Repost: Reynolds on the Efficacy of Political Violence

A repost from 2008:

Instapundit today cited this WSJ Opinion Page item about another media cave-in based on "...cautionary advice not only that the publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment."

Professor Reynolds observed:

Will other religious groups take the lesson that violence works? Because, in a world of the spineless, it does, and at very low cost.

Thanks, guys, for establishing this incentive structure.

As I read that comment, it struck me that the modern Western world's political and corporate institutions are more afraid of and submissive to a tiny group of murderous adherents of a seventh-century pedophile than they are of the combined power of the West's free men and women.

Responsibility for this pathetic state of affairs lies in part with Mohammed's more enthusiastic supporters, who have correctly diagnosed and continue to ruthlessly exploit the Western elites' elemental cowardice.

Accountable, too, are the Western elites themselves, who, having abandoned any concept of either the secular or the spiritual Eternal, are interested solely in today and being viewed by their peers as properly progressive.

But primary culpability must ultimately lie with each ostensibly-free Western woman and man - this author included. Each of us is responsible for the actions of those we send to represent us, and our failure to remove our agents whenever they violate their representative mandate leaves the problem squarely with us. Instead of replacing cowardly leaders and cultural Quislings with this generation's Churchills and Jacksons, most in the West simply click the remote control, grab another handful of greasy snacks, and dream by the glow of their flatscreen TV of tomorrow's visit to the mall.

We are truly our own worst enemies.

Hajii has taught the West well that to achieve an ever-widening cultural collapse, all that is necessary is the graphic murder of a few thousand innocents, buttressed with a very few graphic videos of butchery and a drumbeat of murderous threats.

Simply put, hajii knows that violence - the nastier, the better - works to influence political behavior, for better or worse.

And the more cowardly one's opponents, the more effective is targeted, intense violence - thereby reducing the need for large doses of the tactic against irresolute foes.

Hajii has proven those hypotheses over the past several years vis a vis the Western media and governments, including our own.

Relevance?

As I write this piece, I suspect analysts in law enforcement "fusion centers" across the country are tracking the recent Internet brouhaha over Mike Vanderboegh's writing. Those analysts are trying, if they are competent in their jobs, to create an estimate for their bureaucratic masters as to the actual resistance probability and capability of America's gun owners.

The governmental mandarins that employ those "intel pukes" know full well the lesson that hajii has learned since 9/11 - violence works, especially when used against soft, scared targets.

After all, they have employed it repeatedly themselves - "demonstrations", if you will, of what could happen on a much wider scale if folks get too uppity.

It's not clear at all whether or not the LEO crowd, their political masters, and the hordes of supporting bureaucrats can even conceive that they too might be at the receiving end of a similar "demonstration" by free men and women against future outbreaks of governmental bad behavior.

The Brady Bunch thinks discussion of such an eventuality is outrageous:

***
...In the wake of the Vanderboegh letter, to one degree or another, armed revolt has been treated as a legitimate policy answer to popular gun control measures by one blogger after another in the gun community (emphasis in original)- rather than denounced as immoral or as street-corner gibberish uttered by one who wears a tinfoil hat...
***

Since 2001, The Prophet's frothing followers have proven that the West's politicians, media moguls, and institutions are gutless and weak - save for the US military, which of course is controlled by the civilian government's cultural incontinents.

The essential question then - for the analysts, their masters, and ourselves - is whether or not the Second Amendment community is, in Professor Reynolds' words, "the world of the spineless."

If we are, then a few sharp shocks directed against a few high-profile RKBA activists should be all it takes to cow America's gun-owning Walter Mittys into submission.

On the other hand, if there are even 3% of Mike Vanderboegh's supposedly-mythical "Three Percenters" with the commitment of hajii - then we can expect some very harsh lessons for the spineless statist utopians as they attempt to deliver hoped-for change and reasonable new gun control laws, inspired by the majority's words in Heller.

We're on a short path to an answer to that question.

Tempus fugit.

III