Here’s a brief, sad, only slightly exaggerated view of the world from an aging man who has fallen out of the habit of carrying a pocket knife.
Times Change Out From Under Us
And maybe I only see it as ‘slightly exaggerated’ because I’ve been outside the world for most of this century. When I was in it, I felt perfectly justified writing far more overwrought screeds on exactly this topic.
They say that Louis XIV had the inscription Ultima Ratio Regum cast into all the cannon of the French Army. It means “The Ultimate Argument of Kings,” and that always struck me as one of the most honest and up-front things any ruler or would-be ruler ever said. “We can dress it up prettier than this, but when it comes down to the unvarnished truth this is what it’s about: You’ll do as I say or I’ll send my goons to kill you.”
I thought about that for a long time. If there’s an ultimate argument, it seems only logical that there must be an ultimate answer. For years I thought the ultimate answer must be the bullets in my rifle, but it never seemed quite right. I’ve got bullets – he’s got frigging Cannon Balls. I mean, if there were three hundred million rifles throwing bullets at him, then maybe. But we all know that’s not going to happen. So if there’s an ultimate answer to his ultimate argument, it sure as hell ain’t bullets.
It finally came to me – and that’s when I abandoned the city and most of my stuff, and gave all that was behind me a good stiff Randian Shrug.
The ultimate answer to kings is not a bullet, but a belly laugh.
Little Bear 2009-2018
Laddie the Amazing Torso Boy 2011-2020
"Freedom Outlaw. Itâs not what you do; itâs how you do it. Itâs an attitude â from which actions always follow. Itâs a do-it-yourself occupation. And a lifetime vocation."
- Claire Wolfe, Backwoods Home Companion, 6-07-10
I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.
- G. K. Chesterton
"If every Jewish and anti-Nazi family in Germany had owned a Mauser rifle and twenty rounds of ammunition and the will to use it, Adolf Hitler would be a little-known footnote to the history of the Weimar Republic."
- Aaron Zelman
"Authority should derive from the consent of the governed, not from the threat of force."
- Barbie
"Never underestimate the ability of shit to find a fan."
- F. Paul Wilson
"You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs." The sophistry of villains - Bah!
- Robert A. Heinlein, Double Star
âTruth is, Iâm not specifically interested in an armed society. What I want is a free society.â
- George Potter
I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.
- D. H. Lawrence
Aristippus passed Diogenes as he was washing lentils.
He said, âIf you could but learn to flatter the king, you would not have to live on lentils.â
Diogenes said, âAnd if you could learn to live on lentils, you would not have to flatter the king.â
Sandy Hook was a Gun Free Zone. So was the Westroads Mall. And the Aurora Theater. And Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Should I go on? They were all Gun Free Zones.Â
– Reality
âPolitical tags â such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth â are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.â
- Robert A. Heinlein
"Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."
- Ayn Rand
If ever a man should ask you
For your business or your name
Tell him to go and fuck himself
Tell his friends to do the same.
For a man who'd trade his liberty
For a safe and dreamless sleep
Doesn't deserve the both of them
And neither shall he keep.
- Frank Turner
Don't be afraid to try something big, just because you're an amateur. The Ark was built by amateurs. The Titanic was built by professionals.
- Anon
"Nothing scares a police officer more than the threat of being treated the way that they treat people every day."
- Anon
"Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet."
- Gen. James Mattis
"Lust for power is the most flagrant of all the passions."
- Tacitus
"The man who knows what freedom means will find a way to be free."
- F.A. "Baldy" Harper
"The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude."
- William James
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
- Viktor Frankl
The free man will ask neither what his country can do for him nor what he can do for his country.
- Milton Friedman
âWe must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.â
- William Faulkner
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.
- Ernest Hemingway
"Everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
John Moses Browning - The most badass Mormon who ever lived.
"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.'"
- Ronald Reagan
The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.
- James A. Baldwin
"It is better to be a warrior in a garden than to be a gardener in a war."
- Anon
âI tried to live in such a way that, when dying, I would rather feel happy than scared.â
â Witold Pilecki
Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master.
- Sallust
"Place your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark."
- Lazarus Long
Read, every day, something no one else is reading.
Think, every day, something no one else is thinking.
Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do.
It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.
– Â Christopher Morley
“I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceases to be a man.”
-Frederick Douglass
ESSE QUAM VIDERI –
To be, rather than to seem
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
“A Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give.”
– Ida B. Wells
Do what thy manhood bid thee do; from none but self expect applause.
He noblest lives and noblest dies, who makes and keeps his self made laws
– Sir Richard Burton
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
– Winston Churchill
âHappiness is a journey, not a destination. Dance as though no one is watching you. Love as though you have never been hurt before. Sing as though no one can hear you. Live as though heaven is on earth.â
â Father Alfred d’Souza
“He put away his thoughts and went to get his knife.”
When he had it in hand, he couldn’t remember why he wanted it.
đ Damn whippersnappers. No respect for your elders.
Jeez, Joel, that was a dispiriting piece.
“When he had it in hand, he couldnât remember why he wanted it.”
Then his face brightened with a smile. He opened the knife, tested its sharpness despite knowing he could shave with it, and slashed his throat.
“leased out to a pedophile group” is a bit over-the-top. I hope.
“Handicapped Parking” around here is “Person With Disability parking stall”.
“Now they had privileges” Some privilege- you qualify for a PWD spot if you can’t walk over 200 feet without difficulty.
i don’t remember coke being that inexpensive, but we were free and never thought about it.
we ran ll over the place, we went to the grocery store on errands by ourselves, we rode our bikes, swung on grapevines, climbed trees.
we were out after dark in summer to catch lightning bugs. we rolled around on the grass with the dog.
one thing, these days, with interstates so handy you can’t let your kids run like that because of all these child kidnappers. that i noticed when, near us, a little girl named cherry mahon was kidnapped and never heard from again.
so i kept an eagle eye.
then young girls began to be kidnapped by other girls in restrooms. they used a hypodermic to stab another girl with a drug, then ‘helped’ their ‘friend’ out of the store as she was ‘feeling ill’.
these girls were delivered to scum who rape them for snuff films and/or sell them to whorehouses or other criminals.
so i still kept the eagle eye.
between the demon spawn running loose and the long-nosed busybodies freedom is a thing of the past.
when my kid told the kid who lived adjacent to us that she was homeschooled, that neighbor turned us in. amounted to nothing as it was perfectly legal, but hose weasels are all around us.
i do not feel secure anywhere these days except inside the house.
if i step around to the backyard i lock the door behind me.
a minute unaware may become a lifetime of regret.
Didn’t something like that happen somewhere in England a couple of years ago?
Joel, I haven’t snapped my whip for quite some time now. I are a elder.
KY: my grandpappy once took a bullwhip from me and showed me how to do it. That old fart made blue smoke come off the end! He allowed as how in his younger days he was a mule skinner and the old Borax “20-mule team” ad was based on reality. Or did I misunderstand “snapped my whip”?
Joel @ 11:24am: I hope not. Ick.
DH: “hose weasels? = “those weasels”? Or am I not up on the kids’ latest jargon?
“Or did I misunderstand âsnapped my whipâ?”
It was a subtle, humorous play off of “whippersnapper”, with thinly-veiled allusion to some of the developments faced by “those of a certain age”.
I’m pretty sure that demographic “got it”.
đ
robert, it is ‘those’. the ‘t’ got away from me.