So I've got a metaphor for you guys, but I'm not entirely sure what it is in metaphor for.
So that's how you know this is going to be a good episode.
Welcome back to Terex Talk.
Today we're talking about a bunch of different things that all kind of fall, I believe,
under a single metaphor.
And this is something that I've been thinking about for a while, has it been researching land
navigation in particular?
As you may or may not know, Terex sells compasses and we sell protractors a couple different
types so that you can do land navigation.
Has it been researching land navigation for the last little while?
I realize something that actually technically we all know this.
There is true north and then there is magnetic north.
True north is where north actually is on this planet.
The actual rotation of the earth, where the axis of the earth that is spinning at a little
over 24 hours every single day, where that axis intersects with the earth's surface.
So on the north or in a half, you know, in the Arctic Circle, that's the north pole and
then down south and Antarctica is the south pole.
This is true north and truth south.
And then we all know that the earth has a magnetic field that runs more or less north
and south.
And so if you've got a compass, you've got a compass that points north and south.
But it doesn't point directly to true north, it points towards magnetic north.
And that's going to be off by a few degrees and it's going to be off by a few degrees
one way or another way depending on where you are.
And as you travel, magnetic north is going to be off by slightly different directions
and then over time, magnetic north actually drifts.
So it's going to be off, you know, from year to year as well.
But that doesn't stop us from using compasses to navigate.
We just know what that deviation is, what that declination is and we figure it out.
If you're using paper maps to navigate, then down in the corner of that paper map, you
will have a number that tells you the magnetic declination and you will be able to figure
out how you need to adjust for the magnetic north on your compass to the true north that's
on the map.
Although technically, there's a third north.
The third north is grid north because the earth isn't flat.
The grid on your map points grid north, very, very close to true north, but not actually
true north.
If you put all these things together, you can navigate.
Now the problem is, when we extend this land navigation metaphor to other things, I think
the problem becomes apparent.
It's very easy for people who don't understand land navigation to be confused by this.
I mean, I think magnetic declination is relatively straightforward.
At least I think that until I try to do something complicated like shoot, reverse azimuths
and then remember whether I'm supposed to add or subtract, it actually confuses me quite
a bit.
In general, we understand that when we say north, we mean a direction that isn't always
super precise.
Like when you say get on highways such and such north, that highway is only running north
occasionally.
The rest of the time it's winding around and doing other stuff, but north is right there
on the sign.
And when you say go north with the map, you know where north is very roughly.
And as you navigate north to a location of on foot, your path is also going to deviate
from the direct straight line that is true north.
You're going to use your compass to go, you know, magnetic north.
But then you're also going to walk around trees and boulders and maybe ponds and things.
Many more degrees than the deviation, the declination between magnetic and true north.
But we all know that true north is a thing.
It's a very precise specific thing.
And then the north on your map is going to be off by a bit.
The north on your compass is going to be off by a bit.
The north on your path is going to be off by a bit more.
And if you're on a road, the north on the road is going to be off by even more.
But that doesn't mean that we can't be very precise about what north is.
And then also be helpfully expressive when talking about north when it comes to directions.
The compass on your car, which is probably a terrible digital compass, if it's anything
like my cars is going to give you eight directions, it's going to give you north, it's going
to give you a northeast, then it's going to give you east, and so on.
It only gives you eight directions.
It's going to be off by up to 45 degrees all the time.
And as long as you know that that's the only thing that that's compass is particularly
good for, that is fine, because it still is helpful in pointing you basically north.
And there's a bunch of other tools that exist when you're talking about north.
One of them is Polaris, the north star.
It points north, but it doesn't actually point towards true north precisely.
It's usually off by about a degree.
But that's way closer than magnetic north usually is, except for a few places on earth.
So there are a bunch of tools that you can use that point basically north, and you can
argue about the nitty gritty later.
So here's where the metaphor comes in.
In the podcast, in the past episodes, particularly I would say, when we have been talking to
Dr. Kaiser about goals for nations, if the moral code that we should follow is the Bible,
then that is true north.
And we have said that the American Constitution is not perfect, but it's really good.
It is more like magnetic north.
And there will be occasionally in-house debates between people like myself and Dr. Kaiser.
And we will talk about the slight differences between magnetic north, U.S. Constitution,
and true north, the Bible and Scripture.
And we will try to figure out some of the differences there.
But that doesn't change the fact that when we're talking about what should we do right
now today in our lives, the Constitution is a much better direction for us to be going
as a nation than arguing over the minutia of little differences.
We could go right now north.
If we know that we need to go north, you know, we need to go up and not down, we need
to go in a northerly direction and the Constitution gives us a really clear path.
And it's helpful, I think, fruitful even, to have conversations about the few degrees
of declination between perfection, the little mistakes and errors that we can see, sometimes
better now in hindsight in the Constitution, than what perfection might actually be.
But it still is a really good path and direction and a really good thing for us to get
back to.
It's like a compass.
There's already a whole bunch of really good legal precedent based on the Constitution.
And there's hundreds of years of people trying to interpret and follow.
It is like a compass.
A compass is great for finding magnetic north, and we figured out how to navigate using
that compass.
So let's use it and not get caught into endless debates about the fact that it doesn't point
at true north.
Now let's try to find some other places where we get to fly this metaphor.
When you're on the internet and you're talking to friends or enemies, you're going to be
having either inside debates or outside debates.
You're going to be having debates with people who argue that we shouldn't be going north
at all.
We're arguing with people who agree that we should be going north, and we're arguing
over, you know, a percent here or a percent there.
One of the great advantages of the internet is that it allows you to listen in on basically
all the conversations that are happening between all of the groups.
The downside is you as an outsider will often find yourself listening in on an inside
conversation with context that you don't have.
And that's where a lot of misunderstandings come about.
Should we base our direction north on compasses because we've got to move fast and we all
have compasses, should we base it off of the north star because it's closer and more
accurate to that true north, or should we have a more philosophical scientific debate
over how we use satellites to determine true north more precisely.
These are all great conversations and it's really important that you figure out what kind
of conversation you're actually having.
Are you listening to two guys who agree 99.9% of where north is, and they would like
to get a little more precise, or are you listening to a conversation between two guys who believe
that north and south are the same, and there's no such thing as objective reality.
To an outsider who doesn't have context, it could actually be difficult to figure out which
conversation you are listening in on.
And I see a lot of internet conversations that are one way and somebody jumps in and
believes that it's a totally different type of conversation and it goes the other way.
I saw a comment on Lucas's Instagram page.
Somebody was arguing for no north, no true north whatsoever, and one of the reasons that
he was positing this for the Second Amendment community is because all of the founding fathers
were rabid anarchists who believed in no true north.
He actually made the statement that George Washington and his buddies were more like mob
bosses than anything else.
Now this is completely historically untrue.
These guys were the duly elected government of the colonies, and the duly elected government
of the colonies was what was fighting back against the king.
It was not a bunch of rebels.
It was not a bunch of stragglers and anarchists and people who did not have any common reference
point for true north.
It was guys who actually had the British common law as their base.
They had their own legal structures and their own governmental structures in place, and
they were making the argument from common law and from scripture that the king had un-kinged
himself.
That was what was going on.
It was a legitimate government pushing back against the illegitimate use of force from
a government that had un-kinged itself and was no longer legitimate.
It was not mob bosses just shooting guys that happened to be wearing red coats.
It was guys who were lined up.
They had a true north, and they could see that their king, George III, and his parliamentary
government were deviating from true north.
If you look at the American colonies' prewar and the American colonies' postwar, the laws
that they put into place, even the protections that they put into the Bill of Rights
later, directly stem from a desire to continue on a clear direct path towards true north.
The same true north that they had been trying to follow as colonies for the past 100 plus
years, and that it was Britain itself that was wanting to deviate into totalitarian territory.
And the fact that all of the founders argued and argued and argued about the best way
to pursue true north is not an indication that they didn't know what true north was,
or they didn't agree that there was a true north that they should be pointing towards,
they were arguing over the best way to get there.
What is the best way to actually restrain a government?
Is it two branches?
Is it three branches?
What are some of the inalienable rights that people have that should be laid down in a
Bill of Rights so that true north remains a direction that people can follow without
any infringement from the government?
They were arguing over the how, not so much the what, or the why.
Anyone guys on the internet who have no concept of this go back and they look at some of
the debates inside of the continental congress in places like that, they see this very
heated debate about how to achieve the best possible way forward as arguments between
people saying that there's no such thing as a clear direction.
There's no such thing as an absolute standard, there's no such thing as anything except
just shoot, whichever red coat is in your way.
That is certainly not the attitude of the people who wrote the Bill of Rights.
Imperfect though it may be.
This happens a lot when it comes to religion.
I see a lot of folks who are not well versed in Christianity jump into theological debates,
in-house debates between people who are arguing over maybe not even degrees, they may be
arguing over decimal places and someone will jump into that argument, not understand
what kind of conversation it is and say, the fact that you guys cannot get along proves
that there's absolutely nothing to this Christianity thing.
You guys cannot get on the same page whatsoever, you're contradicting each other, you're at
each other's throats, and this is why I'm never going to blah, blah, blah.
It would be like if somebody, I actually pictured this podcast in my head right now, if you
found a podcast where a guy was like, guys, I have discovered something amazing, there
is no such thing as north.
Somebody can agree what north is, I bought two maps, they have different norths on them,
they're not even trying to keep their story straight, the whole thing is a lie, the whole
thing is a crock, these people over here say north is this, these people over here say
north is that, the whole thing is a con, it's a fraud, they've been lying to you for centuries,
throw away your maps, burn your compasses, there's no such thing as directions.
When in fact a little bit of context proves that there are several norths that we use with
different types of measuring tools, and they all have a certain degree of accuracy, and
they're all useful for slightly different things.
This isn't a post-modern thing, north doesn't become subjective, magnetic north is subjective,
but it still is really important that we have an objective north.
Everyone who understands that and understands the context understands why there's compasses
that allow you to adjust your declination, and there's compasses that don't, and there's
maps that say the declination is one thing, and then maps for a completely different region
or a completely different time, have a slightly different declination.
A little bit of context makes this all very clear, and then the conversation can be really,
really constructive, and you can say to somebody, do we need to get true north, absolutely
positively figured out because we're drawing the boundaries of a country, or do we need to
get true north close because we don't want to get lost on our way to camp, which brings
us back to the larger conversation about community that we've been having at T-Rex
and been having on the podcast.
When we talk to different folks in the firearm community, the large blobby internet firearm
community, there are a lot of people who will argue very specific, precise things, but
in language that other people don't understand is precise.
They will talk past each other, and they will think that they're on the same page when
they're actually off by several degrees, and as long as people understand that that
is what is happening, that's fine.
But, as soon as people decide to take this person's very fuzzy magnetic north, and assume
that what they mean is extremely precise, worked out, absolute true north, you can get into
a little bit of trouble.
One great example of a sort of magnetic north is probably black rifle coffee, or the NRA.
If there's some guy who has never cared about guns at all, and suddenly he starts drinking
black rifle coffee and wearing NRA t-shirts, he is moving towards the second amendment
community.
But if you're already in the second amendment community, and you've been doing this for
a while, you know that the NRA is not your best ally, and black rifle coffee is not very
good either.
And from the outside, this is moving in the direction of north.
From the inside, this is, you know, a serious amount of declination.
It's better that you switch to something that is a little closer to true north itself.
And even the definition and understanding and interpretation of the second amendment
itself, it's only a few words on a piece of paper.
There is a tiny bit of fuzziness there, and when second amendment absolutists like myself
talk to other second amendment absolutists about this fuzziness, some people assume you
guys have no agreement whatsoever, but we're arguing over decimal points of accuracy.
We're arguing over minutia.
We're on the same page about a whole bunch of different stuff, like when a reform-baptist
guy, like myself, argues with a reform of Presbyterian brother.
Somebody walking by thinks that we're about to be at each other's throats.
We're arguing over decimal places.
We might even be in agreement.
We're just trying to figure out how many decimal places we should work out when it comes to,
you know, whatever the issue is, probably church government.
Because I'll be honest, the people that I agree with the closest, those are the people
that I argue with the most, about those last few degrees, the best possible ways to get
there.
We're not arguing over where north is.
We're arguing whether we should go a little bit left around this obstacle or a little bit
right over that obstacle.
Those are the arguments that we're having.
They're not about the destination.
They're just about the practical steps of getting there.
And hopefully outsiders know that that is true.
We're not arguing over where we want to get.
We're not arguing over the standards.
We're not arguing over where the definitions come from.
We're just arguing over whether we should cross that slippery log or scale that boulder.
And so that's where we're at most of the time in my community.
And I think those are the kind of arguments that you ideally have in a healthy community
as well.
You agree on the destination.
You agree on the maps.
You agree on the compass points.
You are figuring out how to actually do the things that you want to do together.
And it'll be just as much arguing as when you're hanging out with the other side, but to
a very different purpose and with a completely different framework.
And so as you consider the larger gun rights conversation and you talk about church versus
state, the American Constitution versus some perfect utopia that we might achieve someday.
What the second amendment actually means, whether or not these folks over here are allies
or not, I think that the true North, magnetic North, celestial North, etc.
I think this might be a somewhat useful metaphor.
It's actually a terrible metaphor, but it might be sort of a useful framework for thinking
and talking about some of these different things.
If I say to you, there's a forest fire coming and you need to go North.
Several degrees of error are still much better than not going North.
If I want to tell you to get to a specific spot that is relatively large like my neighborhood,
you need to be several degrees more accurate, but you don't have to be absolutely positively
precise.
Now if you want to get to my campground, which is disguised with various types of camouflage,
you need to be considerably more precise.
There's going to be times and places where high levels of precision are necessary at low
levels of precision are acceptable.
And yet we never get away from the fact that true North is an absolutely definable thing.
When we say North, there is an absolute true North that exists, but sometimes a fuzzy
head to the Northern direction is sufficient, you know, with hand grenades or artillery.
And then there are other times when really specific headings that very deliberately account
for magnetic declination are absolutely required.
And as we continue to talk about these things, I think that we will get better at defining
what sort of conversation we are actually having.
And as we talk about standards, as we often do here at T-Rex, the idea that there must
be standards and there must be anchors so that your standards do not shift and drift over
time, this idea of magnetic North and T-Rex are extremely important.
Magnetic North is a great, quick, fast, dirty way to figure out where we're going at a compass
in your pocket, you know magnetic North.
And that's good enough for, you know, hand grenades and artillery and stuff, sometimes,
you know, payload dependent.
But you're only going to understand land navigation properly and you're only going to really
trust your compass if you do understand what true North is.
And you do believe that true North is a thing that is definable and it's knowable.
Even though, yes, even the experts do argue over the best way to measure it, but they're
not arguing over whether or not it exists and they're not arguing over whether or not
they can get close.
They're arguing over millimeters, you know, up there in the Arctic Circle somewhere on
a piece of ice that is moving in relation to crust that is also moving because it's
on a tectonic plate that is moving.
They still believe that they can find true North and they're arguing over the best ways
to do it.
And these in-house arguments are really helpful.
They give us a whole bunch of data points that we can average together to find out what
is actually true North, what is actually absolute truth.
They believe that this absolute truth absolutely exists and there's some fuzziness there that
we can work inside.
The fact that there's fuzziness doesn't mean that we have to burn our maps and throw
away our compasses.
And the reason for that is because the fuzziness doesn't exist just because people say fuzzily
that, you know, North is that way because somewhere inside of the fuzziness of our perceptions
and our measurements and the limitations of our satellites and geographical information
systems true North absolutely exists.
This is going to be true of standards that we want to develop.
The moral standards that we develop to determine how and when we use lethal force, how and
when we do this, how and when we do that, those absolute truths exist and there's going
to be a little bit of fuzziness around them from different denominations and different
groups and different internet communities.
But if we are arguing that there are no standards whatsoever and North is just that way and
we can all point North in every which way, that's where there is a completely unworkable
confusion.
That's how you end up living in clown world for lack of a better perspective.
Right now, we live in clown world even though we have a constitution that is based upon
the scriptures which we still have and we still really depend upon in a whole lot of
different ways as a country.
The idea that we reject these absolute Norths in favor of just sort of fuzzy community
defined values, that's where the fuzziness becomes not just a few degrees off, not just
ten degrees off, but a hundred and eighty degrees off.
And that's why you have arguments now that there's no such thing as North, there's
no such thing as right, wrong, up, down, etc.
So when you're talking about standards and you're talking about community and you're
talking about working together, whether you agree on those last few decimal places or
not, this desire to arrive at an absolute standard even if we can't define that down to
the nth degree is really important.
And that is the thing that is going to separate cohesive communities that can pull in a single
direction, you know, a single direction plus or minus a few degrees of magnetic declination
or communities that tear each other apart and then tear everything else apart because
they have to destroy all the definitions.
It's a metaphor.
Still haven't figured out how to use it, but maybe it's the sort of thing that is helpful
as a word picture.
And if this metaphor is too fuzzy for you to follow accurately, just forget it, just get
yourself some abs and compasses, work on your land navigation and hard skills because
it's extremely useful to you.