The Ultimate Answer to Kings: What the guys would spend their days doing, if we had a TV...

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 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.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

What the guys would spend their days doing, if we had a TV...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...: Joel, for some reason when you post a video it doesn't fit the window on you blog page. It's as if the video is wide screen format on a square screen. Any idea what's going on here?; August 26, 2010 at 5:32 PM
Joel said...: I know. It seems to be a YouTube thing. They reconfigured the aspect ratio of their videos and I don't know how to change it back. I've seen a lot of other blogs that have the same problems and it all started at the same time.; August 26, 2010 at 5:43 PM

The Ultimate Answer to Kings

Previous OPSEC Violations

Who is this mouthy lunatic?

Throw Uncle Joel Under the Bus!

Shameless Plug!

The Scroll of Jeremiah

The Last Faithful Man

Walt's Gulch

Songs of Bad Men and Good

Blog List

Oleg Volk

Thursday, August 26, 2010

What the guys would spend their days doing, if we had a TV...

2 comments:

Why the hell did you scroll all the way down here?