Hypothetically Thinking

A friend and I were discussing the far-reaching desires the left has been tossing out in regards to gun control lately. The friend then suggested that if Diane Feinstein's over-reaching proposition (it really is shameless how they'll exploit a tragedy for every last thing they can get.) were passed, that it would result in new civil war.

That got me to thinking.  If there were such a hypothetical uprising, the split would fall very much along political lines. It would be left versus right. Now, if we start protracting demographics, where do those folks live? Well the leftists live primarily in dense urban areas and the right lives predominantly in the rural areas. Sure there's your odd outliers, but by and large that's how it breaks down.

During the civil war it broke down very much along those same lines... The agrarian south versus the industrialized north. The industrialization of the north is primarily what allowed the north prevail. They were able to crank out more cannon and rifles. Now however comes the big but... (...and this is where those who claim the Civil War as a corollary are incorrect) If we compare things from now to then the division urban to rural is far more stark.

A modern city requires a far larger expanse of rural land to provide the food, power and water to support it than a Victorian era city. The majority of that land is presumably (based upon the prior assumption of demographics) populated with their rural "enemies".

So then by extension we'd have large numbers of pampered urban leftists who can no longer drive down to the local Whole Foods to buy their arugula and tofu and stop at Starbucks for a Joe, suddenly being forced to eat their cats in darkness and wash it down with a few drops of water scavenged from the toilet tank (or worse).

During the civil war, there were enough rural areas encompassed in the north to support the population of urban areas (although not without some noticeable hardship), but the cities these days have grown far larger and far more densely populated and therefore they require a likewise far larger supporting rural area.

These facts are something our smug, elitist, urban brethren have not thought about when they point their manicured finger at us in derision and snidely call us "rednecks" who live in "fly-over country" in that signature, liberal nasal whine.

We've already seen how adverse to hardship these people are. In WWII we lost well over 10,000 men on a single day (June 6th '44) and still we stood fast and fought on. In Iraq, we hadn't hardly lost a dozen fighting men before they were screeching "retreat!!!". Rural folk just tend to be far more hearty by nature. We farm and hunt and fish...

So how much deprivation do you think it will take for them to cry uncle? Or am I thoroughly off base with my assessment of the hypothetical situation?

Oh and one final point which I forgot. The bulk of that industrialization that existed in the urban areas during the Civil War that facilitated the north's victory... Well that's been all shipped overseas to China or other such low cost labor areas and they are unlikely to extend more credit to a disintegrating United States.

I'd be interested in hearing your theories an speculation about such a hypothetical uprising.