Wolfe Time Again

I meant to blog this earlier, but I’ve been kind of busy between making phone calls about the accident and actual work. Instapundit had a lengthy post including reader email here, which kind of startled me. The money quote:

A marriage based on an arrangement like that is never going to work. And a nation based on a democracy won't either, because the other side decides two can play that game. And eventually it is going to occur to one side that if the power struggle became more of a, say, "historically traditional" model, there seems to be a enormous differential in the potential of each side to field strength on the physical plane. At that point, it becomes tempting, and less aggravating, for one side to just cut the Gordian knot.

Stripped of the fancy language, reader Scott is talking about the time when some group decides no more compromise can be had and it’s time to start shooting people. The startling thing to me is that this discussion is happening in a decidedly mainstream forum.

In the online circles I frequent, the question of armed resistance to the government is a perennial topic. It may be a discussion on the wisdom of shooting the SWAT team kicking down your door or whether it’s time to refresh the tree. The concept is always there. However, it doesn’t come up much outside of the fringe. To see it discussed on a relatively mainstream site is slightly disconcerting. Is the political discourse in this country that poisonous? If it is, maybe I should be worrying more.

On the plus side, people of my ideological bent tend towards the heavily armed end of the spectrum. I, like others I know, can arm a rifle team out of my closet. Other ideological persuasions (read greens, donks, and wacked out lefties of all stripes) are not generally so well equipped. On the negative side of the equation, I have to paraphrase the Wine Commonsewer from a discussion elsewhere: whoever ends up winning, people like us will be on the wrong side of the barricades.