perfidy

For the last couple days, I've been reading William Tecumseh Sherman's memoirs. As I read, it started me thinking. (Books are cool that way.) Most civil wars throughout history and down to today have been caused by either dynastic succession or about ethnic strife. Here and there, the occasional religious civil war - which in many respects resembles an ethnic civil war. Of course, an American civil war had to be different. Ethnicity and religion had nothing to do with the civil war, at least in that both sides considered themselves equally American, and both sides were Christian, with a fairly even spread of denominations on either side.

America's civil war became an ideological war over the issue of slavery. Fueling this fight over principle was the fact that slavery was necessarily also an economic issue. Slavery is not the most efficient way of mobilizing a nation's labor force; and only a unique set of circumstances had allowed slavery to be immensely profitable (for some) in the south. Without the economic factor, slavery would not have been as divisive an issue. For example, if the north had also held slaves and if their factories could have profitably used slave labor - then only the abolitionists would have been arguing for ending the institution. They may have won that fight, but it would not have required a civil war.

Could it happen again? The United States seems the most stable of nations. Despite the recent animosity between the two political parties, we all get along much better than average. Even in the face of a full on election crisis, everyone pretty much managed to keep their heads. What could possibly motivate a significant number of our population to wage war on the rest?

To be honest, I couldn't think of many issues that are even potentially as divisive as slavery was almost a hundred and fifty years. Global Warming? Please. Social Security? Old people aren't going to take up arms against the young for their pensions. The only one that comes close is abortion, which is just as black and white; however it lacks the economic component that could potentially really get blood flowing. So to speak.

Aside from that, you have the various paranoid fantasies of the aryan brotherhood/inbred klan nutjob variety. The Jewish Zionist world government will use the black helicopters and UN controlled US forces to eliminate the mountain hideouts of the faithful. Somehow, that doesn't quite work as a nightmare scenario for me. Mostly, they're too busy ratting each other out to the ATF to be an effective core for a secessionist movement.

Economic issues, absent some sort of polarizing ideological component, will generally get worked out in a system like ours. Ideological discord, without large scale economic interests lining up on opposite sides, will remain low level bitching on the fringes, or eventually degenerate into a consensus. So we're safe, right? I was wondering if anyone had any plausible ideas for a second American Civil War - my list of worries is getting too short.