Opinion Piece: The Second Civil War

The nation stands divided, voting in congress has become almost completely partisan with both sides voting the party-line and hiding behind excuses like “conscience”, despite the question originally asked it has come down to whether or the Federal government has the right to supersede a State’s assumed rights. While this may seem a fairly accurate description of our country right now it is in fact what position we were in right before our civil war. The issue of slavery was the catalyst for the defining of, and later the enforcing of, the Federal government’s right to impose its will on the States.

I hear arguments all the time stating that the Federal government needs to back off and let the State’s have more freedom. That the country started this way, and by such justification we should return to it. One, we tried that, it led to one of the worst losses of American life a war ever has (since both sides were American); two: if we should always return to the way it was, exactly how long until you start demanding we go back to living in caves and restricting us to either hunter or gatherer for employment. The decision was already made, and if we question it again there will be another war.

Our nation’s congress currently is the most polarized in partisan voting it has been since the civil war period. Our Representatives and Senators are voting party-line, period. They’re not voting for what they’re constituents want, they’re voting for what their party wants. This goes for both sides: the agenda has become more important than the people. Democrats are pushing and Republicans are pulling, sometimes seemingly for no reason other than just to oppose one another.

The so called “tea party” claims to want to take the country back. We had the largest voter turnout in history for the 2008 elections, sorry guys but to me that says we finally did take the country back. The theatrics and protesting are ironically the tactics of the “left” and entertainingly enough (to me) for the first time in my life a third party may steal electoral votes from the Republicans instead of the Democrats. While I may personally agree with the message of lower taxes I also acknowledge that there are things I believe the country should be doing and it needs to get the money to do them from somewhere and that somewhere is called “taxes”.

If rapid and decisive change does not happen I see a second American Civil War occurring sooner rather than later. Perhaps our country has become too large and socially diverse to handle as a democratic republic. If such is the case our only two choices remain do we want to stand together and change our executive branch to something closer to a tyranny (only bad word in modern times), or divide our nation into smaller, more easily manageable, and socially and ideologically similar regions? The answer: unknown, but sooner or later the question will be forced again by declaration: either of law, or war.