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BARROW NEWS-JOURNAL
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2021
Opinions
“Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent. ”
- Henry Ward Beecher ~
Another civil war?
Is America headed for a new civil war?
That nagging question keeps coming up and
not just from the fringe right-wing groups that
have long cheered such a horrible event.
Today, more mainstream voices are won
dering aloud if some kind of widespread civil
unrest could be in the nation’s near future, pos
sibly around the 2024 elections.
Recent polls show that around 46% of Amer
icans think a civil conflict is possible; that rate
is higher here in the South where the previous
civil war still gets discussed and is woven into
the South’s cultural fabric.
But could that really happen?
•••
Some of the concern about pos
sible political violence comes from
the uprising of Jan. 6 when Tump
supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol
in an effort to stop the counting of
election results after Trump had been
defeated by Joe Biden.
The more we’ve learned about
that day’s events, the clearer it has
become that Trump and his key sup
porters did indeed want Congress to
ignore the 2020 election and give the
presidency back to Trump. Before the Capitol
insurgency, Trump himself had riled up the
crowd, which soon became a violent mob as it
overran an undermanned police force.
It’s clear now that Trump wanted the mob to
succeed. In fact, he had already attempted to
have the election results overturned by pres
suring Georgia officials to ignore the state’s
voting results and throw Georgia’s electors to
him. Georgia’s secretary of state and governor
refused to do that illegal act for Trump.
The result? Trump has attacked both Gov.
Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad
Raffensperger. Recently, Trump suggested to a
Georgia crowd that Democrat Stacey Abrams
would be a better governor than Republican
Kemp, a comment that has scared the state
GOP because it divides Republican efforts to
stop Abrams.
In addition. Trump has endorsed Rep. Jody
Hice of Georgia’s 10th Congressional District
in Hice’s bid to unseat Raffensperger in 2022.
Hice is a right-wing Trump advocate who un
doubtedly would have thrown out the state’s
2020 election results had he been secretary of
state instead of Raffensperger.
•••
As the months have passed, Trump and his
followers have continued to claim, falsely,
that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen.
It wasn’t and there is zero evidence to back up
those claims.
But the claims have not faded. Instead, they
have become a rallying cry for Republican
Trump supporters. Around that false claim,
they have attempted to rewrite history by
downplaying the mob of Jan. 6. Ninth District
Congressman Andrew Clyde has been part of
that rewriting of history by comparing the Jan.
6 mob to tourists.
The narrative that has resulted from all that
is the false claim that the election was stolen
and that those who stormed the Capitol on Jan.
6 were really “patriots” who were just attempt
ing to protect America. In that view, the rioters
were martyrs who are now being politically
persecuted by law enforcement.
That is Orwellian double-speak. Those who
stormed the Capitol were really traitors, not pa
triots. They weren’t trying to protect democra
cy; they were attempting to destroy it.
And it was Trump and his followers who at
tempted to steal an election, not his opponent.
Still, the stolen-election-rioters-as-martyrs
view has become the new ideological core of
the Republican Party. Gone are the traditional
GOP talking points about conservatism; that
has been replaced by the false narrative em
braced by Trump and his cult followers.
• ••
The second thing that has happened is that
several states, including Georgia, have changed
election laws in an attempt to put a finger on
the scale to help the GOP in close elections.
Much of the media focus around that has
centered on efforts to limit voter access, espe
cially in areas that tend to vote Democratic.
But that’s the wrong focus. The real change
has been to tinker with the mechanics of vot
ing so that in close elections, GOP legislatures
can throw out votes to change outcomes that go
against their candidates.
Here in Georgia, the state elections
“reform” laws include a provision
that the state can take over local elec
tion boards it deems to be misman
aged.
• ••
What does that have to do with
possible civil conflict?
Imagine this scenario:
In 2024, Trump is the GOP candi
date and there’s another close elec
tion like 2020. This time, however,
it’s close enough that Georgia’s elec
toral votes will determine the final
outcome.
With Hice as secretary of state, Trump would
have a puppet to do his bidding. Under the
changes in state law, Hice could declare that
Fulton County’s voting, which is largely Dem
ocratic, was poorly managed and have the state
take over the county’s election board. From
there, it’s a short path to tossing out ballots,
or simply removing all Fulton votes from the
state’s tally, thus giving the state to Trump.
While such a move would undoubtedly face
an immediate court challenge, it could also
spark violence. Georgia would become the
center of the political universe, drawing in
thousands of people on both sides of the polit
ical spectrum. Riots would ensue, especially in
Atlanta and Fulton County where voters would
have been disenfranchised.
As the riots grew and became a media spec
tacle, armed right-wing militia groups would
pour into Atlanta under the guise of “helping”
police keep order. More violence would follow.
Across the nation, more riots could happen
and more clashes between citizens become vi
olent, especially in urban areas.
That isn’t like the last civil war, but it could
lead to the creation of a petty dictatorship un
der the guise of “keeping order” in the nation.
There would be a huge temptation to quell the
violence at any price, even if it meant suspend
ing civil liberties and declaring martial law.
Once martial law is declared, there would be
no going back. America would have become
Germany of the 1930s.
• ••
A few years ago, all of that would have
seemed to be little more than a dystopian plot
for a movie.
But it’s no longer so far-fetched.
We live in an era of deep political polar
ization and mistrust. What were once fringe
movements have become mainstream. Misin
formation and lies have become the currency
of social media. Propaganda is common and
even crude propaganda has traction among the
disaffected.
On top of that, we have a class of political
leaders, headed by Trump, who are amoral and
authoritarian in nature. They don’t care about
democracy and only care about winning elec
tions at all costs, the consequences be damned.
On Jan. 6, the nation crossed a Rubicon. A
war for the soul of the nation looms in 2024.
The question isn’t if, but how that war will
be waged.
Mike Buffington is co-publisher of Main-
street Newspapers. He can be reached at
mike @ mainstreetnews. com.
mike
buffington
Letter to the Editor
Will you come walk with me for suicide
prevention efforts, mental health awareness?
Dear Editor:
I am Shawn Smith and I am a mom walking as a
survivor of suicide loss. My firstborn son. Candler
David Smith, took his life on Feb. 1,2017.
Candler struggled with anxiety and depression
for the majority of his life. Candler told friends in
fifth grade that he did not want to be around any
more and shared his plan for ending his life. I am
ever grateful to those guys who immediately went
to their school counselor at Duncan Creek Elemen
tary School, who then immediately contacted Tim
and me.
At that point in Candler’s life and moving forward,
he was under the care of a psychiatrist, psychologist
and pediatrician. Candler was also surrounded by
the love and care of his mom, dad, younger brother
and many other family members and friends.
Candler continued to have many hurdles through
out middle school and high school years. Those
hurdles were in the form of grandparents passing
away (all four during his high school years, a five-
year time span) along with a close friend who died
right in front of him from a heart condition no one
knew about.
Do not be afraid to say the word suicide. Do not
be afraid to ask if they are OK and know how im
portant it is to sit with that person until that suicide
ideation passes.
I invite you to come walk in the American Foun
dation of Suicide Prevention/Barrow County Out
of the Darkness Walk on Oct. 24 at 2 p.m. at First
Christian Church in Winder. Our walk will follow
the Chalice Walk around our church campus and in
clude the Winder-Barrow High School campus that
backs up to Candler Street. I view that not as a co
incidence but as the important meaning of speaking
out about your mental health, your suicide ideation,
and know that it is OK not to be OK.
Candler was a light to others and is now living on
in others.
Won’t you please come walk with me?
Peace and Blessings.
Shawn Smith
Hey automated ump,
you need glasses!
Strange question: If every sport
ing event could promise flawless
officiating by robots, would you be
OK with that?
I’m thinking of this because
some minor league baseball parks
are testing out Automated Ball-
Strike technology (ABS) this year.
I saw a clip of a ridiculous automat
ed called third strike against a mi
nor league batter, who bent over in
disbelief in the batter’s box, totally
dejected.
He looked at the umpire,
but what could he say? It
wasn’t the umpire’s fault.
The home plate ump was
just relaying technolo
gy’s call. The batter knew
he was wronged, but the
issue was with the com
puter system. What could
the batter do — perhaps
gather some dirt from the
batter’s box and drive to
Silicon Valley, knock on
the door of a Zuckerburg
look-alike and then kick the dirt on
the guy’s bedroom slippers as he
stood in his doorway?
The most striking thing about the
baseball clip wasn’t the woefully
bad call, but the helplessness of
both the batter and the umpire in
the situation. They had to submit
to a higher power — an algorithm.
They both just kind of stood there
like “what the heck?”
No doubt, umpires and referees
can be infuriating to all sports fans,
because they make mistakes. But
what is “perfect” or “flawless” in
the world of sports officiating? So
much seems too close to call. The
phrase “motivated reasoning” pops
into my head constantly these days,
particularly in politics. But it’s ob
vious in sports, too. As fans, we of
ten see what we want to see. And
in a highly partisan sporting event,
our feelings about calls are tied to
our allegiances. In the heat of the
moment, we like the ref who makes
a bad call in our favor and dislike
the one who makes a bad decision
against us. That’s a very human
part of the game.
But beyond that, a call that ap
pears wrong with an automated
umpire would actually seem way
worse than with a human official. It
would feel rigged in a deeper way
than simply a human who seemed
biased. And there’s no appeal to the
lifeless algorithm. When we have
no appeal to something wrong,
we’re left feeling robbed of some
thing essential. I like instant replay,
because human eyes review what
we all see. But give me human sub
jectivity over artificial intelligence
on the playing field. The surrender
of human decision making in that
way seems like too much.
Of course, I think this goes far
beyond sports and gets to a broader
question for our modern life: How
much human imperfection do we
eliminate to receive the perceived
“perfection” and efficiency of new
technologies?
It’s a mixed bag, right? New tech
nology can be great. We all have
conveniences that humans across
history couldn’t enjoy. But the aims
aren’t always to benefit consumers.
Sometimes it’s simply about using
tech to secure more profits at the
expense of consumers.
For instance, the shift to com
puterized technology in vehicles
seems less like progress than the
industry’s attempt to control all re
pairs. This is marketed as a move to
“state-of-the-art” technology, but it
if you reduce the number of people
who can maintain your product,
putting repairs exclusively in your
own hands, then you have more
market control. But consumers and
mechanics are done wrong in the
process. Right-to-repair laws make
sense given this trend.
Likewise, the move away from
human phone services toward au
tomated response systems has
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certainly been cost-effective for
businesses and agencies, but not
for anyone needing a real person
on the other end of the line when
you need a problem addressed. This
didn’t feel like progress. It felt like
a needless barrier to old human
interactions. Also, Amazon is con
venient, but there’s certainly a lot
of lost interaction there with home
shopping. Think of all the self-pay
stations these days compared to
years ago. That may not
seem like much, but the
collective effect of every
one, everywhere going
remote and digital is not a
very warm, human direc
tion, but a more discon
nected society. I expect
that trend will continue to
accelerate.
We will see more auto
mation in many ways in
coming years. Self-driv
ing cars and trucks could
alter our lives drastically,
with cars essentially driven from
satellites in space. That just doesn’t
comfort me in the least. I imagine
my first moments in a self-driving
vehicle, “driving” from our house
to work without touching the steer
ing wheel or the accelerator. No
thank you. I think of all the little
things. How does it decide where
to park? “No Siri, I said back in to
the space. But not that space!” How
would I communicate all the small
decisions? Trying to communicate
such things would certainly lead
me to simply want control again.
If the goal of technology and au
tomation is to make human work
less needed, then what happens
when that goal is too successful?
Say, all truck drivers are put out
of work by automation? True, this
hardly seems a worry given our
current job market. But since auto
mation often proves far more prof
itable than people, the elimination
of old jobs will likely be a major
disruptive force over the next 20
years, with many people surviving
changes just fine, but many oth
ers not, unless equivalent jobs are
created. That may happen, but how
fast?
All that said, it seems worthwhile
to appreciate humans in all sorts of
jobs around us. When I go some
where I want to talk to a person.
When I need something, I need a
human, not a machine. When I can’t
get a human, I feel less human.
And heck no, I wouldn’t want
to pay money to see an automated
umpire call a real game. I want a
real umpire. The spectacle of a re
ally bad call is part of sports itself,
a really human part. There is anger,
elation, crowd noise and calcula
tions about the effect of the call on
the outcome.
Where does all that go if it’s au
tomated? Toward an algorithm?
When that ump calls strike three,
I want to see it with his passion
behind it, not with a shrug of his
shoulders and an “I don’t get it ei
ther.”
That would diminish the game.
And we need to think about more
than baseball with that in mind.
Zach Mitcham is editor of The
Madison County Journal, a sis
ter newspaper of the Barrow
News-Journal. He can be reached
at zach@mainstreetnews.com.
The Barrow News-Journal
Winder. Barrow County. Ga.
www.BarrowJournal.com
Mike Buffington Co-Publisher
Scott Buffington Co-Publisher
Scott Thompson Editor
Susan Treadwell Advertising
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zach
mitcham