The Ultimate Answer to Kings: Stop the Presses!

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.

Friday, November 11, 2011

Stop the Presses!

The federal government does something...right? Well, not entirely wrong, anyway.

But now I have this perverse desire to know how many goats there are...

5 comments:

The Grey Lady said...: Joel have you seen the picture accompanying the article? I never knew Freud was into goats.; November 11, 2011 at 9:23 AM
MamaLiberty said...: No, Joel, really. When an idiot gets run over and that stops him from BEING an idiot, it doesn't mean the idiot did anything that wasn't idiotic... see?

They didn't stop counting because they didn't want to count, or suddenly figure out that it was stupid and a waste of everything... they just got run over. And trust me, there are bureaucrats and bean counters sweating bullets trying to figure out how to start counting them again. sigh.; November 11, 2011 at 3:16 PM
Joel said...: Just trying to be nice, ML. Gimme a break, I don't get many chances to be nice to somebody in the government and I'm not very good at it.; November 11, 2011 at 3:25 PM
Carl-Bear said...: But without a goat census, how will we draw congressional district boundaries for proper goat representation?

'Cause "my" congress-scumsucker sure as heck doesn't represent me.; November 11, 2011 at 3:25 PM
Anonymous said...: Gee - I guess I won't report that I have 1.2 million goats again. They only asked once, never could figure that out.

Skewing Governmental reports was one of my favorite creative disobedience efforts when I was young and foolish.; November 12, 2011 at 4:39 AM

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Friday, November 11, 2011

Stop the Presses!

5 comments:

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