The home of South Carolina Circuit Court judge Diane Goodstein was set on fire after she had reportedly received death threats.
State law enforcement is investigating the house fire on Edisto Beach which began at around 11:30 a.m. E.T. on Saturday, sources told local news outlet FITSNews.
Goodstein was reportedly not at home at the time of the fire, but at least three members of her family, including her husband, former Democratic state senator Arnold Goodstein, and their son, have been hospitalized with serious injuries. According to the St. Paul’s Fire District, which responded to the scene, the occupants had to be rescued via kayak. Law enforcement have not disclosed whether the fire is being investigated as an arson attack.
If this is a civil war, then what are the two sides? Where are the front lines?
Yeah, the 60s had more violence and tensions than now. A civil war requires actually distinct combatants engaged in combat. That doesn’t exist as of now.
People forget this. There were bombs. Political assassinations. Armed revolutionary groups with foreign support. The racial divide was HUGE. It needs to get way better, but aside from politics, people are more like each other than they were then. Then they ever have been anywhere and at any point in history. Hence the death throes of division being absolutely bombarded at us by the media. But we know better. It takes time, but we know better. It’s fucked now, but let’s keep that perspective. They tried to wash that period of unrest from the schools in the 90s.
Texas is sending their troops (National Guard) to Oregon to fight people in Portland.
It’s very telling that the account you and I were arguing with hasn’t said shit in 5 days ain’t it.
That’s not how civil wars work anymore, it’ll be akin to a Balkanization where there are multiple different factions, upstart states, militias and insurgencies. The second will be nothing like the first. The Syrian civil war is a decent smaller scale modern example
Edit: if you’d like a good idea of what it will look like I HIGHLY recommend the fist season of the excellent podcast It Could Happen Here by Robert Evans. It’s from 2019 but wildly prescient
I have listened to part of the It Could Happen Here vision for what could go down, but I’m on the fence. In the 2020 election and Jan 6th, I could see that version of things more: militias creating general lawlessness with a weak federal government that can’t maintain peace.
But since Trump arrived on the scene, people have been increasingly geographically sorting themselves by political affiliation. Additionally, we are seeing blue state coalitions form around vaccines and climate change. And now we are seeing folks band together at the state-level and pressure their state governments to take stands against the federal government. Additionally, we are seeing more punitive behavior between states (busing of migrants from Texas, financial punishment of blue states, trying to criminally charge ObGyns providing abortion services across state lines, red states offering Trump their national guard to punish blue states, redistricting based on the actions of another state).
Regardless of how people feel about the federal government, they seem to still see legitimacy in their local governments, and are increasingly using those local governments as vehicles for negotiation.
Yes this is a massive boon. Finally the first faltering of the trend started in the 40s towards massive federalization.
It’s a boon in that people still want law and order and have a means to pursue it.
But the collective action, unimpeded by conflict, of 150-300 million people is a huge factor in what has made the US so prosperous for 80 years. We are giving that up.
America was already largely prosperous, but it wasn’t the sole superpower. I am not sure if that was a worth it exchange(if it was an exchange)