A duck walks into a bar.
The bartender says, “What the fuck, you’re a duck. Get out.”
The duck leaves.
Next day the duck walks in again. The bartender starts early. “You’re a duck. Get out.”
The duck says, “I don’t care about that. I just want a glass of milk.”
“You’re a duck. Get the fuck out.”
Third day the duck walks in.
“I’d like a glass of milk.”
“Get the fuck out.”
“I’d like a glass of milk.”
The bartender is done. “Look. Get out. We’ve got no milk. But if you won’t leave I’ll nail your stupid duck beak to the bar.”
The duck says, “Do you have a hammer?”
The bartender, confused: “No?”
“Great. I’ll have a glass of milk.”
I keep a little red duck on my main monitor for that reason.
The bartender has a policy. The duck has an order. The policy is “no ducks.” The order is milk. Those two things are not the same argument, and the bartender never notices.
On the third day the bartender upgrades from policy to threat. I will nail your beak to the bar. That sounds like a control. It is not a control. A control is a hammer in the hand. The duck does the only adult thing in the room. He inventories the kit.
No hammer.
Therefore no nail.
Therefore milk.
I have used this on a firing line, in a security briefing, and in ordinary life, because it is the same failure everywhere.
A rule on the wall is not a skill with a gun.
A PDF is not a control.
A speech about what we will not allow is not a capability.
If you cannot show the hammer, you are not running a bar. You are running a mood.
Most of the desks in American life are that bartender. They tell the un-fancy what they may not do. They talk about children, feelings, safety, order, the next emergency. Then you ask whether the tool exists, whether the rule is applied to everyone, whether the statute was even theirs to write. Often there is no hammer. There is a tone. The duck orders milk anyway.
I am not a duck. I am worse. I am a commoner who thinks We the People meant the people who go to church, go to work, keep a rifle if they choose, and show up for jury duty. Equally so. No lord. No new hat to doff. Homespun if I have to wear it. Wrangler pants. A black man I will introduce as my brother and if you cannot live with that you can leave the bar.
The late republic problem is not that someone asked for milk. It is that the capital keeps threatening a hammer it does not have, and a lot of common people cheer because the threat sounded responsible. Hayek wrote a long book about that road. The duck wrote a short one.
Do you have a hammer?
No?
Great. I’ll have a glass of milk.
#Foundations #Risk #Minuteman #LateRepublic
The Romans had an epigram that basically said, if there is no enforcement mechanism, there is no law. Or as they express it in my native Texas, “If there ain’t no cop, there ain’t no speed limit”. International law use to define the sovereign limits of a sea coast as out to three miles from shore; because muzzle loading coastal artillery had a maximum range of three miles. It’s a sound principle.
I have to admit, the duck got me. 😂 Clever way to make your point.