, and you see the impracticality of it. The legacy government controls the treasury, probably retains control of most of the armed forces and almost certainly the entirety of the navy, and retains the very valuable brand name United States of America. The economies of the states have been intertwining themselves with each other for 245 years without a thought of maintaining separability. The breakaway republics would have the choice of either using a currency over which they have absolutely no control or each trying to establish their own, and the short version of that is they wind up using a currency they don't control. I imagine the negotiations over the division of the treasury going as follows:
Breakaway Republic: "So, I assume you're going to want to do the right thing and give us our proportional share of the national wealth."
Legacy Government: "You actually think that's going to happen, don't you? That's just adorable! I'm going to have to tell the President, Sandy'll get a real kick out of that. No, no, we're friends, we're friends, let's just figure this out on the back an envelope . . . hmmm hmmm hmm take out your share of the national debt . . . You owe us 10 trillion dollars."
I would figure the United States to be something like Rome, able to sustain itself through centuries of terminal decadence through the sheer strength of the apparatus, to be followed after it finally falls apart by various entities claiming to be a continuation of the United States. One thing I think is an absolute certainty is that if the United States were to break up into separate nations, sooner or later those nations would be at war with each other, probably chronically.
"Anton should consider himself lucky. The Civil War he dreams of will never happen, so he’ll be spared the ignominy experienced by his precursors. "
How do we know that a Civil war will never happen? Anton's ideologic peers are spoiling for a fight. The Duel is also a tradition befitting old-school masculine ideas of "gallantry, chivalry, and honor".
They keep testing the boundaries of institutional norms trying to get a response...they want the equivalent of a duel to avenge slights against their honor, and I worry that the provocations will continue until some kind of fight ensues. Bloodshed is 'unthinkable' but it has already happened.
If it came down to it, Michael Anton would easily beat this jeet guy in a fight
US Grant did not think that the Confederate inability to recruit slaves was a disadvantage. He viewed it as a Confederate advantage, if anything. Somebody had to stay home and do the work on both sides. btw, Confederate general Pat Cleburne advocated for recruiting slaves in return for manumission--an old Revolutionary War trick. Nobody listened to him while he was alive, and the desperate Confederate attempts to do so in 1865 were too late.
Grant halfway bought into Confederate martial ideology. He granted the Confederates more "dash", but saved persistence for the Union side. (The Japanese in WWII made the same calculation as the Confederates--that their purportedly greater fighting spirit would compensate for their patent material disadvantage.)
Time to let the Jeet insect know he has been listed. Only one way to get his name crossed of The List.
When I game out the concept of dividing the U.S. in my head the thing that sticks is the prohibitive strength of the legacy government's bargaining position against the breakaway republics. Look at the problems the UK is having with Brexit when (a) there was a mechanism for voluntarily leaving the EU, (b) they had only been in it for 40 years, and (c) the UK had retained their own currency, and you see the impracticality of it. The legacy government controls the treasury, probably retains control of most of the armed forces and almost certainly the entirety of the navy, and retains the very valuable brand name United States of America. The economies of the states have been intertwining themselves with each other for 245 years without a thought of maintaining separability. The breakaway republics would have the choice of either using a currency over which they have absolutely no control or each trying to establish their own, and the short version of that is they wind up using a currency they don't control. I imagine the negotiations over the division of the treasury going as follows:
Breakaway Republic: "So, I assume you're going to want to do the right thing and give us our proportional share of the national wealth."
Legacy Government: "You actually think that's going to happen, don't you? That's just adorable! I'm going to have to tell the President, Sandy'll get a real kick out of that. No, no, we're friends, we're friends, let's just figure this out on the back an envelope . . . hmmm hmmm hmm take out your share of the national debt . . . You owe us 10 trillion dollars."
I would figure the United States to be something like Rome, able to sustain itself through centuries of terminal decadence through the sheer strength of the apparatus, to be followed after it finally falls apart by various entities claiming to be a continuation of the United States. One thing I think is an absolute certainty is that if the United States were to break up into separate nations, sooner or later those nations would be at war with each other, probably chronically.
Great essay, thanks. I cited it in my substack, here: https://trysterotapes.substack.com/p/touting-civil-war
"succession" should read "secession"