The political spectrum in this country has become quite polarized. You are either a die hard Republican or a die hard Democrat, and if you don’t fall in one of those neat little boxes, you are someone who isn’t going to be heard. There is no room for compromise, and there is no room for common sense it seems anymore. This trickles down to the people, and if you have seen a town hall meeting for health care, you know how nasty those have gotten.
Would the American people really resort to war though? Would we once again pick up arms against our fellow American over the differences in our opinions? While I certainly have no use for certain opinions, or the way that some people view our country, I would never try to censor that right, or try to kill those views off in a literal sense. I can’t see another Civil War breaking out.
If you look at the make up of the first Civil War, you will see that there were so many compromises, and so many attempts to avoid war. The issues we face today are solved a lot easier through the political channels available. If you don’t like health care reform, vote for the other party and they will do something about it. Don’t like the wars? Then just vote for the party that will try to end them.
I don’t think the issues that we face today are nearly the same as the issues faced in 1860. There is no moral issue such as slavery that would literally force some sort of action to take place. Immigration might be close to that, but I don’t think we reject people based on where they come from. Gay rights might come close as well, but even there I think there is progress being made.
There is no core issue that would force us to resort to war. Politics is always divisive, so it isn’t really a shock that people would come to blows, or a lot of angry words about political issues that face us today. However, I don’t think anyone wants to go to war over these issues anyway. Politics and personal feelings tend to be separate in the minds of most Americans.
I don’t think most Americans could even fathom the thought of having a war on our own soil. It would get in the way of football on Sunday and going to work. We wouldn’t want to have to join an army or get up at 6am for a dawn raid on Mrs. Smith’s house anyway. There would be no good reason for a war to start, and I don’t foresee one coming anytime soon.
