Civil war starts when entrenched, homogeneous populations wish to plunder the resources or alter the ideology of other entrenched, homogeneous populations. We had an American civil war because a resident of Nashville might, at some point in their life, venture as far as Louisville but never as far as Baltimore. Syria has a civil war because farmers in Daraa could walk for three days and beg for alms in Damascus. Yugoslavia had a civil war because Christians living down the street from Muslims were reminded that everything went to shit when the Muslims down the street sided with the Nazis 40 years earlier. It helped that they'd been slaughtering each other for about 500 years.

Civil war does not start when a bureaucrat working for one agency this week takes resources from a bureaucrat working for another agency this week.

Our state and federal governments are in

OPEN.

ARMED.

CONFLICT.

I would like you to point to the spot on the map where an agent of any state government exchanged fire with an agent of the federal government.

And then I would like you to breathe deeply, close your eyes, and slowly exhale while counting to ten.