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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.
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Previous OPSEC Violations
Hmmm…..Republicans put you in chains….bad….. big amorphous monolithic government in general owns you……good? Slavery vs. slavery. I’m confused.
Wow. Just… wow. “This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?”
I don’t belong to anyone. Period.
Miss Violet
I would agree with MV that I don’t belong to anyone. But the reality that I have a cat can upon me.
Oh, well, a cat’s a whole ‘nother thing, I have one too, er, she has me. lol
Miss Violet
I would like to know if the people who made that video are disingenuous, or really that bad with what is, I assume, their mother tongue.
It strikes me as obvious that the word “belong” in the context of the quote was being used in the sense of “I belong to the Girl Scouts,” or “I belong to the Antioch Baptist Church,” and not “I belong to Klortuu the Slavemaster.”
I really don’t see why that’s obvious in context, Tam. Do you belong to the government in the same sense that you might belong to the Iggle Creek Gun Range? I doubt it. I sure don’t. Yet according to these nice folks, we all belong to the government. Since I don’t recall getting my ID badge and secret decoder ring, I must assume they mean it in that “Klortuu the Slavemaster” sense. I will behave accordingly.
Permit me to revise and extend my previous comment. The sense in which you took the “we all belong to the government” remark, Tam, may well be the sense in which the video’s writers meant it to be taken. In fact it’s most likely.
But since that is demonstrably – indeed, ridiculously – untrue, they open themselves to that other interpretation. Which is a lot closer to the truth anyway.
“Do you belong to the government in the same sense that you might belong to the Iggle Creek Gun Range? ”
By their lights, being an enfranchised citizen of Marion County, I belong to the Marion County government in exactly the same way that I belong to Iggle Crick, which is owned by Marion County.
These people do not have the worldview that you and I do. The government, to them, is not a separate entity, but rather is composed of all of us enfranchised citizens. Remember: They’re down there in Charlotte engaging in a veritable orgy of democracy, proving to themselves that we all belong to this wonderful organization called the American Government, which is made up of We The People, and that ‘the system works’.
And their GOPer friends were all doing the same thing last week.
You’re probably exactly right. Which brings us back to your original question, whether the people who made that [second] video were being disingenuous. The answer, of course, though I don’t pretend to speak for them, is probably yes. Likely they knew exactly what the original video was trying to say, but saw it in a different light. Then, knowing that even moderate freedom-lovers would see it in that same different light, they went out with their camera and had some fun with the convention-goers.
I thought it was fairly effective.