Dog games, government games

I was looking for a quote that I remembered as being either from Satchel Paige or Charles Fort. No dice.

When I finally narrowed the search down far enough it turned out that the quote was actually from me. But only because my brain badly mangled and probably misinterpreted something actually said by Mark Twain.

Ah, the human mind. Such a wondrous instrument.

Nevertheless, the non-quote led me to something I blogged here back in 2011. It’s the fourth of a series on “the responsibilities of a resident of a police state” and it’s worth a re-visit.

That in turn led me to a Fred Reed column of the same vintage, which is even more worth a revisit.

I’ll wait while you do that.

—–

Shortly after finding those two writings, Robbie and I were staring at each other. It’s something we do. In western human language, that translates into “gazing deeply and lovingly into your eyes.” In dog language it’s more like playing mental tug-o-war. It can be a power game, even a challenge.

So even though I consider the whole business pretty silly, I always make sure Robbie blinks or turns away before I do.

He’s a bully-breed mix — big head, strong jaws, stubborn nature, super-macho, not too bright, but unshakably tenacious. So I’ve always been careful in various ways about not letting him think he’s boss. In his younger days, he had to sit before being “allowed” to eat and he learned to wait politely to be given permission to go in and out of open doors. All silly dominance games to me, but necessary to keep him from becoming a Bad Dog.

Bully-breed dogs who think they’re boss give hard lives to their humans and often end up with short lives themselves.

Not that Robbie would ever hurt a human being. Far from it. He loves all mankind (especially mankind) enough to man dog our rescue group’s official kissing booth a couple of summers ago. But even the thought of an out-of-control bully-dog evokes shudders.

Once, while I was walking Robbie on leash in a tourist town, a seemingly friendly woman asked his breed and when I made the mistake of saying, “Pit-bull mix,” she started to rant.

“That dog’s going to kill somebody! You better get rid of him! He’ll kill somebody, you’ll see!”

Quite a few people heard her (you couldn’t exactly avoid hearing her), including a group of young men from the nearby Indian reservation.

After the woman stalked off, I rolled my eyes, shook my head, and said, “Some people are just prejudiced.” Several of the young men bent down to pat Robbie, who nearly peed himself for joy.

Nevertheless, even as un-dangerous to humans as Robbie is, he’s always needed a sort of toughness from me that people-pleaser Ava and most of my other dogs never required.

—–

Which brings us to government. Something else that has a big head, strong jaws, stubborn nature, isn’t too bright, but is unshakably tenacious and always thinks its boss.

Unlike Robbie, government — at every level — will hurt you. Local cops will beat you or plant drugs or guns on you. Local mayors will try to shut down critical websites or have dissenters at public meetings arrested. Local councils and boards of all types will demand your money at gunpoint and spend it on priorities of their own. Local officials will engage in corruption and local prosecutors and judges will help them cover it up. And on up the ladder it goes. You know that.

In an earlier installment of the “responsibilities of a resident of the police state” series, I challenged anybody, anywhere, to show me such a thing as a good government. Nobody could of course.

They could, however, give examples of governments being kept temporarily in check. But only by activists who “stared them down” constantly until they blinked.

—–

One of the “responsibilities” we residents (whether or not we consider ourselves citizens) have is to do that staring-down.

For some, who IMHO haven’t quite grasped the depth of our predicament yet, v*ting is the be-all and end-all of “staring them down.” Get enough v*ters together and governments will be humbled before We the People.

For the next 10 minutes. Maybe.

Though I’m philosophically opposed to v*ting and consider it mostly useless, I do understand “defensive v*ting.” Lysander Spooner explained that well and far be it from me to knock anybody who v*tes because he hopes to save himself even worse goverment. Heaven forbid, I’ve done it myself. Here’s Spooner (courtesy of Laird):

In truth, in the case of individuals, their actual voting is not to be taken as proof of consent, even for the time being. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, without his consent having ever been asked, a man finds himself environed by a government that he cannot resist; a government that forces him to pay money, render service, and forego the exercise of many of his natural rights, under peril of weighty punishments. He sees, too, that other men practise this tyranny over him by the use of the ballot. He sees further that, if he will but use the ballot himself, he has some chance of relieving himself from this tyranny of others, by subjecting them to his own. In short, he finds himself, without his consent, so situated that, if he use the ballot, he may become a master; if he does not use it, he must become a slave. And he has no other alternative than these two. In self-defence, he attempts the former. His case is analogous to that of a man who has been forced into battle, where he must either kill others, or be killed himself. Because, to save his own life in battle, a man attempts to take the lives of his opponents, it is not to be inferred that the battle is one of his own choosing. Neither in contests with the ballot — which is a mere substitute for a bullet — because, as his only chance of self-preservation, a man uses a ballot, is it to be inferred that the contest is one into which he voluntarily entered; that he voluntarily set up all his own natural rights, as a stake against those of others, to be lost or won by the mere power of numbers. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, in an exigency, into which he had been forced by others, and in which no other means of self-defence offered, he, as a matter of necessity, used the only one that was left to him.

But v*ting is only one extremely minor part of “staring them down.” Another part is articulated well, often, and sometimes frightfully by Mike Vanderboegh.

There’s a lot of territory in between the civics-class politeness of v*ting and shooting the bastards. Of course. That’s the territory where most of us live, most of the time. That’s the territory of Freedom Outlawry — and, for that matter, of daily life for people who care about freedom. That’s the territory Fred Reed often explores. And I explore (though sometimes I have to remind myself of that).

When it feels as if nothing we do is working, nothing helps, it’s easy to forget what a big, big territory this is.

I dearly, dearly wish that none of us every had to think about government again. I wish it were possible to live without even acknowledging its existence. For myself, right now, I am so thoroughly, thoroughly sick of having to be aware of and on guard against this abuser that I’d like to pull a metaphoric nice cozy quilt over my head and never emerge again from the featherbed of life.

But even the most independently anarchistic of us are forced to remain conscious of government — in exactly the same way we stay at least in condition yellow when we’re out and about, even when we’re hoping to relax and enjoy ourselves. Because just like lesser thugs, freelance thugs, government can strike at any time — and often strikes the moment we let our guard down.

When we actually have to take action to stare government down, it may be more like condition orange. Or red. Let’s hope we never see condition black. Being in condition yellow, spiking to orange, so much of the damned time is exhausting.

Of course, that’s what the Bad Dogs of government are counting on. Wearing us down, then catching us unaware with some new tax, executive order, gun restriction, asset forfeiture, ID law, surveillance program, vat of porkfat, or act of murder.

It’s just what they do.