The Coming Whirlwind: Slavery, the Civil War and Abortion

To me, it is clear that we are headed for a terrible collision in this country. I do not mean a civil war in the shooting war sense. But I have studied the American Civil War for decades and the parallels with the last years before 1861 are uncanny.

Then, the “presenting problem” was slavery. It was the “indigestible lump” which precluded a nonmilitary settlement. The South, driven by the dedicated white supremicists and those who profited from slavery (the two groups were not entirely overlapping; the free Black population of New Orleans were overwhelmingly pro-Confederate to the end of the war, because their relatively high standard of living depended on Negro slavery), was adamant that slavery not be challenged. This ended up requiring that it be actively supported by the North as increasing commerce and communication made the issue harder to ignore (especially since it got easier for slaves to escape and easier for the Underground Railroad to help them). People on both sides who had in earlier decades ignored the issue or “agreed to disagree” found that this evasion was no longer possible. The pro-slavery people found their position increasingly threatened, and the North found themselves increasingly pressured to support slavery. Even those who were lukewarm or indifferent to slavery generally hated the increasing incidence of fugitive slaves in the North being forcibly abducted and returned to slavery, and they deeply resented the political bullying the South used more and more to force the Federal government to support their position. (Sounding familiar yet?)

One characteristic of the Southern position was their absolute refusal to countenance any suggestion that black people were not inferior to whites. During the war, one leader even admitted that he opposed arming slaves to fight for the Confederacy in return for their freedom on the grounds that if they could fight like white men, it would disprove their whole theory of slavery! (NOW does it sound familiar?)

Bruce Catton, great historian of the Civil War, pointed out that in fact the issue was race, and slavery was just the most obvious and pernicious symptom.

The issue facing us today is the Culture of Life vs. the Culture of Death. The humanity of unborn children is largely denied by those in the Culture of Death; sometimes it is referred to as a vague possibility, but always with some kind of rationalization in favor of continuing “therapeutic” abortion. Just recently, Hillary Clinton conceded the “potential” for life begins at conception, and she’s not sure when life begins, and since it would be so hard to enforce, etc. The abortion issue is the biggest and most immediately horrendous symptom of a much more pervasive problem. Euthanesia is back; eugenics is making a stealthy but very strong comeback; public tolerance and even support for anti-family activities such as extreme promiscuity, “alternative” non-marriage living arrangements, and sexual activity other than normal monogamous heterosexuality, are, in C.S. Lewis’ term, greater than they have been since Pagan times.

Just as with slavery, the abortion issue is bringing this increasingly into the open, and it’s causing increasing polarization. There are shameful defections from what should be the pro-life community, and courageous stands taken from the Left, where more and more individuals take a stand against their lifelong community as it moves further into the abyss.

In the Civil War, seven of the eleven states in the Confederacy had regiments raised who went and joined the Union! And there was a political organization in the South of pro-Union civilian men, 25,000 strong. With typical Southern courage, they were public; they did not hide their identities.

Through the 1850s, as tensions and violent incidents spiraled out of control, very few people, North or South, really foresaw the terrible abyss the country was going to pass through. To me, it really looks like we are heading for another explosion. We have no armed sections that can take sides and fight a civil war in open military terms. But just since Roe vs. Wade, we have murdered a number of our own countrymen similar to the total number of Africans taken or born into slavery before 1850 in America.

The pro abortion people have no more choice than the pro slavery people did; they must continue to push forward to make the “right” to abortion as secure as possible. They must fight dissent more and more; they must write more and more laws, put more and more pro-abortion education programs into place. To do otherwise would be to begin to admit doubt about the position they have taken so firmly for so long. And any doubt at all would call the whole edifice into question. They must even make common cause with the rest of the “progressive” forces of the Culture of Death; with advocates of euthanasia, supporters of non-marriage relationships, birth control, the lot.

Their opponents are just not going to go for this. There are very active pro-life people, and a larger group who are increasingly waking up to the intrusions in their lives, and whose patience is wearing thinner and thinner.

My crystal ball gets cloudy when I try to be any more specific. But what I do see is things getting worse before they get better. And it's going to be far worse than most people expect or want.

The slavery supporters in the South never dreamed they would bring about such a holocaust. The pro abortion people had no idea that Roe v. Wade would kick off such a groundswell of awakening social and political conscience in America. The entire Left was shocked at its power in 2004. They have labelled it "The Religious Right" to help them regard it as mindlessly backward and hateful. And they still have no idea what they're dealing with. People's underage daughters can be talked into abortions without their parents even being told of it. There is a very long list of hamhanded, bullying moves that remind me of the South in the 1850s trying to shore up slavery.

It didn't work for them either.

Sincerely,

LogEyed_Roman

Check out "The Hillary Deathwatch", here: http://www.slate.com/id/2187558/

Here is the text of an email I sent them a couple days ago:

Dear Hillary Deathwatch: ...I won't tell you how long I've been making my prediction except that I began in 2007. Here it is: McCain will be President, courtesy of Hillary Clinton. Here's why: Hillary will destroy her campaign. If she has the best circumatances and support and funding, etc., she will sieze defeat from the jaws of victory. She will do this with such venom, violence, and lack of impulse control, and hang on so long, that she will devastate Obama's campaign. Obama's campaign is already weak, since he's a lightweight who has no staying power in any case. His campaign would fizzle in any case. Hillary will finish it off. The reason for all this is that Hillary is a classic "control freak". These people show their compulsive side all along, though they can often go for years with a great show of plausibility, often getting a lot done and fooling people for a long time. But they all eventually fall into a pattern of episodes of paranoia, making ham-handed and shocking attacks, treating everyone around them as a conniving enemy to be outmaneuvered. Yes, they eventually think everyone around them is like they are. At the far left of the bell curve for control freaks is, say, a clinging mother who tries too hard to control her grown children and has irrational temper tantrums. Hillary is somewhere near the center of the bell. At the far right end are the career criminals who can be charming and convincing for a while, then end up seeing even their own lawyers as out to get them. They lose their plausible veneer and show their true appalling colors. ...It's been clear to me for years that Hillary is in this category, and she was already having trouble controlling it during Bill's presidency. Now the episodes are coming fast and furious, during what is arguably the most important enterprise of her life. I predict that before the end of April she will do at least one more really big mistake; another lie (control freaks end up believing they can convince anybody of whatever they want) or another senseless attack on Obama or someone else. I predict that before the end of June, if she is still campaigning, she will have done something more extreme and shocking than she has ever done; perhaps even a public hate rant that makes the drunken Mel Gibson look like Mother Teresa. Oh, and as a friend of mine remarked, she will give up on her campaign when they pry it from her cold, dead fingers. She will be very stupid about not giving up. If she gave up now and supported Obama, he would have a chance, and she would have the political good will and capital to make another try at the Oval Office. But her "control" syndrome has gone around the bend now, and she will not do so. There are my prophecies, so to speak. Let's see how many of them come true!

LogEyed_Roman


Now I know I'm sticking my neck out on this, and anything can happen. Yet I am convinced this is by far the likliest outcome. Senator Clinton's character really seems to me the most important factor, considering that otherwise none of the candidates is a shoe-in.

Perhaps later I will go into more detail about why I have come up with such a confident, definite opinion of her character.

I, as you might guess, an not on her side (as a candidate, anyway). So here's for some logectomy:

I, and all the rest of us who dislike her as a public figure, have to be on guard against the very malice and the "control" impulse that can give a little too much enjoyment to watching those we dislike or even disagree with go down. I am not at all backing down from my opinion of her character, but we are all sinners too. Especially me. A certain satisfaction; even a relief when we see someone with alarming and disturbing tendencies to attack those she disagrees with is exposed for what she is and perhaps thwarted in getting power she can't be trusted with--that's fine. But if we let ourselves be overly malicious, we might as well just turn around and join a Hillary Wannabee club.

A Christian writer recently published an article asking evangelicals to tone down their hate language about here. "Mrs. Satan"; "Hitlery" are a couple of examples. I have to confess that each of those tickled me when I heard it, and I could feel the temptation to use them extensively. That would be wrong. It would be a sin, and if allowed to continue far enough would surely cause us to bring about as much or more of the hateful actions in society we fear Hillary Clinton would produce.

So let us remain firm in our honest opinions of someone's faults, but not give in to the temptation to hatred and moral superiority, lest we become worse than they are.

LogEyed Roman