The Morning Rant: Minimalist Edition

The lessons of the Easter Rising of 1916 are probably lost to many, but should be equally obvious to any who think through any future armed response to government overreach.

The IRA fought the British army in the streets, and after six days they surrendered...unconditionally. Going toe-to-toe with a modern army that had no qualms with using artillery was brave and foolhardy (the leaders were captured and executed), but it sputtered on and on until partition in 1921.

But Mao was a student of history, and he learned the lessons of previous failed guerilla actions. In fact, he wrote the book On Guerilla Warfare.

But the situation in America is radically different than both Ireland and China. We have a small, relatively well organized violent faction of a larger Left-Wing movement that is hell bent on pushing America into the same mold as communist China and sadly, dystopian Venezuela. The central government is protective of them, and in fact is inextricably linked to them, but who leads whom remains to be seen.

A modern day Mao or Patrick Pearse might observe the current political conditions in America and realize that pitched battles with the armed forces or even the police might be less productive than a lower intensity campaign against the soft target of the violent left-wing that drives so much of the unrest. When Antifa calls for action they can gather dozens or sometimes hundreds of rioters (and their enablers in local governments) who work together reasonably well, and project force that is carefully controlled.

But then they go home. They don't return to army camps with armed sentries and tall fences. They take the bus back to their urban hovels or mom's basement in the suburbs or even to nicer abodes like the mayor's house or the DA's nice new apartment. And it is there that they are vulnerable.

So what is the lesson for post-stolen-election America 2021? If the silent majority (if it exists) awakens from its slumber, previous guerilla campaigns directed at central governments may not be the best templates.

"All politics is local" was Tip O'Neill's famous aphorism, but it applies quite well to an unconventional but not unprecedented tactic against political tyranny. How much will the violent Left be willing to suffer before they simply give up?

The brutality of this sort of low-intensity war can't be overstated, and it is my fervent wish that political revolution brings about the changes necessary to return America to its foundations in the Constitution, civil society and free markets. But it seems as if the current occupants of the seats of power have no interest in anything other than the total destruction of American Exceptionalism and its origins. And if there is a response from the real America, my money is on this sort of struggle.

posted by CBD at 11:00 AM

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