It's Time To Contemplate The Unthinkable

"We were a modern society one day, and then in few weeks it turned into carnage."

One day, Britain was a First World society. The next, civil war was knocking on its door. Life comes at you fast. Source

I came across this tweet the other day:

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As internal instability rises throughout the West, as civil war and revolution once again become potential contingencies, we need to consider what may become of our societies in the process. Peace and tranquility are never givens and history is full of examples of people living side-by-side in harmony, only to viciously turn on one another when hard times arrived. The example above points to Lebanon and the former Yugoslavia, but there are many others. It’s heart-breaking to think about, but people have lived it. They’re still living it all over the world.

Consider how much conflict exists on a daily basis in a given society, even one as orderly as ours. Why would there exist less conflict during a crisis? Like most things we talk about here, don’t over-think: you see in your own personal lives how even the closest of family and friends can end up at each other’s throats during hard times. The reality is, there always exists a certain level of tension in any relationship. During good times, it’s easy to keep that tension below the surface. In difficult times, that becomes more difficult. Obviously, the stronger the ties, the more resilient those relationships prove, even when subjected to strain.

The problem is that strong ties are severely lacking in the U.S. Like in the UK, social unity is difficult to come by here. The atomization of American society is a well-documented phenomenon and relentless national self-criticism, encouraged by the elites, has become relentless national self-loathing. This isn’t a country that’s suddenly going to become unified again when a crisis hits. If you think I’m wrong, have you forgotten 2020? After a brief moment of unity, it all unraveled in days.

That was a pandemic. Now imagine a foreign war. Do you remember the criticism President Donald Trump received from leftists when he killed people like Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of ISIS and Qasem Soleimani of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard? We used to broadly celebrate such things. Now they’re as partisan as the gun control debate. Combined with the hostility those in charge of the military - which includes the current president - expresses towards those they’re charged with protecting, do you honestly believe Americans are going to present the united front we exhibited following 9/11?

Civil wars and revolutions are polarizing by nature. If we already can’t stand each other over politics now, there’s no reason to think all of us “normal” people will manage to maintain our sanity and continue to treat our neighbors with respect and dignity despite being on opposite sides when a conflict erupts. Many of us like to believe we’re above it all, that partisanship is something only a minority of us engage in, but that’s not true. When push comes to shove, we all pick sides. We either don’t realize that we did, or we rationalize post-facto. Sometimes, the side is chosen for us. This is the nature of conflict; there’s no escaping it.

The great crisis of our time is that these various multicultural, multiethnic, multiracial experiments - a.k.a. “diversity” - are now running into limits imposed by nature. Instead of correcting course, instead of confronting reality, however, the elites of the West are doubling down on failure. Regular readers ought to know by now I think this is intentional, but whether it is or isn’t, the result is what matters most. If something doesn’t work, leaders have a responsibility to make the necessary adjustments, the same way the managing staff of a professional sports club needs to do the same when the team under-performs. They’re not, however, instead blaming their own people for refusing to suffer silently. Elites not only share a universally positive view of diversity, they cannot empathize with anyone who may have reason to feel differently.

British pop-historian Dan Snow’s remarks are emblematic of elite opinion on diversity:

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Never mind that Dan Snow is highly privileged, residing in a £10 million mansion isolated from other residents of Britain. Never mind that Snow lives somewhere that’s demographically almost 100 percent White. It’s not that Snow isn’t in a position to voice his opinions, it’s that his experience with diversity isn’t universal, whether in Britain or abroad. Most people’s experience with diversity throughout the West is more nuanced; mostly good, but lots of bad mixed in. When it gets bad, it gets really bad.

The reality is, diversity requires lots of fine-tuning to manage. In our decadent era, we’ve forgotten what a challenge it really is to get people to get along in general. Throw in different cultures, grievances, histories, religious beliefs, and talents, the challenge intensifies. If our better angels don’t always prevail even in homogeneous societies, why would anyone expect otherwise in heterogeneous societies? The cream doesn’t always rise to the top when there’s a lot of different ingredients in the mix.

Here’s Lee Kuan Yew, founder of Singapore and, in my opinion, the gold standard for national leadership, once said about what it took to successfully manage the difficulties posed by his society’s multiculturalism:

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Singapore isn’t a democracy. Not by Western standards, anyway. Yet it’s an example of multiculturalism done right, with little ethnic nor racial strife, managing to become one of the safest, most prosperous societies in history. If we want a diverse, yet tranquil society, long-term, it won’t happen under democracy. Not the kind of democracy which prevails in the West, anyway. Democracy allows everyone to bring their grievances to the public square, but without a powerful (read: authoritarian) moderating force, this will only result in irreconcilable conflict. This is a phenomenon foundational scholars like Aristotle observed thousands of years ago. I think history proved him correct time and again. Economics has allowed the West to assuage a lot of these grievances, but it’s impossible to buy people off forever. Either the money runs out, or people decide their lives don’t have a price tag attached to them.

Our Relationships Are Never As Straightforward As They Seem

Tracking back to Dan Snow’s comments, the hyper-individualism of the West causes us to wrongly conflate personal dynamics with group dynamics. Because I get along with my neighbor/co-worker/friend of a different race/ethnicity/religion, I’ll get along with them as a group as well. Again, look to your personal lives to assess the validity of this claim: how many of us really behave the same towards others on a personal versus group level?

All us men have met that girl who’s nice to us in person, but treats us like a stranger when she’s with her friends. Don’t take it personally; her status within her group depends on her keeping you at a distance. We’ve also all had co-workers who live far away from work because they prefer to be around less people or, in some cases, a different mix of people. Yet that co-worker also happens to be the most dependable, most productive of employees. Where people work and where people live aren’t the same thing. Social relations can be complicated.

All this is to say that people can get along for the most part, but when conflict arises is when you see who people really are. There are plenty of stories out there of friendships, even families that fractured over politics. I keep asking: if this is what happens in the good times, what do you expect to happen in the bad times? There’s no real mystery here, is there?

The only mystery are the lines along which the fracturing will occur. But there shouldn’t be that much controversy when anyone says that appalling violence can take place between Americans similar to what was seen in places like Lebanon, Northern Ireland, or the former Yugoslavia. As the anti-American Left never fails to point out, racial violence was quite common in America, even within the last 100 years. Go back to the Revolution and you see neighbors treating each other with tremendous cruelty, even after the U.S. won its independence. We aren’t better people, we’re just more civilized and we’ve been conditioned to forget, for good and ill. But change the circumstances, along with the incentives, and those primal instincts re-surface. We are what we are.

Divided States Of America

It’s my intention to warn, but never frighten anyone, as terrifying as the subject matter can often be. One way to diminish the fear is to be as realistic as possible. Realism is the great moderator, since it gets our wild imaginations under control and forces us to quit obsessing over the “what-ifs?”, instead getting us to focus on what’s actually happening. So what’s the reality of division today?

It’s different in every society. In the U.S., we are fortunate enough not to have ethnic divisions. Samuel Huntington noted almost 20 years ago that ethnicity ceased to be a primary identifying marker for most Americans over a century ago. At it an individual level, it remains, but again, we’re talking about group dynamics. Most Americans identify first and foremost by nationality or race. Geographic identification is also mostly a thing of the past, due to high levels of internal migration and the fact nobody’s wedded to the land in a post-agrarian society. That and the fact the U.S. is such a massive geographical expanse with so many millions of people, unless it were actually many countries in one, a citizen may as well consider every square mile of this land to be of theirs, as many in fact do.

America also isn’t a sectarian society. That is, our society isn’t built around culturally and socially distinct communities which may interact in public, but ultimately live segregated from one another. Class appears to be a bigger determinant of how Americans sort themselves and there’s absolutely a cultural component, but these aren’t well-defined enough to constitute distinct identities which can be defined as “sects.” Much of this is due to individualism; we’ve been conditioned to see ourselves and others not as members of groups, but as people whose entire identity is built around themselves alone.

But humans are social creatures, so group identification is inevitable. Ironically, the more atomized we become, the more we seek refuge in broad, large collective identities. Race is one such example, but so are political factions. Both the Left and Right are vast coalitions comprising millions. At a glance, its irrational to build one’s identity out of something so big, so diffuse, so impersonal. But if we couldn’t get people to do that, we’d never have nation states. It’s not easy getting large numbers of humans to submit to authority, after all. Having us identify as small parts of a much greater whole is one way of doing that.

This isn’t a sociological lesson, so my point is that Americans today identify themselves by nationality, race, sexual identity, and political faction. It’s a mix of derived and fixed identities, which makes for an interesting dynamic versus societies where identities are formed primarily along ethnic or national lines. Any fracturing which occurs in the U.S. will fall along those four lines. Yet, at the end of the day, there can only be really two sides. I know in the past I argued there are actually three sides in the coming conflict, but ultimately, that third side is siding with one of the other two.

I think the two sides will be predominantly defined by three features: level of nationalistic sentiment, racial attitudes, and how strongly one identifies with the Left or the Right. Geography will mostly not play a role here. The Blue-Red state divide will play a role, but it won’t break down along state lines, not strictly.

Let’s take a glance at these two factions, which I will refer to as the “Patriots” and the “Loyalists,” for a lack of better terms (they were used to describe the two factions during the American Revolution):

• Patriots: The right-leaning faction, they’re represented politically by the Republican Party. Despite being the dissident faction, they’re dominated by the White racial majority, with a minority of other races mixed in. Percentage-wise, they’ll reflect the demographics of the country at-large. Though lacking the blunt racialism of the Loyalists, they are more “realist” on the matter of race. They are also more nationalistic, nativist, and more traditionally-oriented in terms of values, though social conservatism is less of a feature than it might’ve been in the past. Patriots are less religious than in the past, but the more Christian-friendly faction. Owing to their belief in the importance of gun ownership, they possess more arms than the armed forces of many countries. In addition, a plurality, if not a majority, of military servicemembers, law enforcement, and other first responders align with this faction. Economically, they are middle- and working-class-centered, with roughly half the upper-class on their side.

• Loyalists: The left-leaning faction, they’re represented politically by the Democratic Party. As their name implies, they’re loyal to the Regime, so they’re the faction in power. They have the federal government, many state and local governments, the major institutions (academia, healthcare, media), and the military leadership specifically on their side. They bear fewer arms than the Patriots due to opposition to gun ownership and because they have the government on their side, though they’re increasingly arming themselves out of fear of the other side. They’re also in an indirect alliance with criminals, who are enabled and abetted by the policies Loyalists support. Demographically, they are diverse, though the racial pecking order has Whites and Blacks up top, the latter having a disproportionate voice in the coalition. However, they are fiercely anti-White, as it is a core component of their belief system. Any Whites not part of this coalition will be subject to immense hostility. Despite their anti-racist claim, they are extremely racialist. On religion, they’re friendly to all religions except Christianity, specifically the denominations where Whites predominate. Economically, they are also diverse, though the largest blocs tend to be the lower class, the professional class, urbanites, and college-educated. Ideologically, they are strongly leftist, feminist, culturally Marxist, what we today call “Woke.” If you haven’t noticed, their values are America’s dominant values today.

Americans will fall into one of these two camps. There won’t be a moderate group; not only has there not been one for a long time, conflicts by their nature don’t allow for a moderate force to exist. Anyone who thinks they don’t align with either side will end up on one or the other due to social connections, geography, or because they genuinely lean towards one side more than the other. Neutrality simply isn’t an option, nor is it even feasible.

The fact is, many of the people we know today will end up facing us on the opposite side. It’s hard to fathom, but I keep bringing this up because it’s something we need to come to terms with now. There won’t be time for it later. A part of me honestly hates writing this, but as a realist, I’d rather confront the truth in all its awfulness than to hope everything just works itself out in the end. It will, but not in the way we wish. Your progressive friend may be dear and loyal to you. I’ve had many progressive friends. But there’s a good chance they’re going to see you as their sworn enemy in just a few years. They don’t even need to hate you. They just need to be on the opposite side. You won’t feel so different about them, either.

These days, the wisdom of Selco Begovic is more significant than ever before. Here he is, talking about how a multinational society came undone:

For decades they built one society through the Socialistic system, where it was actually pushed that different nationalities are all the same, and all one nation. Suddenly everything collapsed into bloody civil wars.

The Socialistic society tried to invent something not completely new. There were attempts like that before, to make “one nation between South Slavs” in order to be stronger and better in any way.

It is a very personal feeling and opinion, so it depends on who you ask. But yes, there was a very strong feeling of unity, power, and the idea that we were unique under the sun, maybe even better than others. We made something powerful from different pieces, histories, wishes, and whatever. It was unique and powerful, where every man felt that his society was best and invincible to outer invaders.

At the end, it felt apart. It was rotten from the inside, with a lot of help from the outside.

Our history of hate, centuries of hate and wars between us was brought back through the feelings of “democracy” and “human rights.” We had the right to know the truth, the right to know what really happened through history.

Thousands of historic monuments were brought down at the beginning of that process. New movements were marching, protesting, demanding lots of different things. Strange new saviors emerged, each one for his own option (nationality in this case).

Through the “revising” of history, hate emerged.

Sometimes the revision of history was the truth. In other cases, years later, we found out that it was fake. But in both cases, it worked only one way – to fuel new hatred and divisions, or to refuel old ones.

History was actually used (real and fake one) to bring divisions between people gradually at higher and higher levels.

History that was supposed to be just that – history – was used to bring more hate.

By blaming mistakes from history on the people in the present time we opened a Pandora’s box. All that came out was chaos.

Remember: all this happened in a relatively short period of time. Yugoslavia disintegrated in 1992, with the war in Bosnia beginning the same year. The violence didn’t just all start one day, though. It happened slowly, but many people didn’t grasp how dangerous the situation was until the war showed up where they lived. By then, it was too late.

America isn’t Yugoslavia and I don’t believe things will get as bad it did in the post-Yugoslavia Balkans. But you can definitely see similarities between what happened there versus what’s happening here. Like a recipe, results vary, but the process is the same. The unity lasts until it doesn’t. America today is united in name only.

It’s pricey, but I recommend you buy the course “One Year In Hell” at the website SHTF School. It’s a series of interviews with Selco Begovic describing his experiences during the Bosnian War. It’s all interesting, but what I personally found most fascinating are the parts where he described the year, then the months, then the weeks, down to the days leading up to the outbreak of war. He talks about how everyone got along, how he had friends of all different backgrounds, and how even inter-ethnic marriages existed. Nobody thought there was any way a war could break out. Until, again, it did.

Begovic describes how, in the time leading up to war, marriages ended in divorce, friendships were lost, and the ranks progressively closed as the situation worsened. America has long since been in a place where many marriages end in divorce over a variety of reasons, friendships are being lost over politics, and we have so little in common, it’s just not possible to associate with those on the other side. We’re not all meant to live together in harmony and that’s fine. It’s a problem when we’re forced to. Someone has to give. But who would?

When studying civil conflict all around the world, there are two common traits they all share: nobody thought it could happen where they lived and when it did, it happened so suddenly. Yes, there were warning signs and Begovic says the same. Yes, eventually, people do accept reality, but they often accept it far too late. Even if they do so before the shooting starts, there’s still a significant level of normalcy bias: seeing it as a temporary crisis, like a natural disaster, one where the authorities will eventually restore order and everyone will go back to living like pre-crisis, insurance will cover any losses, etc.

If a civil war does happen in America, expect to see the same thing. Nobody will want to hear your warnings, despite the alarms bells going off, because it ruins their good times. As the situation worsens, eventually, more people will become concerned. Political arguments will become even more heated, maybe even turn into physical violence. You’ll perceive others differently, become more suspicious of them, even those you know intimately. Relationships will end, often abruptly, without even a word said. Even family gatherings, already politically fraught to the point the “experts” need to tell us how to behave ourselves during Thanksgiving dinner, may become impossible. Certain places will become the refuge of one faction or the other. It’s no way to live, but it’s what happens to a society in conflict. Even at lower levels of intensity as opposed to outright civil war, the divisiveness such a conflict would create the same effect.

I’ll close this section out with something else Selco Begovic once said. It’s been repeating in my head since the assassination attempt on President Donald Trump [bold original]:

To simplify the explanation why violence was common and very brutal, you need to picture a situation where you are “bombarded” with huge amount of information (propaganda) which instills in you very strong feelings of fear and hate.

Out of fear and hate, violence grows easy and fast, and over the very short period of time you see how people around you (including you) do things that you could not imagine before.

I can say that violence was almost an everyday thing in the whole spectrum of different activities because it was a fight for survival.

Again, whenever (and wherever) you put people in a region without enough resources, you can expect violence.

We were living a normal life, and then suddenly we were thrown in a way of living where if you could not “negotiate” something with someone, you solve the problem by launching a rocket from an RPG through the window of his living room.

Hate stripped down the layers of humanity and suddenly it was “normal” to level an apartment building with people inside with shells from a tank or form private prisons with imprisoned civilians for slave work or sex slaves.

Nothing that I saw or read before could have prepared me for the level of violence and blindness to it, for the lives of kids, elders, civilians, and the innocent.

Again, the thing that is important for readers is that we were a modern society one day, and then in few weeks it turned into carnage.

Do not make the mistake of saying “it cannot happen here” because I made that mistake too.

Do not underestimate power of propaganda, fear, hate, and the lowest human instincts, no matter how modern and good your society is right now and how deeply you believe that “it can not happen here”.

The lesson isn’t that someone’s going to send an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) into your living room. The lesson is that when you’re conditioned by the elites to hate and fear your own countrymen, to believe they pose a threat to “democracy,” when resources become scarce, terrible things will happen. It may not get as bad as it did in Bosnia, though that’s not the point, either. The point is, there will be violence, none of us will be truly prepared for it, and when it unravels, it’ll unravel rapidly, faster than we can keep up.

It happened in America before too. It may happen again in our lifetimes. It may not. Just don’t make the mistake of thinking it never could.

Where Does The Military Fit Into The Picture?

The question of what becomes of the U.S. armed forces in the impending divide is likely the most critical question of all. It also constitutes a discussion all it’s own. Still, it’s worth sharing a few thoughts on what becomes of the military.

The U.S. military is an institution lacking political power. However, it’s highly susceptible to political influence. It’s ability to affect policymaking is minimal, but it can be used by policymakers for political effect. Likewise, the military can use relationships cultivated with politicians to the institution’s benefit.

This means the military is vulnerable to politicization, despite lacking political power. In fact, we’ve seen an alarming degree of politicization of the armed forces the last several years, despite military leadership still claiming to be a non-partisan institution. Strictly taken, it’s true - the military doesn’t openly express allegiance to either the Left nor Right, Democrat nor Republican Party. However, as it’s the Regime’s armed wing and has proven easily subverted by political leadership, the military cannot be seen as a non-partisan entity any longer, especially as the services increasingly peddle talking points similar to what you’d find in the Democratic Party’s policy platform.

I noted earlier that a large percentage of servicemembers align with right-leaning Patriot faction, while the leadership aligns with the far-left Loyalist faction. You often see a similar split throughout history; the senior leadership favors one side, while more junior, unit-level officers and the enlisted side with the other. Other times, you see the military rebelling against those in power, but I don’t think this is what’s going to happen in the U.S., especially if such a split in alignment exists in the services.

It’s still a mostly open question what’ll become of the military during the Fourth Turning. The only certainty is that they’ll play a major role - it always does - the accompanying question being whether they’ll be training their guns outward or inward. I think it’s going to be inward, but again, that’s my hypothesis. If you want more specifics, I see the U.S. military in the same position as the Soviet Armed Forces in the late stages of communism. They’re too deeply beholden to the Regime, yet too weak to legitimize them. I can’t say for certain that’s where they’re at - I think the peak of the Regime’s power is yet to come - but when the critical moment is reached, I think the U.S. military will collapse the same way the Soviet military did. By collapse, I mean the military is no longer able to carry out its orders, whether against an external enemy or an internal enemy.

As for a fracturing of the ranks, I see this as something occurring at lower levels, though I don’t see full-blown rebellion by entire units. This is something which didn’t happen to the Soviet military in its final days, either. National Guard and state militias are a different story; they’ve proven far less reliable throughout American history. But the active-duty military will, for the most part, remain at their posts, just awaiting orders that never come, or find themselves unable to carry out their orders.

Appreciate Those You Have In Your Life

Is there any way to prepare for all this? Yes, but do so with the understanding there are some things you just won’t be able to prepare for. If a friend or, God forbid, a family member decides they need to be on the other side in opposition to yours, they’re going to go to the other side. You may be able to convince them not to, but you also may not be successful in doing so, either. I’m not saying this to scare anyone, but it’s just what happens in a civil conflict. It splits families and friends apart. I wish it weren’t so.

That said, your family should always be your first and last refuge. We are nothing without our families. Even if you can’t be with them, ensure you are regularly checking up on them and rendering assistance any way you can. Even when driven apart by conflict, most of us will remain associated with our families, because they’re what’s most familiar to us. In times of crisis, we revert to what we know best. Our family situations are all different, but unless yours is already broken, begin reinforcing your relationships now by checking up on them more often, doing favors, maybe even address longstanding issues that may exist between you. Something as simple as maintaining contact through daily text messages goes a long way towards maintaining strong ties.

Another practical way to prepare is create a Mutual Assistance Group (MAG). I discussed it in detail earlier this year, but a MAG is a group of people, both related and unrelated, willing to assist one another in an emergency. MAGs are useful even in tranquil times, but they’ll become tremendously vital during an SHTF. Your MAG need not necessarily be your friends, nor do they necessarily need to be your neighbors (though that’s highly desirable). They just need to be people who understand the necessity of preparedness, which clearly isn’t most, they must be local, and they must be those who share a similar mindset, values, and must not be part of the opposing faction.

I emphasized the importance of being discretionary when selecting people for your MAG:

Your Friends May Not Be Reliable In An SHTF

This one’s a tough pill to swallow. During times of stability, it’s easy to get along with anyone. In the past, this wasn’t always the case, even when there was no SHTF happening. Civilization today makes it possible for people from different walks of life with equally different, often clashing, value systems to live among each other without much issue. It even allows us to be friends with people who differ vastly from us.

During an SHTF, that’ll change. SHTFs expose us to the harsh realities of life and are often situations where there are more resources than people. Like the old saying goes, “When the chips are down, you find out who your friends are.” You’ll discover that some people aren’t that reliable during a crisis and often become incapable of functioning. Others have personalities that are incompatible with yours, becoming even more so during emergencies. Someone who’s an annoyance to you or you have minor squabbles with during the good times will become absolutely insufferable during the bad times. We’re not meant to live with everyone.

Diversity won’t be a strength during an SHTF. It’s not really a strength to begin with. Diversity creates conflict that otherwise wouldn’t exist with a more homogeneous group. Look at the amount of fine-tuning our society needs to engage in to keep the peace between various groups of people. This isn’t an argument against diversity, per se and diversity isn’t the only reason why conflict arises between people. It’s, however, a reminder that diversity won’t make your MAG better. Some cultures are stronger than others and simply won’t follow anyone else’s lead or insist on looking after themselves first and foremost. The unfortunate truth is that SHTF tends to fracture social unity, even if everyone comes together in solidarity at the beginning of a crisis.

You ought to be careful about whom you associate with at all times. You are the company you keep, after all. During an SHTF, however, you will need to be even more discriminatory about who you allow into your circle of trust.

If friendships or even familial relations cannot survive violent conflict, doesn’t that underscore the necessity of having people who belong to the same faction as you in your MAG, tribe, whatever you want to call it? A prepper on the other side of that line in the sand is just not going to be a part of your group, because the divide is what created the conflict in the first place. Some may be willing to be a part of your group simply for the sake of survival, depending on how bad the situation becomes, but this arrangement won’t last long. There’s no way, since they want their side to win, not yours.

In fact, ensuring they’re on the same side of the divide as you is more important than whether they’re your friends or not. Obviously, it’s better if these are the types of people you have BBQs or go on outings with, but loyalty and reliability are the two key ingredients. During an SHTF, that group needs to come together and cooperate during a highly stressful time. Sometimes, the closeness of relations can pose a liability, since intimate social relations plus stress heightens emotions.

In another context, I’ve found that the best housemates I ever had, along with roommates during group vacations, were people I never ended up forging a close relationship with. It wasn’t that we weren’t on friendly terms - we absolutely were - it’s just that outside that space we shared, we led separate lives. It’s almost like that separation allowed us to respect each other’s boundaries, while also cooperating when needed. I mention this because this serves as a good template for the kind of people you want in your MAG. You may find that not all your family, friends, and close associations may want to be a part of your group, at least initially. They may consider it akin to a militia, have strong normalcy bias, or they may align with the opposing faction. You’ll have no choice but to join forces with those you aren’t close to, but are at least like-minded. They may end up being more reliable in an SHTF than even your closest relations.

Read up on the experiences those who lived through civil war as well. There’s only so much you can learn from those here in America who talk about it, because so few of our fellow citizens have lived it, for which there’s no substitute. You’ll discover that a lot of the people who talk about it, but never lived it, don’t know as much as they claim to. Selco Begovic is among the best sources, but there are others. If you know someone in your life who survived a civil war, consider yourself fortunate. Pick their brains as much as they’ll allow.

Lastly, enjoy the time we have today with people from all walks of life. America’s multicultural, pluralistic society is inherently unstable, so we ought to be grateful it’s proven as stable for as long as it has, no matter its drawbacks. Maybe we’re all meant to part ways in the end, but until that day comes, treat one another with dignity and respect, the way you’d want to be treated. The line between good and evil runs down the middle of each of our hearts. The kind of person we are today will go a long way towards determining what sort of person we become when SHTF happens.

We’ll be tested in unimaginable ways as individuals, as families, and as a society. Let’s not lose our souls in the process.

The Stuff Will Hit The Fan. You Can Count On It.

As we close out this discussion, look at the results of a recent poll from Britain concerning its increasingly problematic relationship with foreigners in their country:

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Those are stunning numbers. Something needs to be done about the 30-some percent of Brits who think violence is an acceptable remedy for the immigration problem. The question is, just how committed is the British regime to multiculturalism? Is it something they’re willing to go to war against their own people over? Are they willing to imprison or even kill large numbers of British over this? After all, they’re arresting 12-year-olds for participating in the riots. They’re threatening to extradite and imprison Americans - yes, Americans - for social media posts they don’t like. What do they think it’ll accomplish in the end? Peace? Where does the British military stand in all this?

Much uncertainty lies ahead for Britain, along with America. What’s for certain is that this is a dangerous time for us all. Our ancestral homeland is just ahead in the timeline. They’re also dealing with an increasingly problematic economy, meaning, blunt force aside, there’s not much left to keep a lid on things over there. What’s happening to Britain is a glimpse of the future, a look at what happens to a multicultural society without strong (not the same as oppressive) governance, without any binding ties, with a two-tiered structure. It’s also a real-time example of just how quickly it all unravels: we were a modern society one day, and then in few weeks it turned into carnage. If you still don’t get it, you never will, until the war shows up in your neighborhood.

Though this account is speaking of ethnic conflict specifically, I think this applies to civil conflict more generally:

Source

Enough from me. What are your thoughts on anything discussed? How far or near do you think we are to civil war? Have any of your personal relationships been negatively impacted by the growing political factionalism? What are you doing to prepare for the day it all comes apart? Finally, here’s your chance to be creative: what do you think our two conflicting factions will come to be called by history?

Talk about it in the comments section.

Max Remington writes about armed conflict and prepping. Follow him on Twitter at @AgentMax90.

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