“No Room In Our Collective Farm For Kulaks!”

Bill Clinton recently warned democrats that bitter clingers represent a serious threat to the democrat party’s socialistic agenda because they tend to be one-issue voters on gun control. He sympathized with the miserable wretches, who have nothing to do but hunt and fish, and proposed that ways and means be devised for neutralizing or coopting the pagani “rural primitives.”

Former President Bill Clinton warned a group of top Democratic donors at a private Saturday meeting not to underestimate the passions that gun control stirs among many Americans.

“Do not patronize the passionate supporters of your opponents by looking down your nose at them,” Clinton said.

“A lot of these people live in a world very different from the world lived in by the people proposing these things,” Clinton said. “I know because I come from this world.”

Clinton dedicated a substantial portion of his 40-minute address before a joint meeting of the Obama National Finance Committee and a group of business leaders to the issue of guns and gun control, saying that it was a test-case for President Barack Obama’s grass-roots movements. …

Clinton said that Republicans have been struggling in presidential politics since 1992 — noting that 2004 was the only time a Republican has won the popular vote in more than 20 years. But, he said, the party has been successful in energizing its supporters for midterm elections.

“You have the power to really democratize America,” Clinton said. “You can do it on immigration reform, you can do it on these economic issues. You can do it on implementing the health care bill.”

But, Clinton warned, the issue of guns has a special emotional resonance in many rural states — and simply dismissing pro-gun arguments is counterproductive. …

[H]e said that he understands the culture that permeates a state like Arkansas — where guns are a longstanding part of local culture.

“A lot of these people … all they’ve got is their hunting and their fishing,” he told the Democratic financiers. “Or they’re living in a place where they don’t have much police presence. Or they’ve been listening to this stuff for so long that they believe it all.”

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The admirably-cynical Mencius Moldbug casually eviscerates James Boyle’s belief in the equal availability of leniency in cases of disinterested civil disobedience, advanced apropos the prosecution of Aaron Swartz in response to two postings (one and two) by Orin Kerr at Volokh.

Professor Boyle, you see, attempting to be even-handed, tried balancing the (generally enthusiastically condoned) civil disobedience of Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks with ” the anti-abortion activist who trespasses on Planned Parenthood in order to spray paint his slogan.”

I’m quite confident that Professor Boyle doesn’t really believe Christians have the right to vandalize abortion clinics. As he makes quite clear by his use of Movement dog-whistles such as “reform” and “change,” what he really means is: the Party has the right to change the law, by displaying its own power to protect, even glorify, those who break it. The kulaks? Neighbor, don’t be ridiculous. The kulak exists to be beaten. …

“Special deterrence” is just one of the many 20th-century euphemisms which we use to cover the fact that we know perfectly well that might makes right. That is: Christians do not in fact have the right to vandalize abortion clinics (and get away with it, as Professor Boyle and I agree in wishing Aaron Swartz had gotten away with his JSTOR hack.)

Why don’t Christians have the right to vandalize abortion clinics? Because they do not have the might to do so (and get away with it). If they did, Christians would be on top and progressives would be on the bottom. We would live in a different country – one in which, as in most legal codes in human history around the globe, abortion was considered a serious crime. And there would be, of course, no such thing as an “abortion clinic.” …

As a power structure the American political system is a real work of art. For instance, one of the most basic ways to show power over someone is to take away something he has and wants to keep. It doesn’t have to be anything valuable, either to you or to him. Though it can be. Ideally, though, it’s of no real value to you, but considerable value (perhaps only sentimental or irrational value) to him. That way, it’s clear to everyone what the exercise is about: as Lenin put it, who beats whom.

I actually think it’s really wonderful that President Obama, even before the second term of his historic presidency, has jumped out so hard on the good old reliable beat-the-kulaks campaign trail. It’s always fun to be an overdog. But never forget to actually play the part. If you stop beating people, they might forget that you’re in charge.

Read the whole thing.

If anybody doubts the wisdom of the Moldbug, all he needs to do is to try a little civil disobedience experiment: Go and publicly brandish a large capacity rifle magazine somewhere in the District of Columbia in order to make your point, and see if District of Columbia Attorney General Irvin Nathan will refrain from prosecuting you the same way he delivered a pass to NBC News’s David Gregory for doing the same thing.