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Notes -
Has the shot already been fired?
There seems to be an uptick in worst case scenario chatter, people imagining scenarios spiraling out of control until political violence increases up to the level of civil war.
Ignore whether any of these are likely. Assume a world where the US does descend into some sort of organized violence, the low end somewhere along the lines of the Balkans and the high end a slug-out like the Civil War.
When historians (and just assume historians exist, even if they're AI) look back will they identify something that's already happened as one of the primary inciting incidents? I don't think we've had a Fort Sumter but is John Brown's body already marching?
Alternatively - and again only under the pure assumption that it happens, no implication meant as to the probability - if you think it hasn't happened yet, roughly how long until it does?
Just like with John Brown, who killed a couple dozen people in a country of 30 million but whose deeds were spread wide by media and fueled fears, the inciting incident would probably be something that is not actually particularly alarming in itself, but that happens to be spread wide by media both mainstream and social, and that happens to play well on people's existing emotions. Sort of like George Floyd's death, but much more explosive. Which is not to say that George Floyd's death was not alarming, that's a separate conversation, but in the sense that on a national level, the kind of incident that Floyd's death represents is fairly rare. As are assassination attempts.
I do not think that the South seceded because they thought that Lincoln would shoot them up a la John Brown. They simply seceded because their elite's wealth was dependent on slavery, and it was clear that Lincoln would abolish slavery. Slavery was first defeated at the ballot box, and the cartridge box only did its part after Fort Sumter.
My understanding is that southerners were very worried about large-scale slave revolts, having observed long-term the outcome of such a revolt with the Haitian Revolution in 1791. John Brown, a murderous terrorist, made a serious attempt to ignite the same sort of slave revolt in Virginia, and for this was lauded as a hero and martyr by northerners generally, and that contemporary southerners saw this as proof that the northerners held their lives and wellbeing in slight regard.
From the first result for "southerner reactions to john brown":
...And plenty more where that came from. The AI summary:
...And of course, all of this should be obvious with any understanding of who John Brown was and what he actually did. Of course, we understand now that John Brown was in the right when he attempted to secure his moral values through direct, murderous violence against those who disagreed, and of course we understand that similar murderous violence is acceptable when confronted by evil, implacable tyranny backed by force of law. The only wrinkle is that we cannot agree on what constitutes "evil" or "tyranny".
...are you on substack? I feel like a just read an article laying out this same point about John Brown.
One could point out that one way to avoid worries of a slave revolt would be to simply not build your economy on the backs of forced labor from an imported underclass that continues to grow...
Not yet.
Are you under the impression that I disagree with John Brown's actions?
to be honest I was, though perhaps influenced by that substack article. I guess I see how you could read it as acceptable under the circumstances, and then we are just arguing about circumstances.
I have definitely gained some respect for eg the Shane Claiborne's of the world he maintain a strict non-violence standard and just subjecting everything to that.
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