They say that Louis XIV had the inscription Ultima Ratio Regum castinto 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 right 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 left the city, abandoned a goodly percentage of my goods, 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.
When you accept that "liberty is not coming in your lifetime," in the sense that the world isn't going to come around to your "leave the peaceable alone to live their lives" ideal, you have two alternatives. You can despair, give up, go with the flow.
Or, since you can't change the world, you can work on the one thing that's really available to you for revision - yourself. How much freedom can you squeeze into your own life?
I decided to learn the answer to that question. That's what this blog is about.
Oh, I've also written some books, links available below. Plugging them is what this blog is about, too.
We needed to paint the wellhouse, cut a hole in the center of the casing cap, take all the wiring apart, thread everything through the hole, and put it all back together again. For proper insanity creds, it was essential to do this on the hottest day we could arrange for.
Today was the day! Here's the really ugly cap installation, which if you ignore all the clutter you can imagine is now complete. M is re-wiring the controller in the background.
We put the final coat of paint on the roof first, so it was plenty dry enough by the time we finished the rest of the building to put the solar panel back on.
That's the completed controller panel.
Connect the last wire on the panel, and AGUA! Fritz and Little Bear, who had accompanied us to the site and spent the next two hours panting in the shade while we painted and puttered, were happy about this part. Not long before we were done Fritz remembered that there was supposed to be water there, and was quite put out to find none. He was digging in the channel the stream had cut over the past week, wondering where the hell the water was.
Next we trench for the water pipe, make a bed for the cistern, move the cistern into place, and lay pipe!
While M and I were moving lumber out of the barn's attic, the boys went on a nice walky with uncle W. Uncle W went up the small canyon, as far as the first water hole which is of course full at this time of year. And Magnus decided nothing would hit the spot like a nice swim. And of course nothing tops off a nice swim quite as well as a roll in the mud. Uncle Joel has some brushing in store.
It occurred to me that I've never photoed one of the water holes quite that full, so we went right back there. I cheated and took the Jeep, since I already had to go to the wellhouse and get the casing cap to cut a hole in it.
The boys thought this was a fine idea.
And everything was going beautifully, until Magnus came out of the water and ... No! Magnus! Not until I cover the...!
And that was the end of picture-taking until I found my lens cleaner.
I'll say right off that I was reminded of this subject, and in particular this very annoying analogy, by this excellent William Grigg essay on the Lew Rockwell site, which I was re-reading this morning. Grigg is writing specifically about a highly-publicized and of course videotaped beating of a fugitive by a couple of cops.
In the course of the article, Grigg makes the hardly controversial observation that, regardless of anything police apologists say, police brutality is a current, pervasive problem which is if anything getting worse rather than better, and that at least part of the reason for this is that police are encouraged to think of themselves as a warrior caste, an elite among men who are enabled by their noble yet aggressive natures to protect the ... well, the sheep.
Grigg reminds us of an article that I, at least, would like to forget. But for today I can't forget it. Excerpted from a police training course called The Bulletproof Mind and a book titled On Combat: The Psychology and Physiology of Deadly Conflict, In War and In Peace, it's written by a man named Lt. Col. Dave Grossman who has apparently made a good living for himself training police officers to think of themselves in this way. It's possible that Grossman is among the principal contemporary reasons policemen no longer think of themselves as civilian peace officers, but instead dismissively refer to those they once claimed to serve and protect as "civilians." They themselves are the Warrior Elite, and warriors are soldiers, and soldiers are not "civilians." They're better than that.
Grossman popularized the characterization of criminals as "wolves," police and soldiers as "sheepdogs," and everybody else as "sheep." He loudly proclaims that police officers, as "sheepdogs," are morally obligated to pursue practices they would cheerfully arrest "sheep" for getting caught at. Example:
If you are a warrior legally authorized to carry a weapon and you step outside without that weapon, then you become a sheep, pretending that the bad man will not come today. No one can be on 24/7 for a lifetime. Everyone needs down time. But if you are authorized to carry a weapon, and you walk outside without it, just take a deep breath, and say this to yourself, "Baa."
Grossman's view of the "sheep" is instructive:
We know that the sheep live in denial; that is what makes them sheep. They do not want to believe that there is evil in the world. They can accept the fact that fires can happen, which is why they want fire extinguishers, fire sprinklers, fire alarms and fire exits throughout their kids' schools. But many of them are outraged at the idea of putting an armed police officer in their kids' school. Our children are thousands of times more likely to be killed or seriously injured by school violence than fire, but the sheep's only response to the possibility of violence is to deny that it could happen. The idea of someone coming to kill or harm their children is just too hard for them to fathom.
Let us stipulate that there may be some truth to this. We all know people who don't like to think about violence, who deny that bad things can happen to them and theirs, and who are shocked into uselessness when those bad things happen anyway. But why is that exactly? Grossman claims that a sheepdog is "what you choose to be," and yet supposedly sheep are just born that way. It doesn't, it couldn't, have anything to do with public schools that teach from kindergarten to college that violence and the weapons of violence are so completely unacceptable that a child who merely draws a picture of a firearm is suspendedfromschool and stigmatized as a deviant. No, that couldn't be it. It couldn't be because a young person's college career is more likely to survive his being caught with heroin in his backpack than with a tool of personal protection on his belt. No, of course not. There's no conditioning involved here; that's just paranoid. Bad Uncle Joel. And it couldn't have to do with the many, many people who have been prosecuted by the state and then sued into poverty by their would-be aggressors, with the sanction of the state, for the criminal sin of taking self-protection into their own hands. The cries of vigilantism from the mainstream media and predictions of 'blood in the street' should "civilians" be allowed to possess and carry the tools of personal protection, those couldn't have anything to do with it. Sheep are just born that way, and need the protection of the state "sheepdogs." If they weren't the way they are, they'd be cops.
Right?
Well, no. Not right. I'm not a "wolf," who feeds on his fellow man. I'm not a "sheepdog," who protects the flock and keeps it herded together for the benefit of the shepherd between fleecings. And I'm sure as hell not a "sheep," one of Grossman's "healthy, productive citizens" with "no capacity for violence." I reject the metaphor absolutely and in detail, unless I get to add a character to his little cartoon show myself.
I'm a mutt. (I've used this analogy before, and it always drives dog lovers nuts: They prefer "mixed breed.") I couldn't care less about herding sheep, or about oppressing them. I have no interest in sheep at all. I know exactly on which end my teeth are kept, and I keep them sharp. I reject all demands that I have them pulled for the benefit of the flock. The flock, as I may have mentioned, does not interest me. I reject aggression, and to the extent my circumstances allow I reject violence, but if violence is forced upon me I will not delegate its use. In that case I'll do it myself. And in that case my aggressor will find me perfectly capable of dishing it out. I'd rather avoid a fight than engage in one, but it would be a terrible mistake to class me among those you consider to have "no capacity for violence."
Mutts are not sheepdogs, and they are not showdogs. I'll never be pretty, and I'll never be rich, and you'll sure as hell never catch me in a blue uniform or any other kind of uniform. All I want, from sheepdogs or wolves, is to be left alone to pursue my life. As long as I get that one little thing, I'm as harmless as a sheep. When I stop getting it, from sheepdogs or wolves, the differences will become apparent. Neither sheepdogs nor wolves should try to speed that day, for neither are my allies. Aggressors all look alike to me; they look like food. I'm a mutt.
Went out this morning to do a few tweaks on the Lair's floor lumber before it rained. Yesterday. I finished the drawings for the wall frames; I hope to go get them expertly reality-checked this after the rain (M just came by and wants to go now, so I've got to jackrabbit the keyboard) and then it's time to sweat as we pull down all the framing lumber that's been in the barn attic for over a year, waiting for this moment.
All the boys but Magnus came with me, but their hearts really weren't in it; it's hot, which is not unusual, but it's also muggy as hell between thundershowers. That really does things to your motivation to play, I guess.
I think maybe monsoon is getting under way. Yesterday the wash ran a bit, even though it hardly rained at all where we were. Which means it rained like hell further up the canyon. This has been a weird year for rain, but it's the right season for daily showers and occasional inundation/flash floods/possible end of the world as we know it.
The 87,492 page bill -- official designated as the American Patriotic Renewal Act of 2009 for Carbon Reduction, Energy Independence, Heathy Climate, Sustainable Job Growth, Adorable Puppies, and Earthly Paradise -- is a keystone in President Obama's first year legislative agenda, and was originally anticipated to get swift congressional passage. Instead, it faced a unexpectedly tough vote in the House last week after coal state Democrats complained it would place an unfair economic burden on their home districts.
"I am as interested in reversing global climate change as anyone, but I fail to see how increasing taxes and random machete attacks on Ohio coal producers alone will solve the problem," said Marcy Kaptur (D-OH). "Come on people, there are plenty of other industries who deserve machete attacks too."
In order to secure the votes of wavering Democrats, House leaders Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman inserted several last minute amendments to the legislation, including provisions for national oxygen rationing, witch burnings, dousings, and phrenology research. But the one that has seemingly stoked a grassroots backlash is the controversial Sexually Inexperienced Citizen Environmental Volunteer Amendment. The wording of the amendment calls for all American virgins over the age of 21 to register with the Selective Sacrifice Board, for possible use as victims in nationally televised vivisections intended to "supplicate the Earth-Spirits."
I don't care what you say, this Iowahawk is one funny frood.
The local cops had a bit of excitement today. Three burglars were caught breaking into a house a few miles away: Two were stopped but one got away and by all accounts he's a baddie. So cops were having fun all afternoon, barreling up and down the BLM roads and keeping the dogs all stirred up. W and I went and checked on absent neighbors' houses a couple of times. It's the biggest thing that's happened to the local laws in nearly a year, since the last murder in town, and they were playing it up big.
Anyway, a neighbor a couple of miles away is a cop. Around the middle of the afternoon he came into the yard on his ATV, all decked out in a POLICE t-shirt and an AR15. This fellow's never done anything bad to me, but I confess an irrational dislike; I just can't warm up to anybody who's paid (with my tax money, yet) to look for opportunities to do to me what I'd deserve to be shot for doing to him.
He was just being friendly, letting us know what we'd already heard through the grapevine. As he was pulling out the dogs got into the act, which I discourage because Ghost is a tire-biter. But Fritz saw a better target: He flew out from under a juniper and went for the cop's leg. From John Law's reaction he got more than cloth, too. I yelled at him for an idiot and called him off.
Till the cop left. Then I called Fritz over. "Good dog," I said. W gave me a look, but didn't say anything about it. I assume he just doesn't like it when I give a dog confusing signals. :-D
What is it about city councilcreatures, anyway? They're like homeowner association board members, but without the intelligence, charm and benevolent intent.
I have the OSB surface but won't put it down until I'm ready to frame, because that would guarantee the onset of monsoon. So the next visible change to the structure will take a while. But we got the whole floor structure done today! Yay!
Very sweaty and tired now. Plus as a last act I stepped in a plumbing trench and wrenched my knee. Shower. Booze. Paperback. Sleep.
Well, M called the company that made his well pump, to see if he could get the anti-flowback valve specified in the manual for deep wells. The fellow on the phone said, "No, that's old information. You don't need anything more than you've got."
So afternoon heat be damned, he wanted to see water coming out of his well and nothing (including my piteous whines) was going to stop it. After I crawled out of the shadows and saw all the work he'd gone to laying out the cable, hose and rope, it was clear he had achieved new heights of fanatic dedication. Off to the desert sun we went.
Load the whole 100-pound package into the back of the pickup:
Lay it all out, knock the cap off the well casing, and prepare to lower away. We wanted about 150' of depth. All was simple enough, but there was one little problem...
...the deeper we went, the heavier the whole thing got. If you've got two guys heaving it into a pickup together, there's no problem with that much weight. If you've got one guy supporting it all with a small poly rope, well, whining will ensue. I did it, and whined, and M thought I was being overdramatic so he took over. We both agreed that A) there must be a better way, and B) we should have brought gloves. But still, we got it in there.
Went back and got the panel. Bolted it to the roof, wired up the panel, pump and ground rod to the controller, and...
While in the past it has been our policy to accept your evil dead for processing and karmic justice without regard to the severity of the recent decedent's earthly crimes, we regretfully find a difficulty in regard to your most recent applicant.
Energy prices having risen over the past decades to unsupportable levels, we must conclude that it is simply no longer possible to make Hell hot enough for this applicant to be properly processed. Therefore we regret that we must reject your application for this decedent's admission. Your comments with regard to an "appeals" process are perplexing to the management of this department: We must request clarification as to your definition of "appeal" and point out that it was your management, and not ours, which continually moved the decedent to offices of continually higher authority and potential for damage infliction.
Therefore, as previously noted, we are forced to conclude that this one's your problem, booby. Hell just isn't punishment enough. May we suggest you promote the corpse to senior management of General Motors instead?
Well, we're a little stalled on installing the pump in M's water well, because the small print says you want an extra valve in the system if you're pumping more than 100 feet to keep from bleeding the water back into the well. This does, on reflection, seem more important than getting the well pumping NOW, so we've held off while M orders the part.
Yesterday we (hopefully) accomplished a major milestone in removing irritants from the infrastructure. [WARNING: Embarrassing disclosure follows - may not be child-safe] The owners paid a local "expert" to install the solar system and what should have been a ridiculously-overspeced battery bank about five years ago. And for five years, people have been saying things like "Why do we have so many big-ass batteries and so little electrical storage?" This is interspersed with statements like, "This isn't the way I was taught to wire a series-parallel circuit." But the "expert" insisted everything was fine, and nobody who lived here felt competent to do what in their hearts they wanted to, which was just re-wire the batteries. Well, since our population suddenly tripled this has become an issue once more, and quite the subject of conversation. One of our neighbors has been developing an expertise in off-grid DC systems, so we just decided to cut through the bullshit and hire him to come out and tell us what the hell is wrong. He diagrammed our circuit, bit through his cigar, and then rather shyly informed us that only six of those sixteen big-ass batteries are actually doing anything useful, and that two of the six have gone to meet Jesus. Yesterday he re-wired the fourteen good batteries and tweaked the voltage regulator. Early indications are encouraging: This morning for the first time since I bought it a few months ago, my coffee maker did NOT kill the system.
This morning we stripped the forms off the cabin piers and sorted the 2X12s I've held stacked at the staging area at the top of the ridge between those I'll use for the floor joists and those M will use to roof his powerhouse. Then we carried mine down the 30' hill to the cabin, which was all the work a sane person would wish on himself. I'm eating oatmeal between sentences in this post, and as soon as I'm done I'll get some bread going and then go back and do the bolting and screwing that will firmly establish those big 16' stringers. By then, if today goes the way the past three or four have, it'll be so hot there'll be nothing rational to do but siesta till four in the afternoon or so.
Here's the really ugly cap installation, which if you ignore all the clutter you can imagine is now complete. M is re-wiring the controller in the background.
We put the final coat of paint on the roof first, so it was plenty dry enough by the time we finished the rest of the building to put the solar panel back on.
That's the completed controller panel.
Connect the last wire on the panel, and AGUA! Fritz and Little Bear, who had accompanied us to the site and spent the next two hours panting in the shade while we painted and puttered, were happy about this part. Not long before we were done Fritz remembered that there was supposed to be water there, and was quite put out to find none. He was digging in the channel the stream had cut over the past week, wondering where the hell the water was.
