Episode 41. February 1, 2020.

 

CLP topic category: Irreconcilable Differences

An American Conservative Revolution In the Midst of A Socialist Civil War

Introduction: The Difference Between the American Socialist Civil War and the Second American Revolution.

David Armitage's book, War, Civil War, or Revolution, (2017), provides a useful method to understand the current constitutional crisis in America.

According to Armitage, a civil war emphasizes the essential unity of the combatants, after the war ends, while a revolution involves a civil dissolution of the existing order.

Applying Armitage’s definition, the American socialists are engaged in a civil war with conservative patriots, because socialists want both sides to “remain members of the same political community,” after the end of the socialist civil war.

The socialist logic for continuing the existing constitutional arrangement is easy to understand: the socialists need the middle class and wealthy to continue to contribute their taxes and wealth to the socialist elites, because the socialist regime cannot function without exploitation of the wealthy.

Armitage explains that revolution involves the overthrow of the existing constitutional arrangement, and replacing the old regime with a new regime.

In other words, in a revolution, the people tearing each other apart do not share a common culture and political community. In fact, as Professor Thompson reminds us, “the two sides hate each other,” and share no common or cultural values.

In contrast to the unity of the combatants at the end of a civil war, the two sides in a revolution have no on-going relationship with each other because one of the sides does not exist, anymore.

This is the stage of conflict in America today between Democrat socialists and conservatives. The socialists despise non-socialists, and share no values with the founding principles of the nation.

But, the socialists need their hated capitalist system to keep functioning, at the end of the civil war, because capitalism generates tax revenues.

If they achieve victory of their socialist civil war, they will seek to rule non-socialists in a one-party, totalitarian government, under the guise of the current Constitution.

The solution for conservative patriots is to recognize the irreconcilable values with Democrat socialists, and engage in a revolution to form a new nation that reclaims the principles of liberty.

In the second American Revolution, conservatives seek an unconditional, permanent split with the socialists.

In other words, the conservatives must win the second American revolution in order to divorce themselves from the socialist tyranny, after the civil war.

From the socialist perspective, their hatred of conservatives is engendered by the Marxist ideology of class hatred between the capitalist class and the working class.

 Professor Thompson, of Clemson, writes,

“It is not an exaggeration to suggest that liberal and conservative Americans hate each other. There are now two Americas and the division is not between “haves” and “have nots” or between whites and blacks. The coastal, blue state, Ivy-educated ruling class has contempt for flyover, red state, trailer park deplorables and vice versa. To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, a nation that hates itself cannot stand.”

While Armitage's definitions are useful for understanding the difference between civil war and revolution, his definitions are not useful for explaining America’s first revolution.

In that revolution, a civil war was being fought at the same time that a revolution was being fought to form a new nation. There was a civil war inside of a revolution.

When the British General Clinton changed his strategy from taking New York, in order to focus on taking the Southern states, he ordered several detachments of loyalists in South Carolina to carry the attack against the patriots.

British regulars were not used to any great extent in the Carolina theater.  According to one his