Civil War

Chris and I have talked a bit about the possibility of Civil War. I’m not sure it will happen, mostly because I believe the vast majority of millennials are just too damn lazy to rise up, but also because I trust in Pres. Trump to keep things under control.

However…

I believe Tim Walz and others like him are actively attempting to start a Civil War. I don’t mean that figuratively. I don’t mean it as a metaphor. I believe he actually wants to whip up his constituents to a froth and send them out as cannon fodder against ICE, DHS, and other authorities.

Walz posted this on X on January 7th, after the Good shooting. A number of conservative friends said it was just Walz posturing, flapping his arms and making noise to stay relevant. I don’t think so. His words were exceptionally clear: “To Donald Trump and Kirsti Noem: You’ve done enough. We have soldiers in training, and prepared to be deployed, if necessary.”

If he had ordered the National Guard to stand against ICE and/or DHS (and thank the gods he did not), he would have started a Civil War. Or tried to. He would have asked Minnesota NG to face off against a Federal authority, present and following the President’s lawful orders. Ordering local authorities to stand against Federal authorities is, essentially, the definition of Civil War.

I have no idea if Walz is intelligent enough to have figured out that what he’d said was almost but not quite a declaration of war against his own country’s government. Someone in his office must have, because after that tweet, he changed his tune and was overly clear about the NG being deployed ONLY to do traffic and local law enforcement.

I hope to hell that Trump or one of his advisors called up Walz’s office and had a little chat, explaining how bad that would be for everyone and for our country. I hope that Walz and his cronies got the message. I doubt they did, though. They knocked it down one notch, so they wouldn’t get impeached or arrested, but they’re continuing their ridiculous defense of rapists and murderers.

I don’t know how to deal with the people on the Left who are making noises like ICE is horrible. I have had a handful of people I’ve known long enough to consider them “not liars” even if I think they’re uneducated and not thinking right, who are telling tales about ICE. The stories go that ICE is picking up American citizens who have their papers on them, throwing them into dark, dank, moist detention centers with no toilets, no water, no food, and no access to lawyers or telephones. They’re kept there for hours upon hours (most of the stories talk about 8 to 16 hours, but less than 24, and they’re very specific about it being less than a day), have to beg passers by to let them out to pee, and are denied health care for injuries caused by ICE. They give names of ICE agents. They detail how they were sorted into “citizens and non-citizens” early on in the process, so ICE knew they were Americans. The stories go on and on.

When I go to research it, I can’t find any of the information. The names come back empty. There’s no other people making the claims, even though in the stories there are many people being detained. It’s relatively obvious to me that they’re JUST stories, and have no basis in the truth. But of course I can’t ask for proof, because that’s a hanging offense. Even when I say, hey I’d like to get the word out but you know I only pass on things I can verify (a longstanding moral on my part, I *will not* pass along stuff without bone fides included, and have not for many, many years)… crickets.

It’s exhausting. I’m mentally wrecked most of the time now. The left gets more and more frothy, and impossible to talk to or get information out of. They don’t seem to understand the basic “boy who cried wolf” issue that’s going on. Right now, I just assume anything from the left is wrong, either a lie, an exaggeration, or whatever. I have to, because I just don’t have time to investigate *everything* that’s thrown at me. I have a job, I run a household, I have relationships to tend to and children to watch after. So if something truly bad actually happens, I’m just going to ignore it, and assume it’s the same bullshit rhetoric they’ve thrown around every other time.

And just briefly before signing off, a few words on Iran.

In the 1979 timeframe (give or take a couple of years… I was just a kid who didn’t know shit about politics at the time and I’m going on memory here), I had a friend whose family was moving to Tehran. They had planned it for quite a while. And then the regime change happened, and suddenly their entire world fell apart. They didn’t go to Tehran, and I’m glad, because I firmly believe they’d be dead. I would have been 7 or 8 when it happened. The only reason I remember that, from my very privileged place in society, was because it interfered with a friend’s travel plans.

Iran went from being a fairly modern country to being a third world shit hole in very short order. Women were not allowed to work, first, and they had to cover their hair. Then they weren’t allowed to drive. Then they couldn’t be on public transit or out and about without an adult male family member. Then they had to keep their entire bodies covered with voluminous robes. Then the full burka, covering everything but the eyes. A few years ago the Iranian government decided eyes could be too alluring, and had blackout panels put into place in the burkas, so that you couldn’t even see a woman’s eyes. In 2021 or 2022, they decreed a woman shouldn’t speak in public.

Last night, I watched a live video feed out of Tehran, of women dancing in public, wearing nothing but miniskirts and white tee shirts that said “Fuck Khomeini” on the front in large, English letters. No shoes, no head coverings, no long arms, no tights or stockings. Bare skin, hair, eyes, and minds exposed to the evening air for the first time in almost 50 years. I saw a photograph of an Iranian woman lighting a cigarette from a burning Khomeini flag. I listened to hundreds of thousands of Iranians chanting “Iran! Iran! Iran!” I am witnessing history.

This is people from ALL walks of life, which is why it’s not slowing down despite Khomeini’s attempts to murder every protester. Cutting off the internet didn’t silence them. There are young people there, risking their lives to demand freedom from oppression, REAL oppression. They risk being shot, because the authorities there are using live ammunition to “put down” the protesters. Many are being arrested, and they’re starting to shoot and hang them. They’re going to their deaths with their hands held up in signs of victory, afraid but incredibly brave. There are youngsters who were born after Khomeini took over, and who’ve never known a day of freedom, never seen a free Iran. There are middle aged people who had their childhoods viciously and violently ripped away from them. There are old people, who remember the freedom of pre Khomeini Iran, when the Shah was trying to bring the country out of the dark ages and into the light. Those old people have whispered the stories to their children, and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren so that they didn’t die.

When Karen from Minnesota says she is oppressed because she can’t have an abortion or because we’re enforcing our immigration laws, I point her at the women of Iran. THAT is what oppression is, and THAT is how it’s fought. With dancing. With singing. With praise. With joy. Not with temper tantrums and lies.