‘Redistricting Battles a Prelude to a Real Civil War?’

 

The War between the States from 1861-1865 is often called the Civil War, but that is incorrect.  A civil war is a war fought by factions whose goal is to take control of a national government.  That is not what the Southern States were seeking to do when they seceded from the union; they were not interested in conquering Washington, DC (That city isn’t even a national government; it’s a federal government.  And, yes, the difference between the two is significant.).  Southerners only wanted to do what their forefathers had done several decades earlier in 1776:  Separate from a people and a government that they felt was threatening their way of life, in their case, a Christian, agrarian way of life.

Having defined our terms more precisely, we may move on to the issue at hand.  What we are witnessing today with the battles being waged in State governments over federal congressional districts could be a preparatory stage for a real civil war.  These redistricting battles are nothing else but a non-violent method of gaining or retaining control of the federal House of Representatives – i.e., taking control of a powerful branch of the federal government.  The heated rhetoric shows how tenuous that non-violence is:

‘Top Democrats are speaking — and acting — in increasingly existential terms over the audacious Trump-backed push to redraw Texas' congressional map ahead of the 2026 midterms.

‘ . . . "This is a war. We are at war. And that's why the gloves are off, and I say bring it on," New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared at a press conference Monday, accusing Texas Republicans of a "legal insurrection."

‘ . . . Outside Texas, key Democratic governors have launched an aggressive counteroffensive to try to neutralize the GOP's redistricting push.

• ‘In California, Newsom is eyeing a November special election that would sideline the state's independent redistricting commission and ask voters to approve a new, legislature-drawn map favoring Democrats.

 

• ‘In New York, Hochul said Democrats have "no choice" but to pursue a constitutional amendment to authorize new maps — though it wouldn't appear on the ballot until 2027 at the earliest.

 

• ‘In Illinois, where the congressional map is already heavily gerrymandered, Gov. J.B. Pritzker has vowed to protect fleeing Texas Democrats and left the door open to further revisions of the state's map.

‘Between the lines: Newsom, who's made no secret of his presidential ambitions, has openly accused Trump of "rigging" the midterms and suggested California could redraw its map to eliminate all nine GOP-held seats.

‘ . . . Hochul, who is running for re-election in 2026, has emerged as an unlikely face of the Democratic resistance.

• ‘She called Monday for disbanding New York's independent redistricting commission and embracing partisan hardball, telling reporters that she's "tired of fighting this fight with my hand tied behind my back."

 

• ‘"I cannot ignore that the playing field has changed dramatically, and shame on us if we ignore that fact and cling tight to the vestiges of the past," Hochul said.

‘The bottom line: Both sides are keenly aware that a Democratic victory in 2026 would grind Trump's agenda to a halt and potentially lead to his third impeachment.

• ‘"He knows he's going to lose in the midterms, and we have the opportunity to de facto end the Trump presidency in less than 18 months," Newsom said at a press conference Monday.

 

• ‘"That's what's at stake"’ (Zachary Basu, ‘Democrats go nuclear in redistricting arms race,’ Axios, via msn.com).

This is not the only pressure point in relations between the Red and Blue States:  There are battles over voter ID laws, lawfare, the Electoral College, and ballot removals, as well as Blue State shield laws that protect abortion-pill-dispensing doctors from being prosecuted in pro-life Red States where abortions are illegal.  And the list could go on.

These tensions threaten to eradicate what little remains of the goodwill between the Red and Blue States.  There are not many options to ease them:

1.  One of the sides capitulates.  Not likely in the current political atmosphere.

2.  Both sides take a step back and negotiate to reach a mutually beneficial settlement.  Again, not likely given the brinksmanship we’re witnessing.

3.  The two blocs of States, the more conservative and the more progressive, agree to separate and form new confederations.  Not likely either, because of the falsehoods that have been taught for generations about State sovereignty, secession, etc.

Therefore, the zero-sum political struggle in which the States are engaged seems likely to intensify.  But we have only ourselves to blame.

In Christian history there a number of instances of appeals being made to supernatural arbitrators (i.e., the saints) to resolve intractable disagreements.  . . . 

The rest is at https://thehayride.com/2025/08/garlington-redistricting-battles-a-prelude-to-a-real-civil-war/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

“The Monastic Republic of Arkansas”

 

Rivers and streams of water

Sparkling like clear crystals

Amid rolling hills clothed in grass

And trees emerald-green,

Fountains seeping from solid

Mountain sides, as if struck

By the rod of Moses,

Birdsong alone the hushed

Stillness breaking that rests

Blithely upon the whole –

Some Adamic soul who

Possessed deeper vision

Named the Natural State

Rightly.  Her beauty is

Both pristine and profound,

But she has not yet fulfilled

Her God-given purpose.

She waits for the rhythmic

Sounding of the semantron

Early in the dusky dawn,

The rich voice of ringing bells

Nestled in their towers,

Prayers and psalms read and sung

At every hour of the day,

For Eucharistic bread and wine

Consecrated on holy altars,

Pentecost re-enacted,

The Holy Ghost descending

And filling every mite

Of matter with the flames

Of sanctifying Grace,

For the Jesus Prayer

Whispered and sighed from lips

Of angelic hesychasts

As knees softly touch the floor

Inside of cells or upon

The soft soil of the earth

Beneath the brilliant blue sky,

 . . .

The rest is at https://southernorthodox.org/the-monastic-republic-of-arkansas/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

'Salerno'

 

Naval cannons issue

Their deafening roar;

Tanks and planes add

To the brutal cacophony;

A syzygy of human flesh

With bullet, shell, and shrapnel.

The unholy war of ideologies

Rages on the beaches

Of Salerno,

Democratism versus fascism,

Staining earth and sea

With blood and gore,

Scarring land and soul,

Preparing an easy path

For the fierce and final Beast,

Who smiles with satisfaction

Under the waters

Of the Mediterranean.

 

Seventeen centuries ago,

In that same small place,

The Beast suffered defeat

At the hands

Of three holy maidens –

Archeläis, Thekla, and Susanna.

 . . .

The rest is at https://www.newenglishreview.org/articles/salerno/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

‘Plot Twists in the Geopolitical Culture Wars’

 

Truth is stranger than fiction, as they say.

It is also stranger than the narratives found in most mainstream news stories.

Let’s look first at the Ukraine, the paragon of democratic goodness (or so we’re told).  The fair-haired child of most of the West just gutted its anticorruption offices, amongst other problematic actions:

‘[Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor] Orbán’s critique comes amid growing concern across Europe about democratic backsliding in Ukraine.

‘Just days earlier, the parliament in Kyiv adopted a law placing two key anti-corruption institutions—the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO)—under the direct supervision of the Prosecutor General, a presidential appointee.

‘Critics say this move effectively strips the agencies of their independence, a violation of one of the EU’s central accession criteria.

‘European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos said the law would derail the accession process.

‘Despite this, the bill was approved by the Ukrainian parliament, triggering mass protests in Kyiv and other cities.

‘Beyond the anti-corruption law, Ukraine has also drawn criticism for failing to hold general elections in 2024 as constitutionally required. The war was cited as justification, but critics argue that democratic life should continue, even under martial conditions.

‘Further concerns have arisen over forced military conscription. Numerous reports suggest that Ukrainian authorities have employed aggressive methods to recruit soldiers. A Hungarian-Ukrainian dual citizen, József Sebestyén, was recently beaten to death by recruiters, fuelling Budapest’s anger’ (Zoltán Kottász, ‘Rule of Lawfare: Brussels Ignores Ukraine’s Violations While Punishing Member States,’ europeanconservative.com).

Then there is angelic Ukraine’s proposal to decriminalize pornography to fund its war effort.

Why are we supporting this regime again?  Oh yeah, because the US and other Western governments overthrew her elected government in 2014 precisely to start a war with ‘our adversary’ Russia.

And what has that supposed enemy been up to lately?  All kinds of grisly, grimy, dark things, we’re sure – terrible, horrible things like . . . banning satansim:

‘The Russian Supreme Court recognized the “International Satanism Movement” as an extremist organization and banned its activities in Russia on Wednesday.

‘The decision went into effect immediately, but can be appealed within a month, reports RBC.

‘The Court’s exact reasoning is as yet unknown, as the session took place behind closed doors and the case materials haven’t been publicly disclosed. His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia previously made public calls to ban Satanism.

‘The Prosecutor General’s office, commenting on the decision, stated that the participants of the movement publicly call for extremism and the “destruction of churches.”

‘“The followers of the movement adhere to the general principles of Satanism, use common symbols and attributes, and perform occult rituals. The conceptual basis consists of publications that are recognized as extremist materials. The movement is closely associated with manifestations of radical nationalism and neo-Nazism. Along with ritual murders, participants commit other crimes, including those against minors,” the statement said.

‘The same judge, Oleg Nefedov, recognized the international LGBT movement as extreme and banned its activities in Russia in 2023.

‘ . . . According to the expert, marketplaces will have to withdraw products containing symbols of Satanism from sale. These include earrings with inverted crosses, medallions with a Baphomet and a pentagram, various pendants with inscriptions in Latin glorifying Satan, and more’ (‘Russian Supreme Court bans Satanism,’ orthochristian.com).

This is a good point to turn our focus to our corner of the world here in the States, for we have a pronounced satanism problem here.  For instance, there are literally thousands of Christian martyrs and other saints from all of Church history that we could honor every day of every month of the year, yet we choose not to.  But that veneration that mankind naturally wants to give to exemplary men and women will go somewhere, and unfortunately it goes at times to people like the recently reposed Ozzy Osborne, whose heavy metal version of rock-n-roll was full of demonic allusions.  It is stunning how our media organizations like the Associated Press write in praise of him, as though his music career were a positive thing for the US and the rest of the world:

 . . .

The rest is at https://thehayride.com/2025/07/garlington-plot-twists-in-the-geopolitical-culture-wars/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!