The right-wing cable Catos and YouTube yawpers like talking about civil war because even if most of their audience will never muster with their kit, they will do their part by tuning in. Such boasting is a form of bravery on the cheap, common to insecure men in every age. (I like thinking about the zombie apocalypse, but that doesn’t mean I’m hoping for one.) And some significant number of the armchair civil warriors want their friends or foes to think they’re serious when they say it. Many more probably like thinking about it. The truth, I very strongly suspect, is that roughly 98 percent of the people prattling about civil war don’t really mean it. You know what you call someone, on the left or right, who uses actual physical violence to settle any of America’s current political disagreements? A criminal. If you think threatening election workers because they refuse to “discover” evidence of conspiracies that don’t exist is justified, I think you’re a thug and a whackjob. If you’re a Black Lives Matter protester who thinks a rational-or defensible-response to indefensible police brutality is burning down a grocery store, I think you’re at best a fool. I think most forms of politically driven rudeness are ugly, and I think any hint of violence is beyond the pale. I don’t much like political activism, enthusiasm, or even peaceful crowds of political activists and enthusiasts.
If you think at all seriously about what is worth risking your life or the lives of loved ones for and then look at the actual disagreements dividing even strong partisans, it’s hard not to have contempt at the stupidity of it all. I honestly don’t see how any reasonable person can disagree with this assessment. Even if you think the search was an unmitigated outrage, if you think it’s worth killing anybody over, you’re either a moron or so high on TikTok-farts you can’t think straight. I’m sorry if you take offense at my unsympathetic characterization of this nonsense, but just take a step back for a moment. In the wake of the Mar-a-Lago search, a lot of idiots idiotically spewed a lot of idiocy on this point.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot because there’s been a lot of chatter of late about an American civil war. But they thought the idea of killing Slovaks-or being killed by Slovaks-to stop them was incomprehensibly more stupid.Ībout a year after I left, parliament peacefully dissolved the 94-year-old country. I suspect some of it comes from living in a country where forcefully expressing clear opinions could cost you your job, apartment, or life.) Most of the Czechs I talked to thought the Slovaks were stupid for wanting to break away. (Czechs and Slovaks alike are very shruggy people.
#Stupid zombies 2 wild west full
Why should I care?” In fairness, this was most often said with shrugs and eyerolls rather than full sentences. Pretty much every Czech I talked to about it said something like, “Eh, if they want to go, they can go. But I never met anybody who wanted to shoot someone in service of their desired position. I met plenty of Czechs and Slovaks who favored keeping the country together and more than a few who wanted a divorce. After all, many in Slovakia wanted to leave the duo and launch a solo career. I had numerous conversations with Czechs about whether they thought a similar conflict could break out in Czechoslovakia. The distinctions between these groups were extremely important to many of their countrymen back home-and often them, too-but not so important that they were willing to kill or be killed over them.
There were Bosnians, Croatians, Serbs, etc. History, man.Īnyway, I met a bunch of Yugoslavs-a term you could still use because, again, that was a country-who came to Czechoslovakia to stay out of the war. I’m going to pause for a moment to point out something simultaneously obvious and shocking: Neither of those countries exist anymore. While I was there, war broke out in Yugoslavia. I often joke that I went to be a starving writer and batted. I spent some time in Czechoslovakia in 1991. Dear Reader (and lovers of crudite in all parties)