sHoTs fIReD!!!!

or not, dorks

During the Great Depression, the Midwestern farm states witnessed a series of serious farmer rebellions, in some cases led locally and in some cases led by a firebrand named Milo Reno. Facing widespread foreclosures, farmers held “penny auctions” in which hundreds of men showed up to offer the bank a single penny when the auctioneer opened the floor for bids — the implied threat of hundreds of massed farmers preventing other people from bidding. In Plymouth County, Iowa, a judge who ignored the very large crowd of farmers in his courtroom and went ahead with a foreclosure order was dragged to the crossroads, beaten unconscious or close to it, and left in the road without his pants.

And then, finally, we come to the great Iowa Cow War of 1931. State agricultural officials contained an outbreak of bovine tuberculosis by testing cows — and killing cows that tested positive. Farmers got partial reimbursement for the destroyed cattle, taking financial losses during a period when they were already in financial crisis. State veterinarians arriving at cattle farms with test kits were…not greeted warmly. At one farm, “Assistant Attorney General Oral Swift was threatened to be thrown into a horse tank. He did sustain cuts from being pushed into a barbed wire fence but was able to avoid taking the bath.” Facing vigorous resistance, the governor called out the Iowa National Guard, and the troops set up machine gun nests to control the movement of farmers. Infantrymen patrolled farm roads with fixed bayonets.

And then: pretty much nothing.

Read this account of the Cow War in Cedar County: “…the Cedar County Cow War of 1931 ended without bloodshed.” Because if you call out the Iowa National Guard in 1931, who is that? Where does the Iowa National Guard get troops? The most detailed account of the whole series of events that are collectively called the Cornbelt Rebellion describes Midwestern “rebel” farmers going down to the machine gun nests to drink coffee with their sons and brothers, the troops sent to put down their rebellion. The Iowa National Guard and the Nebraska National Guard suppressed farm rebels; the Iowa National Guard and the Nebraska National Guard were…Iowa and Nebraska farmers. No one was dumb enough to shoot anybody.

So. There’s a bunch of dramatic wishcasting in the news and in social media this week about “Fort Sumter,” and I nominate Will Bunch for the Dumbest Columnist prize.

But then there’s this, from actual Border Patrol agents:

The people who wear Border Patrol uniforms at the Texas border don’t fly in from Brooklyn every morning to work their shifts. They live in Texas border towns, have families in Texas border towns, and know people who wear the uniform of the Texas National Guard. They’re not going to shoot their neighbors because halfwit figurehead Joe Biden bumblefucks up a totally preventable crisis. All the grunts on the alleged Second Civil War battlefield are on the same side. The gravest danger between them is a backyard cookout. If there’s shooting at Eagle Pass, somebody check on the location of the FBI jackasses who brewed up the “Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping.” I assert with confidence that no Texans want or intend to shoot each other over this crap. See also this comment on my last post. If a civil war starts, this probably isn’t the Fort Sumter. It’s probably where we see that the President of the United States wears adult diapers and should take a nap.