Democrats just attempted to impeach a former president for incitement of an insurrection.

One wonders if this was less about Trump (they did not have a case, evidentiary or constitutionally, but they mailed it in anyway), and more about establishing a low-bar political definition for “insurrection” and a precedent for a response to it. One might assume that is why a military presence in Washington is ongoing. Even if they stumble into them, progressives never have a singular, contemporary purpose, they always seem to find things that would be helpful in the future, even if the current iteration of the issue is ridiculously absurd.

Many years ago, an associate asked me how I would describe progressivism in one word. The first word that came to mind was “duplicitous”. The passage of time has done little to change that initial thought. It is plainly evident to anyone with more than one functioning brain cell that even as the progressives in both major parties, Democrats, and media (but I repeat myself) tell America that insurrection is really, really, terribly, horribly, yugely and bigly bad, they are assuming rhetorical positions, enacting policies and directing their allies in the fascistic oligarchy to actions that lay the groundwork for an insurrection.

More accurately, they are establishing the very same basis, the “long train of abuses and usurpations”, from which the American Revolution was birthed.

One thing that I have learned from studying history and reading philosophy is that peace is the most fragile and temporary of all human conditions.

When we lived in Edinburgh, we frequently visited many historical sites – battlefields and castles – including both Edinburgh and Stirling castles. We also visited the beaches of Normandy. One of the overall themes that I noticed during these visits is that throughout history, the resolution of intractable differences often came through violent conflict.

When one considers the seemingly intractable conflicts around the world – and even our significant political differences here at home, one wonders if it is possible to solve the unsolvable. America certainly has differences that seem unresolvable because we have evolved to be just too different. The four years of President Trump was a strong indicator that there exist vastly different visions of America, the roles of government, business, and the responsibility of our citizens. There seems little chance the right will abandon its positions and it is equally as unlikely the left would abandon theirs, so what happens when the irresistible force meets the immovable object? Is it possible to resolve the differences with enough unanimity to move forward?

Throughout history, when two sides reach a point of no resolution and there is no capitulation by either side, one or the other imposed their will via physical combat – i.e., war. Conflict was carried to the point where the loser could not continue the combat, or the cost of continuance was too great. One side then subsequently agreed to abide the other’s terms as a means to end the violence. Of course, there have been cases in history where diplomacy altered the course of history – but those have been few and far between and temporary at best. It must also be noted that peaceful agreement does not always end the internecine conflicts. Diplomacy is often about achieving agreement rather than achieving a correct solution, sometimes to the point that the solution is sub-optimal for both sides and simply buries the conflict just beneath the surface.

When sociopolitical systems reach a boiling point, there must be a safety valve, some way to relieve the pressure before an explosion, the result is the violent imposition of one will over another. It is simply not credible to think that any group of people with strong beliefs will allow themselves to be subjugated by another through simple political tyranny without a fight.

Has America achieved such a boiling point?

This “boiling point” is exactly what the idea of our Bill of Rights and the federalism created by our Constitution was intended to address. Federalism is the answer to a small, powerful group or even a bare majority imposing control over most of the country that has evolved differently in culture and political aims. Through distributed governance, tailored to smaller governmental units and political boundaries, the rhetorical temperature can be reduced. Freedom of expression diffuses ideological conflict.

Progressives, Democrats, and the media are now actively working to remove the safety valves our Founders installed to keep the pressure down. The resulting overpressure of tyranny will lead to eventual self-destruction in the same manner as other authoritarian, tyrannical systems have ended. It is becoming apparent Democrats are hell bent on testing the limits of traditional American rugged individualism and are putting our Republic on the same path to rigid central control that produces intractable problems. They are shutting down America’s ability to contain conflict to a battlefield of ideas, risking the translation of that violence into the corporeal world.

Since the Constitution has been corrupted to remove the safety valve of federalism and our Bill of Rights is under active attack, it seems America is headed for the same fate as befalls all large-scale authoritarian states. It doesn’t have to be this way – but weight of collectivist class envy, the desire for free stuff instead of free-dom (and the resulting over-taxation), anti-Christian/anti-religion policies, incitement of racial tension, and the simple Hobbesian disdain of freedom and self-government endemic our “elite” political class, have lead us to a tipping point – and even though “smart” people on both left and the right will scoff, in absence of a return to our constitutional safety valves, secession may be the only remaining non-violent opportunity for resolution, a last option.

While I am not advocating armed conflict to resolve our differences, we would be exhibiting ignorance of history to think that it was not at least a possibility, especially when one party and its allies are pushing us toward it.

Americans have already had one nation-dividing Civil War and it is very possible that we are running down the path to another such conflict.