rumitoid

Something the Right will take as a violation of the 1st Amendment: "Why can't we freely state our animus for Muslims?"; "There is no "peace-building" with these i*****l a***ns and radical Muslims."; "Conflict is needed to defeat these non-white intruders." Hence, their claim of suppressing their 1st Amendment right to spread h**e and fear. Like Infowars. Or other far Right W***e S*********ts and White Nationalists. Why not let them spew their d********g bile?

Then again, the Left's relentless attack on everything Trump and his supporters, portraying both as stupid, mean-spirited, and greedy.

"Conflict prevention" and "peace-building" without censorship is fine, yet it sounds like a clear threat to the 1st Amendment. Suppression seems implied by these politically correct phrases for any provocative posts. But a need for decent and civil discourse is growing crucial. The nation is being steadily and relentlessly pulled apart, destroyed from within by our ever-deepening d******eness. We need a moratorium! A month of detente. A Time-out! Or America is gone. And both sides will be equally responsible for it, "patriots" and "demons" alike.

JW

It's too late. It was too late in 1968.

rumitoid

Interesting. Why?

JW

The SDS formed in 1962. By 1968, the Weather Underground was already manifested as a d******c t*******t organization. Political violence had once more raised its ugly head in the USA and that time no one tried to create a climate of moral outrage to counter it because of the national tension over the Viet Nam war. Not even the '68 Democratic convention was safe from violence. When Bobby Kennedy was murdered to terminate his probable e******n to the Presidency, it was reacted to as if it was just another political execution of just another Kennedy. When Martin Luther King was assassinated also in 1968 and half of the country celebrated, it was clear that political violence was now a legitimate tool of the shadowy forces in the country. Jackie Kennedy very publicly took her two children and left the country, sending the message that she had no longer had any hope for the nation.

By 1968, the nation had committed itself to a course toward civil war.

The attitude of the government became, "We can do wh**ever we damn well please" and Nixon/Agnew demonstrated an utter disrespect of the Constitution and the facts of American law. The attitudes of the people in the country were such that one half wanted the other half to leave since they didn't love it the right way. The right way was determined by those who wanted the other half to leave. The bulk of the population was trying to come to terms with the negative reporting over the war, hundreds of thousands of young men fleeing to Canada and Europe, and a permanent rift was set in stone between the Right and the Left. If you need proof, consider how quickly national unity dissipated after 9/11. In a matter of weeks, Bush was being condemned for his "mission accomplished" bravado.

There is no going back from where we are today to the kind of national unity we experienced in the 50s. The resolution will come in a shattering of the American nation, aided immeasurably by the lunacy of multi-culturalism, and an escalating violence not seen on American soil since the Civil War.

rumitoid

When we think of the tumultuous times leading up to and then after the Civil War, no one would think this nation could survive. We were never more fiercely and adamantly divided. And here we here, still a nation, although maybe in a similar place.

For me, the spirit of Liberty that was born in 1776 gets deep in the marrow, becomes part of our DNA. We will push our differences to the bring, ready for secession or armed conflict, but something will help bring us back together. 9/11 brought out the fear in all Americans. It made most of us tribal. The hidden minutia of our biases became conscious prejudices. What many once ignored or tolerated, became intense sticking points. The brutal unknown that was 9/11 had blown a large hole in the sense of our personal security. Walls were quickly built, defenses raised to anything outside a tight circle. The world and our relationships became starkly black and white: this is good and this is evil. No room for questions or discussions. We all needed solid ground. Fear does that--and appears as highly reasonable and just, even wise. We would be stupid or foolish not to follow its lead, irresponsible to country, family, friends, and ourselves. That lie persists. Such a tall tale will eventually fail. Something will finally wake us up. This country has a lasting destiny.

JW

The nation did not survive. It t***sformed into a construct directed by military force into a wholly different entity. Half of the people in the country found themselves forced to abandon their values and their traditions. The legal institution of statehood was t***smuted into an illusion and the 9th and 10th Amendments to the Constitution became moot. The war terminated the amendments, not the legal process. Those two critical amendments have carried no real weight since.

There are millions of Americans who have been militarily trained and would welcome the opportunity to take up arms once more to set the path of the nation aright. If we are to survive as a nation, the time is near when we must once again decide on a single direction to travel as a people. Either we will use, once more, the force of arms to correct the course of a single great nation or we will divide along moral lines and create several lesser nations.