On July 12, 1648, dozens of angry French politicians gathered at the hallowed Palais de Justice in Paris to draft the final ultimatum that would be sent to their nine-year-old king, Louis XIV.
The politicians were all members of France’s national parliament, and, like most modern politicians, they were almost all lawyers who lived extremely privileged lives at the expense of French taxpayers.
In France, most aristocrats historically came from a group known as the noblesse d’épée, essentially Knights of the Sword. They were warriors who had fought valiantly and had won their power for their dedicated service to France.
This new class of politicians, however, came from a different group known as the noblesse de robe. They had never fought or bled for France, and rather had spent their lives in academia and law school without any understanding of the real world.
And while they claimed that their political crusade was all about ‘the people’, it was obvious that they just wanted more power for themselves.
France was just coming out of the Thirty Years’ War. The King was just a boy. The chief minister– Jules Mazarin– was extremely unpopular. So, these politicians saw an opportunity to take power.
They relied on their friends in the media to create divisions in French society– Catholics versus Huguenots, peasants versus merchants– and before long there was talk of civil war. And it didn’t exactly go as planned.
On August 27, a few weeks after submitting their ultimatum, roughly 160 politicians marched to the royal palace. They were joined by a small crowd of peasants who were dumb enough to believe that these nobles actually cared about commoners’ problems.
The royal court initially decided to placate and respect the crowd, so Louis’ mother took him outside of the city for a while. The politicians and their peasant followers immediately declared victory and turned Paris into a sort of ‘autonomous zone’.
But as months went by and nothing really improved, many of the peasants began to realize that they were just pawns in the noble’s attempt to seize power and turn France into an even worse feudalist state.
Eventually the boy king returned– this time with his army. And suddenly the rebel nobles realized that their civil war was about to get real. Trained, professional fighters were about to march through Paris and vanquish all the sissy elites who had never fought a day in their lives.
Sure, the elites knew how to write angry letters. They knew how to use the media to stoke divisions and call their opponents all sorts of horrible names. They knew how to talk tough. And if they were alive today, they’d probably be really great at making TikTok videos.
But they were ultimately a bunch of cowards who weren’t even willing to get a bloody nose for their so-called beliefs. And France’s ‘civil war’ was over in no time.
This is one of the great lessons from history: it’s easy to pretend that you stand for something when the cost for doing so is absolutely nothing. You only find out what people truly believe when their own blood and livelihood is on the line.
In our modern era, we have equally incompetent, idiotic, wimpy politicians who are devoid of backbone. They have no clue how the real world works, and they live a life of lavish status courtesy of the taxpayer.
They, too, have stoked division and animosity among the population. People used to be able to disagree with one another civilly. Now countless fanatics viscerally hate the other side and call for large groups of people, whether ‘billionaires’ or ‘Trump Supporters’ or ‘oil execs’, etc. to be lined up against the wall and shot.
There is no rational discourse anymore, only shouting matches, angry Twitter feuds, and ‘mostly peaceful’ protests. The takeover of so many college campuses across the Land of the Free is a testament to how far civil discourse has fallen.
It’s so bad that a number of polls suggest up to 43% of Americans think another civil war is coming within a decade. Even Ray Dalio– billionaire founder of the world’s largest hedge fund– recently said the same thing in an interview with the Financial Times last week. Some politicians and vocal social media personalities have also called for a ‘national breakup’.
Given that there’s even a Hollywood production out in the theaters right now literally called Civil War about a future breakdown of the US, we thought it was time to weigh in with a dose of reality.
Let’s be honest: an actual “war”, i.e. shooting, violence against violence, etc. isn’t going to happen.
Just like the French civil war in the mid-1600s, the majority of the hyper-angry progressive rebels in America today are elitist cowards. One need only take a look at the people who have taken over the universities: they’re idiot kids, not terrifying holy warriors.
Sure, it’s easy to look tough and storm an administrative building when your spineless university president tacitly (or explicitly) supports your cause.
But the second there’s any real violence, i.e. someone who fights back, they’ll all run away in an instant. They can’t even take a bloody nose.
Bear in mind, these progressives are the same people who hate firearms and want to ban them. And aside from a handful of Antifa thugs, the leftists are a bunch of wimps who have zero chance in combat.
It’s also worth pointing out that most of them stand for nothing. Remember the ‘defund the police’ politicians who quickly changed their tune as soon as they got carjacked or robbed?
They’re physical and intellectual cowards, worthy of pity… not fear. And that’s why, on the list of risks that I think about, civil war is really, really far down the list.
That energy is far better devoted to real problems– like, how to prevent the erosion of one’s savings from inflation. Or how to mitigate the consequences of the dollar losing its reserve status. Or how to make sure the insolvency of Social Security doesn’t turn one’s life upside down.
These are risks that have actual solutions, so you can control the outcome. The notion of civil war might be provocative and capture headlines, but it’s a waste of time to even think about.
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