This week, Republican governors across the country escalated their conflict with the Biden administration over the southern border by invoking the same legal theory that slave states wielded to justify secession before the Civil War.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, joined by 25 other GOP governors, now argues that the Biden administration has violated the federal government’s “compact” with the states—an abdication that justifies state usurpation of federal authority at the border.
This language embraces the Confederacy’s conception of the Constitution as a mere compact that states may exit when they feel it has been broken. It’s dangerous rhetoric that transcends partisan grandstanding. And as before, it’s being used to legitimize both nullification and dehumanization.
Speeding towards a 21st century version of American civil war doesn’t seem the smartest thing to do. 🙄
Civil War in the U.S. is highly unlikely in the current economy. Firstly because big business would never allow that kind of hit to the stock market, but also because you’re not going to get people leaving their families and going to the front lines when everyone is living paycheck-to-paycheck without a draft and good luck with trying to institute a draft.
Plus they would have to put down their iphones to go fight and give up their gaming.
but also because you’re not going to get people leaving their families and going to the front lines when everyone is living paycheck-to-paycheck without a draft and good luck with trying to institute a draft.
Sure you are. One of the first things every civil war starts out doing is paying soldiery. What better way to lure those living paycheck-to-paycheck than offering them a paycheck AND a cause?
Pay them with what? What money do you think Texas has?
Texas is in the top five states that receive federal aid.
And before you say oil, how are they going to export it with the US Navy blockading them? They don’t have the ships to go up against the US Navy.
Also… ya know, a big mismatch in technology. Sure a lot of folks have ARs and shit, some folks have Barret .50 cal sniper rifles. None of them have a fucking AH-64E Apache.
The usual comeback is “well, look at where the bases are!”
I don’t think it’s a coincidence they are located in the south.
As opposed to a 21st century version of the Jim Crow century? Ceding lawful Federal authority to ultraconservative states is nothing less than a cession of the rights of US society to ultraconservative cretins, and is notoriously hard to reverse.
Yeah. My thinking is that a forceful response by the US government will end up more “Ruby Bridges” than “Sherman’s March”, but we also must be ready for the latter if the GOP proves insane enough to escalate. I think it was Sherman who once wrote that the wages of tolerating secession would be eternal war, as local powers squabble and quarrel and attempt to oppress one another, and the central government becomes powerless and eventually withers away - or becomes authoritarian as people (foolishly) begin to yearn for a ‘strong man’ to restore order.
