stone savage

zeitgeist: January 2006, post “domestic spying” revelation
ortgeist : a quasi-United States

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” - Abraham Lincoln, 1858

More and more these days I grow concerned over various forms of increasing division in this nation. I cannot help but wonder if the seeds of revolution are being planted at this very moment.

The political, economic, and social unrest that peppered the national scene in the years leading up to the U.S. Civil War are again rearing up in a way that I fear will eventually lead to an unreconcilable division in this great house we call America.

Two times in this nation’s history we have been brought to the doorstep of Revolution. Are we getting ready for a third?

[More:]

So I was surfing around the web last night and I came across this article which got me thinking about a few other things going on in America today. In the last decade, or so, there’s been a division of thought in this country. It is growing so deep and volatile, that I think we are seeing the seeds of revolution beginning to sprout.

What I mean by this is that I think we’re seeing the same environment unfolding that led to the U.S. Civil War in the late 19th Century. We have a volatility that will reach critical mass if we do not find a way to unite.

The issues that led to the Civil War surrounded political (state’s rights), economic, and social disparity between the North and South.

Consider the three most volatile political issues of our day:

• 1. Abortion
• 2. Gay Marriage
• 3. Euthanasia

1) I’ll start with the last item of Euthanasia. Orgeon passed a law that allowed physicians to assist their terminally ill patients to voluntarily end their lives by way of prescribing lethal amounts of medication - which the patient could choose not to use, or could choose to use when the time came.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled to uphold this law due to a limitation in the federal argument, but Congress is seeking to enact a federal law that would make euthanasia a crime. The specifics for this law are yet unknown as the move to create this law has just started.

2) On the second issue of gay marriage, we have seen the State of Massachussettes grant its citizens the ability to marry members of the same sex. Another State, Maryland, has recently had its long standing ban against gay marriage determined by its State Supreme Court as unconstitutional to its own Equal Rights amendment. Many other States have individual enacted legislation granting some sort of recognition to the union of same sex couples.

Alternately, we already have seen multiple states specifically legislate a ban on gay marriage, and we have seen our federal officials publically support the idea to amend the constitution to outlaw gay marriage.

3) On the most volatile issue, abortion, we are moving closer and closer to an recall on Roe v. Wade. Multiple states have recently moved to enact legislation banning abortion in some or all circumstances. If, and when, Roe is overturned, abortion will not be suddenly illegal - as many unfortunately uneducated people believe, but will become an issue of State legislation.

We will likely see some states ban abortion outright, some that will ban it under certain circumstances, and some that will not ban it at all. If the previous two issues are any indicator it is likely the federal branch may move to legislate regulation at the federal level for any law dealing with abortion.

Whether rightly or wrongly, these political issues are no less volatile and potentially divisive than the State’s Rights issues of the latter half of the 19th Century. By themselves these issues are not enough to send the country into a state of war, but neither were the individual issues that led to war under Lincoln.

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