Ideas vs. IDs

Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people.
--Eleanor Roosevelt

    Ideas should be judged by their intrinsic merits and not by the identity (ID) of the person with the idea.  This relates to academic articles, bullying, political attacks, and anonymous articles like this one.  Ideas vs. IDs also ties in with Kings vs. Consent.  Other ways of paraphrasing this concept are judge the message, not the messenger; and, principles before personalities.

    Double blind peer reviewed academic articles are an example of ideas over IDs.  These articles on research which are submitted for publication are sent to peer reviewers with the authors’ names removed from the submissions, so the reviewers have to consider the intrinsic merits of the research without knowing who did the research.  The authors likewise do not know who the reviewers are and so cannot tailor their research to satisfy particular reviewers.  The result of this anonymity is that the ideas in the research are judged by their intrinsic merits and not by the identities of the people involved.

    Bullying is the opposite concept.  In bullying, ideas are forced on others by intimidation regardless of the intrinsic value of the ideas.  This is obvious in schoolyard situations but also applies to other situations that fail CAWTBER, such as dictatorial governments, corporate advertisements, and religions that do not tolerate open discussions of other ideas.

    Johannes Guttenberg’s press revolutionized independent thought beginning in 1450 by allowing people to read the Bible themselves, instead of having to rely on church leaders for Biblical information, helping to fuel the Reformation.  Martin Luther assisted this process by translating the Bible from Latin to German.  Biblical ideas could then be judged by their own merits rather than only by interpretations of church leaders.  The Internet has revolutionized freedom of speech more than anything since the Guttenberg Press by allowing widely dispersed individuals to converse with each other en masse without the gatekeeping of mainstream media.

    The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), commonly called the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Obamacare, is an example of an idea being judged by ID rather than by the intrinsic merits of the idea.  The ACA is very similar to Mitt Romney’s An Act Providing Access to Affordable Quality, Accountable Health Care, commonly called Romneycare.  So basically, both major political parties support the same idea, so the idea is good, but the one from Obama is criticized by the Republicans simply because it came from Obama.  This is character assassination with no regard for the ideas of the person being assassinated.

    The same thing from another angle is the issue of pro-choice, where presumably the Democrats are on one side of the issue and the Republicans are on the other side, yet some Democrats will slip in who are anti-choice—they are elected based on the label of Democrat, yet their ideals are something else.  They are political Trojan Horses who run on the party platform but then vote differently from the platform.  This happens on a wider scale when politicians run on their characters and reputations and get votes regardless of their stands on issues.

    Bullying also occurs in the expression of Freedom of Speech when people have the attitude that actions have consequences and that people with opinions should identify themselves.  These attitudes are used to intimidate and harass people with ideas that you do not like:  rather than argue the merit of the ideas, you intimidate the person who has them.  This is often related to a twisted interpretation of the US 1st Amendment Freedom of Speech in which you can say what you want, but other people have the right to intimidate you for your ideas.  This bullying is dampened when ideas are anonymous—you can’t bully someone when you don’t know who they are.

    The bullying of bloggers seems to be fairly common on the Internet according to comments by other bloggers, with such bullying sometimes including threats of violence against bloggers with certain beliefs.  Threatening people with ideas other than your own is rather the opposite of belief in Freedom of Speech.  Apparently many of the same people who think that the 2nd Amendment gives them unrestricted access to firearms also believe that the threat of violence against people practicing the 1st Amendment is A-OK.

    The intimidation of Freedom of Speech is also accomplished by corporate leaders and government entities who prohibit, or discourage, the discussion of topics such as politics and religion at workplaces, including parking lots.  (Of course, the administrators’ views on these topics are often well known, so the result is that only the administrators have de facto Freedom of Speech.)  This carries over to the Internet where policies are often clearly stated that employees must not refer to their employers while giving opinions on the Internet, sometimes to the extent that employees are required to provide disclaimers that their comments do not represent their employers.  Even if an employee does not identify hir employer, this information can often be readily determined by search engines.  I am sure that employers exist who promote Freedom of Speech by their employees as a patriotic act, but I don’t seem to be hearing about them.  The controlling of Freedom of Speech by employers ties in with Kings vs. Consent.

    So this blog is anonymous in order to keep the discussion on ideas, and not identities.  The Internet provides opportunity for the increased freedom of the discussion of ideas by reducing the amount of control of mass communication by the corporate media, much like the printing press increased the discussion of religion by reducing the control of mass communication by the church.

    Another way of saying ideas vs. IDs is principles before personalities, a phrase commonly used in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA).  The situation with AA is the extreme diversity of members from the cross section of society represented by this equal opportunity disease, from the homeless to millionaires, people who normally would not mix.  Principles before personalities helps to keep this group working together.  Name-calling would be counterproductive, kind of like killing the messenger because you do not like the message.

Conclusion

    Ideas should be judged by their intrinsic merits and not by the identity (ID) of the person with the idea.  This relates to life in general including academic articles, bullying, political attacks, and anonymous articles like this one.  The opposite of this method is to accept the ideas of kings, corporate administrators, and bullies because of who they are, regardless of the intrinsic merits of their ideas.  Other ways of paraphrasing ideas not IDs are judge the message, not the messenger; and, principles before personalities.

Freedom of speech means
It is safe to speak and write,
With no bullying.

Suggested Comments:

  Does the situation that some newspapers allow unsigned letters to the editor qualify as ideas over IDs?

The 1% Doctrine

If there's a 1% chance that Pakistani scientists are helping al-Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response. It's not about our analysis ... It's about our response.  –Dick Cheney, November, 2001

    The 1% Doctrine, also called the Cheney Doctrine, is a standard of action implemented by the U.S. since 9/11.  Pakistani scientists are mentioned in the quote, but the issue involves much more than them.  The quote and the name are from the book The One Percent Doctrine by Ron Suskind from 2006.  The Doctrine has expanded to other situations, the reasoning behind it is a fallacy, Cheney had ulterior motives for applying the doctrine in limited cases, it fails CAWTBER , and it should be discontinued.

    The Cheney Doctrine released George W. Bush from his area of greatest weakness—the analytical abilities so prized in the U.S.’s professional class--and freed his decision making to rely on impulse and improvisation, according to the book.  This ties in with negative instinctual behavior as described in Instinct vs. Intellect.  In addition to naming the doctrine, the book also relates historical events of the time leading up to the invasion of Iraq and the election of 2004.

    Although once #3 on the New York Times bestseller list, the book is currently on sale new at Amazon for $0.49 indicating that the book arguably has little current value, but the Doctrine should be addressed because it is apparently still in widespread effect.  A New York Times review of the book, Personality, Ideology and Bush's Terror Wars (June 20, 2006), was harsh on the Bush Administration saying that the doctrine was simply to sell predetermined initiatives to the American public.  The instant discussion is not another book review and is about the Doctrine, not the book.

    While some action was taken at first concerning the Pakistani scientists, they were later freed.  (The back-story on the scientists is here (2004).)  The impetus from the 1% Doctrine was used in invading Iraq where lame evidence on weapons of mass destruction was used to justify a war that has cost more lives and damage than the original 9/11 attack.  We are still paying the price of the invasion of Iraq and the doctrine is being used in other scenarios.

Zimmerman’s 1% Solution

    By projection, in George Zimmerman’s mind, if there was even a 1% chance that Trayvon Martin was a major threat, then Zimmerman was justified in confronting Martin.  The abject failures of Cheney’s reasoning in invading Iraq, and Zimmerman’s reasoning in provoking Martin discount the 1% Doctrine.  As explained in Dick and Trayvon … Connect the Dots (July 5, 2013), by Judy Balaban, the reasoning behind the 1% Doctrine has evolved into Your Home is Your Castle and Stand Your Ground laws.  This reasoning has also slipped into other areas such as over arming police agencies and over searching airline passengers.  Balaban wrote, it absolved us, as a nation, from the responsibility of having to retreat or prove anything in order to justify using force.

    Balaban said, much like an armed George Zimmerman riding around to look for a problem in Sanford on the night he shot Trayvon Martin, the Bush administration looked around the Middle East for a problem, decided it had found one in Iraq where nobody had attacked us and where there was no hard evidence that anyone was planning to, and shaped its suspicions into a rationale for invading Baghdad.

    In similar current issues, as examples, if there is even a 1% chance that a 95-year-old man who uses a walker might endanger the lives of police, then the 95-year-old should be tasered to death for refusing medical attention.  If there is even a 1% chance that a 3-year-old handicapped child might be a terrorist, then he should be pulled out of an airline search line and confronted.  These trigger happy actions are the result of failures in policy.

The Doctrine is a Fallacy

    The idea that the 1% Doctrine is a good way to make decisions is a fallacy.  Decision Theory examines methods of decision making and you can get an idea of the complexity of this study here.  Some methods of making decisions under uncertainty are the law of large numbers, the axiomatic approach, the Von Neumann-Morgenstern utility theorem, and Bayes probability.  The null hypothesis in statistics is a standardized method which is often based on a 95% probability.  The 1% Doctrine is a silver bullet that seeks to explain away complex procedures such as these with a simple solution—a lazy way for an administrator to make what appears to be an effective decision.  (The silver bullet is a magic bullet used to kill werewolves and used by the Lone Ranger for trick shots.)

    The 1% Doctrine is similar to something in Decision Theory called the Precautionary Principle.  The idea is that events with low probability and high impact deserve special attention.  The Precautionary Principle is an argument associated with global warming:  even if the probability is low, the impact would be so high that we should take extreme action now to prevent it.  The Republicans obviously have been denying global warming and so have been discounting the Precautionary Principle.  But phrasing it a different way, if there is even a 1% chance of global warming then we should take extreme measures to prevent it.  Apply this to Saudi Arabia:  given that 15 of the 19 attackers from 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia, if there is even a 1% chance that Saudi Arabia was involved in 9/11, then we should attack Saudi Arabia.  These examples demonstrate that Cheney does not really believe the 1% Doctrine himself or else he would apply it to global warming and Saudi Arabia as well as to invading Iraq.

    The uneven application of the doctrine can be seen in other areas.  Cheney did not apply it to the threat prior to 9/11 or else more actions would have been taken to prevent 9/11:  if there is even a 1% chance that airplanes can be hijacked and flown into buildings, etc.  Consider chewing gum and throat cancer.  Presuming that 1% or more of throat cancer victims chew gum, if there is even a 1% chance that chewing gum causes throat cancer, then chewing gum should be outlawed.  (This is not saying that chewing gum should actually be outlawed but rather is a demonstration that the doctrine is flawed.)

    The issue in this discussion is not so much whether we should go to war, global warming is real, or chewing gum causes throat cancer, but whether the 1% Doctrine is a valid method of making decisions--and it is not.  As more evidence, is the cut off strictly at 1.00% or could it be, say, 0.5%?  What if the odds are 0.99%?  Is 0.99% close enough to 1%?  The answer is that the odds in these situations are not known to that accuracy, making the 1% Doctrine not based on 1%, at all, but rather based on the idea of low probability:  if somebody has a belief, justified or not, that there is any chance, then action should be taken, which brings us to irrationality and paranoia (see next paragraph).  But the doctrine is not really just based on low probability or else it would also be applied to global warming, invading Saudi Arabia, and outlawing chewing gum.  The doctrine is based on low probability and an ulterior motive to already take action on some issue.

    The idea to take action based on any belief, however small and not necessarily justified, plays on paranoia.  Fear, as an instinct, can have some legitimate benefits but can also work against us in modern times.  Fear can be detrimental as an unbridled instinct and can be used to manipulate people by corporate leaders and politicians (see Instinct vs. Intellect).  Paranoia is irrational fear.  Lately, paranoia is joked about as being overcautious in a positive way:  if there is even a miniscule chance that someone is going to attack you—oh, wait, that is the 1% Doctrine!  It is paranoia as policy!  The problem with paranoia as a way of living is that if you irrationally treat people as enemies, then they do in fact tend to turn against you—in a way it is a self-fulfilling policy.

    The 1% Doctrine creates more risk than it resolves resulting in a worse case scenario than before.  If you have a 1% probability that someone is plotting against you, then you have a 99% probability that they are not plotting against you.  If you attack them, this makes you the aggressor, not them, and increases the likelihood that they are going to attack you back, so the probability that they are going to attack you has just increased from what it was before, 1%, to something higher.  You just made the situation worse!

    The idea that the 1% Doctrine is a good way to make decisions is a fallacy.  Decision Theory has formal methods of analyzing decisions and the 1% Doctrine is not a true silver bullet answer.  The 1% Doctrine is another label for the Precautionary Principle used in analyzing global warming decisions.  The Republicans only use the 1% Doctrine for actions that they already want to take and they do not apply the doctrine evenly with other issues.  The 1% Doctrine results in irrational decisions, such as outlawing chewing gum because it might cause throat cancer, and promotes paranoia as policy.  The 1% Doctrine makes situations worse by creating more risk than what existed before.

Ulterior Motives

    Given that Cheney selectively used the 1% Doctrine (for invading Iraq and not for global warming, for example), what were his other motives for starting the Iraq war?  The answer is easy, money:

• Cheney's Halliburton Made $39.5 Billion on Iraq War
• Dick Cheney: War Profiteer
• War Profiteers How Dick Cheney lined his pockets
• Cashing In - Fortune In Profits Await Bush Circle After Iraq War
• How Bush & Cheney benefit from Iraq War
• Cheney's Halliburton stock options rose 3,281% last year, senator finds
• The 25 Most Vicious Iraq War Profiteers
• Contractors Reap $138 Billion from Iraq War, Cheney’s Halliburton #1 with $39.5 Billion
• Halliburton Makes a Killing on Iraq War
• Who Profits from War?

    Of course, some people will say the money had nothing to do with it, or that he deserved the money because he worked hard for it.  Probably some people believe that this is how capitalism/democracy is supposed to work anyway:  get government influence in order to help yourself make money.

A CAWTBER Fail

    The 1% Doctrine fails CAWTBER because it is far on the fail end of the sliding scale.  The doctrine has a 99% chance of bumping elbows and thus is a fail.

Discontinue this Doctrine

    To overcome this irrational doctrine, use reasoning like that used in Instinct vs. Intellect:  Even though I am afraid of another culture and even though my government is using this fear to persuade me that it is ok for the government to spend billions of dollars on a new war (instead of infrastructure, education, owed retirements, etc.), I have to accept the reasoning that a 1% probability of being correct actually increases risk instead of reducing risk, and that the corporate leaders are making huge profits by manipulating my fears.  The politicians are also manipulating my fear for their own gains.  Therefore, I do not support the 1% Doctrine.

Conclusion

    The 1% Doctrine is a trigger happy standard of action used by the U.S. since 9/11 to pretend to justify military force in pre-determined cases.  Since you can suspect anyone of doing anything, the 1% Doctrine can be used to justify whatever you want.  The arbitrary use of the 1% Doctrine (for invading Iraq, but not for global warming, for example) demonstrates this.  The profitability of using the Doctrine for some people demonstrates an ulterior motive for this arbitrary use.  The extended use of the Doctrine for such things as stand-your-ground laws and airport searches turns would-be victims into aggressors and fails CAWTBER.

1% Doctrine:
A trigger happy blunder
That increases risk.

Suggested Comments:

  Should a percentage cutoff even be used?  If so, what should it be?  99%?  95%?  50%?  Something else?

Instinct vs. Intellect

I may make you feel, but I can’t make you think.  Jethro Tull

    Even with our human intellect, we are still influenced by instinct.  Emotions, cravings, and gut feelings are methods used by our DNA and genes to try to control our actions.  Corporations, the news media, and politicians can manipulate these same methods, as well, to influence our behavior.  The freedom to obey our instincts appears to be a political theme.

Instinct is not always good

    We tend to crave sugar because evolutionarily it has been in short supply we needed the calories and energy.  We still tend to crave sugar even when sugar is plentiful.  Corporate leaders take advantage of this instinct by loading up our food with sugar and by selling us products with, for example, high fructose corn syrup, which we crave like sugar, but which we purchase instead of sugar in efforts to lose weight.  One result is that we eat too much sugar, gain weight, and get diabetes.  Ideally, when we crave sugar, we should rationalize that this is just our instinct talking to us and ignore it.  Politicians take advantage of this with big gulp sodas.  Politicians on one side legislate against big gulp sodas for health reasons.  Politicians on another side claim that restricting the sale of big gulp sodas violates our freedoms.  Probably neither side really cares about our health nor our freedoms, but rather the politicians are creating a drama side show to distract from other issues.

    We tend to crave sex because evolutionarily population size has been difficult to maintain and grow.  We still tend to crave sex even though now we are overpopulated.  Corporate leaders take advantage of this instinct for sex by bombarding us with advertisements for products that make us look sexy.  One result is that we are frequently thinking about sex when we should probably be concentrating on other things.  Ideally, when we are thinking about sex, we should rationalize that this is just our instinct talking to us and ignore it.  Politicians take advantage of this instinct with a myriad of sexual issues such as Viagra, birth control, abortion, gay rights, marriage, and family sizes in relation to income taxes.  Emotions in the forms of infatuation, love, jealousy, and rape culture play a part in our instincts influencing procreation.

    Fear, an emotion, is evolutionarily a strong and fast way to react to emergency situations.  We still respond strongly to fear even though we can use our reasoning skills to survive and even though we live in much safer environments than we used to.  Corporate leaders take advantage of the fear instinct to sell guns.  Politicians take advantage of this instinct to promote wars and instigate support for policy.  Induced fear of skin color is an especially pernicious use of emotions for political ends.

    We tend to believe in a higher power apparently because following the leader was an evolutionary survival tactic.  We still as a society have strong faith even though the human intellect allows critical analysis of beliefs.  Corporate leaders take advantage of this instinct by reducing health insurance coverage for employees and saying that it is because of religion.  Politicians take advantage of this instinct by religiously repressing women for political gain.

Devolving back to instinct

    Oddly, as a society, we seem to be moving backwards towards following instincts rather than overcoming instincts with intellect.  Through advertising, corporate leaders do a good job of convincing us to smoke, drink, eat too much sugar, burn too much gasoline, buy too many guns, use tanning booths, and other unhealthy things that hurt ourselves but help corporate profits.  The politicians then use emotions to turn the logic of this around so that any regulation to discourage people from spending money to hurt themselves is called a violation of their freedoms.  I have a freedom to help cigarette company profits by giving myself emphysema.  I have a freedom to help corporate agriculture profits by eating too much sugar, becoming overweight, getting diabetes, etc.  I also have the freedom to see that the corporations and politicians are manipulating my emotions to take my money and make me ill in the process.

    We are still paying in a big way for George Bush’s gut instincts in world affairs while he was President.

Using intellect to examine instinct

    Instinct is not always bad, but it needs to be examined when it does harm.  While self-actualization has been considered to be a desirable objective, this goal changes when we consider that some aspects of our self are not so desirable:  for example, desiring self-actualization so that we can eat all of the sugar that we want, smoke lots of cigarettes, have sex with lots of people, and watch war updates on television.

    It is a problem that it is easier to cater to instincts to smoke, eat sugar, and go to war, than it is to rise above these instincts and reason things out with our intellects.  We should be able to use these thought processes:

• Even though I have a strong natural desire to smoke cigarettes and even though I like the cigarette advertisements, I have to accept the reasoning that when I buy cigarettes it helps the profits of corporate leaders and injures my health.  Therefore, I need to take actions to stop smoking.
• Even though I have a strong natural desire to eat sweet things and I like the sugar high from doing so, I have to accept the reasoning that when I buy sweet things, it helps the profits of corporate leaders and injures my health.  Therefore, I need to take actions to stop smoking.
• Even though I am afraid of other world cultures and I feel good about the idea of striking out against them in a war, I have to accept the reasoning that the gut instinct of a president is not enough of a reason for doing so and that the long term societal economic effects of doing so are detrimental, even though some corporate leaders will benefit monetarily hugely by war.  Therefore, I need to not support a war in this case.
• Even though I love the feeling of having and firing guns and I have a right to them from the Second Amendment, I have to accept the reasoning that guns are sold to me at great profit to corporate leaders and guns endanger my family and friends.  Therefore, I need to realize that indiscriminately stocking up on guns is not necessarily to my benefit.
• Even though I have a strong natural desire to drive a big car and feel the power and safety of a large engine, I have to accept the reasoning that when I burn large amounts of gasoline, it is for the benefit of the profits of corporate leaders and it is detrimental to the environment, jeopardizing our future health and safety.  Therefore, I need to take actions to reduce the amount of gasoline that I am burning.
• Even though I have a strong natural desire to look sexy, I have to realize that a lot of this desire comes from a barrage of advertisements from corporate advertisers seeking to make money from my desire to be attractive.  This situation can also be exploited by politicians with other motives.  Therefore, I need to keep my sexual desires in proper perspective with other issues.
• Even though I feel good sun bathing and using tanning booths and I like the effect of brown skin, I have to realize that tanning is encouraged by corporate leaders for their own profits and is dangerous to my skin.  Therefore, I should reduce this activity even though it feels good.

    A pattern exists in these descriptions.  A strong natural desire, an instinct, exists to do something which after thought is not really in our best interests in modern society to do.  Corporate leaders take advantage of these desires to make profits on us even though the results are unhealthy for us.  Some politicians take further advantage of these situations for their own interests.  When attempts are made to regulate any of these activities then we cry that our freedoms are being violated.  Then, we can be further manipulated to spend our money and react in ways that are detrimental to us.

    Intuition, by the way, is not the same as instinct.  Intuition is an educated guess based on knowledge and experience.  An example of intuition is guessing that a mathematical proof can be obtained.  The intuition shows the way and provides motivation.  However, the details of working out the proof are still accomplished.  Also, Star Wars was a good movie, but let the force be with you falls under instinct, not intellect.

    The corporate media’s role in this discussion is to make a profit by selling advertisements.  The higher the readership, the more ads sold.  The more controversy, the higher the readership, and the more advertisements sold.  The controversy has to be an acceptable kind of controversy, though, so that the controversy does not upset too much the people buying the advertisements.  The types of issues in this document have been acceptable controversies primarily because they are made up.  It is well known that eating too much sugar can cause weight gain and other health problems, and it is well known that corporate leaders put too much sugar in food in order to help sell the food.  The corporate media sets this up as a false controversy pretending that somehow this might be ok, as though the scales of justice are somehow closely balanced on this issue.  This is apparently enough of a justification for the victims, who are predisposed by nature to eat too much sugar, to continue eating the sugar packed food and to blame others for interfering with their gorging.

    Incidentally, some of the issues discussed in this document are CAWTBER fails:  banning big gulps, legislating against women for religious reasons, and going to war for lame reasons.  It is ok if people want to fall for advertisements to overeat, smoke cigarettes, buy too many guns, and basically throw away their money to their own detriment, and call it freedom to do so, but when these people blame another political party for these failures, and influence public policy because of their misguided opinions, it is a fail.

Conclusion

    Even with our human intellect, we are manipulated by our instinctual desires.  Corporations, the news media, and politicians manipulate our emotions to influence us to spend money for their gain and to make political decisions in their favor.  When others call this out, we claim that our freedoms are being violated, allowing us to be further manipulated.  We should be able to recognize this and instead use our intellect to derive better decisions.

Some instincts hurt now,
Others benefit from this.
Let’s think this out more.

Suggested Comments:

What are other instincts that were beneficial in the past but are detrimental now?

Kings vs. Consent

If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I’m the dictator.

–George Bush

Numerous types of governments fail CAWTBER, including authoritarianism, monarchism, dictatorship, aristocracy, militarism, plutocracy, autocracy, despotism, totalitarianism, and theocracy.  Other types and practices of government might fail, as well, depending on the circumstances.  The issue is not so much assigning pass-fail labels to types of governments as it is analyzing what the governments do in practice.  A democracy, for example, might pass CAWTBER in some areas and fail CAWTBER in other areas, depending upon governmental actions.

Consider the general idea of an historical king as a meme for a governmental authority figure that must be obeyed.  As such, this meme bumps elbows with the citizenry and fails CAWTBER.  An historical king would likely not have been elected, but a modern governmental official matching the king meme might have been elected.  The king meme is pervasive in our society even though we have a democracy and are led by presidents.  In the U.S., We pledge allegiance to the republic, yet our lifestyle is rife with loyalty to monarchs.  Do we as a nation believe in democracy or authoritarian control?  Do we act the same as we think we believe?

A meme is an idea that is passed between people in an evolutionary way somewhat like genes are passed in DNA.  The word was coined by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene.  Here is a good external explanation of memes:  http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/What-Defines-a-Meme.html.  The king meme as used here is more than just the definition of a king; it is the idea passed down through the ages that an authority figure, sometimes respected, is in control and should be obeyed.  Most of us have some idea of historical European kings, but consider also other non-king examples of these kinds of authority figures.  Consider the god of the Old Testament.  Consider Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book.  Of course, Hitler.  These do not have the title of king, but all are authority figures, like a king, that people learned to follow (or were forced to follow).  It’s good to be king!  Does Buddha fit this meme?  Not so much, because kill the Buddha is a teaching that what is important is the teachings of Buddha, and not the Buddha, himself.  In modern times, top-down corporate management fits the king meme:  the boss does not care what you think, just do what he says.  These other king meme manifestations, as well historical kings, bump elbows with their citizenry (or employees) and fail CAWTBER.  King meme in this discussion henceforth refers to all types of authority figures that must be obeyed.

The king meme has carried over into our culture even after a war against a king over 200 years ago.  Consider that we have prom queens and homecoming kings.  There is no such thing as a burger president or president of the hill.  We have king for a day, King Kong, kingpin, and king size.  Although we might believe in a democracy, we seem to think in terms of kings.  Some say that a constitutional monarchy is not really a monarchy—I say that either England is just pretending to have a queen or they are pretending not to have one.  In the U.S. we are starting to have successions of governmental leaders such as George and George W. Bush.  Geb Bush might be next.  Hillary might follow Bill Clinton.  Do you think we as a citizenry might feel comfort in having not just a king, but a royal family, in charge?  Media interest on the personalities of candidates, as opposed to their positions on issues, further degrades progress towards the move away from king memes in government.

Not all authority figures fit the king meme and fail CAWTBER.  Sometimes it is best to turn it over and trust an authority figure.  An example is a car mechanic who takes apart your car and presumably sees the problem to fix while you are at work earning the money to pay hir bill.  Another example is a surgeon who has you under the knife while you are asleep.  Sometimes you are in situation where you just have to trust other people being in control.  Should you always trust all surgeons and always trust all car mechanics?  No, it is not a matter of assigning pass-fail labels on types of people as it is analyzing what people do in practice—the same person might pass CAWTBER in one endeavor and fail CAWTBER in another endeavor.

Even with trusted authority figures, reason can play a part in addition to blind trust of authority.  Even the surgeon and the car mechanic is likely to explain things to you and ask for your opinion on how to proceed when possible.  Shouldn’t a government be the same way?

The opposite of the king meme is consensual government—rule by consent of the governed.  This can be rather difficult and controversial to define.  Being ruled by an elected official makes some sense in that by voting you have given someone consent to govern.  Does that pass CAWTBER?  It depends.  Does the elected official then steal your property and throw you in jail without cause?  Here is another scenario.  Only the very richest people can determine who can run for office.  Generally undesirable candidates are put on the ballots and the citizens then vote for the best of the worst candidates.  The winning candidate then appoints a judge that has a term for life.  Is that judge then ruling with consent of the governed?  This could be argued both ways.   Does this judge situation pass CAWTBER?  That depends on what the judge does more than how ze was put in office.

Lysander Spooner questioned whether the U.S. Constitution met the criteria of being consent of the governed.  You did not sign it, or vote on it.  You are subject to it because you were born in the U.S.  Does that signify consent to it?  The Southern States definitely believed otherwise during the U.S. Civil War.  The concept of once-in-a-democracy-always-in-a-democracy appears to have come from Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Social Contract:

Each of us places his person and authority under the supreme direction of the general will, and the group receives each individual as an indivisible part of the whole...

 

Abraham Lincoln stated this as a house divided against itself cannot stand.  A similar situation appears to apply to many street gangs and organized crime:  Once you join you cannot quit.

What about rule of law?  Does that concept pass CAWTBER?  Rule of law is often given as a good substitute for rule by man because laws are presumably more consistent than the arbitrary whims of individuals.  But what about laws requiring, say, that run-away slaves must be returned?  Or laws governing women’s bodies?  The answer is that rule of law as a concept neither passes nor fails CAWTBER, it depends on how the laws are used.

Government secrecy is another issue concerning consent of the governed.   Can the citizenry really consent to what they do not know about?

The move towards running government as a corporation, i.e., top-down, is a king meme that moves away from consensual government and fails CAWTBER.

The situation with democracy is that it may or may not pass CAWTBER depending upon the circumstances.  This includes the populace having enough information to make informed decisions, consent continuing even after an election, more direct participation in the selection and election of government officials, and recognizing and avoiding king memes in government.  The test, though, is CAWTBER.  It is not a matter of assigning labels to types of governments, but rather of analyzing particular situations.

Conclusion

 Numerous types of authoritarian governments fail CAWTBER, summarized by the king meme, which persists even in a democracy.  As many people say, democracy is not a good form of government, but it is the best we have.  A government by consent of the governed with informed participation even after elections supports CAWTBER.  A democracy may or may not pass CAWTBER depending upon actions taken by the democracy.  Citizens can use CAWTBER as a tool for awareness and analysis in evaluating the actions of a democracy and other types of government.

Democracy may

Pass or fail—depends

On actions taken.

Suggested Comments:

Does a constitutional democracy effect CAWTBER?