whichever side is willing to be the most ruthless and brutal the fastest will eliminate the majority of the other side's leadership and seize power.

And the subjugated would just acquiesce and keep producing happily?

The US without Cali

Do you really think the US would just keep chugging along?

yep

Or are we talking enslaving half the country?

people want to keep their heads down and avoid violence. the regular people in afghanistan wouldn't say a damned thing to us when the taliban was squatting in their village because they knew they'd be horrifically murdered.

Britain did while it was having bombs dropped on it from space. Worlers went on strike, women protested.

This isn't Afghanistan

yet

Who would want it to be?

Cat, I honestly think that if it went hot like you think the Right would show up armed to the teeth, the Left would get their asses handed to them and would very quickly stop. Their wouldn't be any planes in the sky, bombing factories.

The Left are running on mob rule right now. Might makes right style. If the Right decided to do the same they would win very quickly.

For utopians, the ends justify the means. If the end is a perfect utopia where none suffer and everyone is equal, and that utopia will last *for ever* for all the billions of people to come, then utopians will think themselves not only justified but righteous to make any sacrifice in the present. See the hundred million bodies laid at the altar of Marx.

But what of those on the left who have reason to believe it would be an existential fight? There's half the country who feel strongly about *something* to be voting Democrat.

The right will never 'show up armed to the teeth'

Okay, let's step back here a bit. What exactly would the "armed to the teeth right" be imposing? What would they all universally agree to be fighting for and against?

but nowhere near half that would be willing to die for it.

Never. First of all they're generally staunch individualists, and the more heavily armed they are the more individualist. So they'll never, ever organize or work together. You'll have a hundred thousand men sitting in a hundred thousand tiny ammo forts waiting for death never once thinking they could fight together.

Second of all, what would they do, even if they did fight together? The scenario I've put forth is an insurgency. How do you fight that?

Most on the left are not Utopians

The only thing they could conceivably do is reciprocal assassinations, bombings, arson, etc. Which doesn't help them restore any sort of order. It just brings about a different flavor of dictatorship.

Exactly. Left or right. A conflict would result in a dictatorship.

Civil War would be the end of everything all sides hold dear.

Atkins. I envision something like what happened up at that land dispute a few year back. A group of men arm themselves and gaurd what they think is theirs.

Likely, yes. I'm not advocating conflict. I'm just trying to say what it would look like.

That was not far from where I live, Spooky

The Bundy Ranch dispute.

Malheur Wildlife Refuge

Some of them are dead now.

Lovely place

And the correct tactic against such a standoff is not to meet them in the desert and duke it out but to go after their families back home.

That's what the cartels would do.

I see the Right forming small groups as 'peace keepers' in their towns.

Don't try to roleplay this conflict from the perspective of a soldier. Roleplay it from the perspective of a mexican drug dealer.

gorilla warfare.

*guerilla

numerous secret raids etc

Wait, how'd the Malheur guys end up dead? I hadn't heard of this.

Tried warfare with gorillas most likely

Their are enough guns and men to escort trucks, set up road blocks. I don't think it would take long for the Left to give up or die trying.