The Ultimate Answer to Kings: Curses! Scooped again!

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.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Curses! Scooped again!

Just about the time I was snarking about the implementation of Kali's new anti-ammo law, Uncle was reporting that it had been repealed by a Kali court as "unconstitutionally vague."

I wasn't aware that was a bar to passing laws, but apparently someone has found it so.

3 comments:

Kevin Wilmeth said...: Psh. Window dressing. All this means is that they want something juicier and more specific that they can enforce upon Californians' arses. When that arrives (and it will..."top men" are working on it even now), the rubberstamp will be wielded with abject glee.

The charade really is getting kinda boring, isn't it? Maybe we should just suggest that the ruling class drop all the pretense, and modify their charter document to be more honest. Since we've now well established that

1) no mere contract is a barrier to their agenda, and
2) the consent of the ruled is not required for their agenda, and
3) morality and rationality distinctly are impediments for their agenda,

then perhaps they could simply rewrite their own charter document (since it's not like we're invited to the discussion anyway) and have it just declare what they're going to do regardless, no matter what. Just consider how much less effort they'd have to put into The Big Lie and all its marketing, yada yada yada.

Think of it. It could be three short lines:

Do evil shit.
Burn heretics.
Strut.

Seriously, I really don't think there's anything missing there.; January 19, 2011 at 12:56 PM
Ken Hagler said...: Courts in California are willing enough to rule something unconstitutional as long as doing so doesn't impose any meaningful limit on government power. The fact that the only effect this would have had would be to cost the government more money that it doesn't have probably was a factor too.; January 19, 2011 at 1:44 PM
The Grey Lady said...: Slightly off topic: Did you hear about the blogger who had all of his firearms confiscated because he wrote 1 down 534 to go on his blog.

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2011/01/18/arlington-man-loses-gun-license-due-to-blog-about-tucson-shooting/

those congress critters and their underlings are getting verrry nervous.; January 19, 2011 at 2:30 PM