It was moved, seconded and approved to return four caseys to Geoff Miller to bring his loss into line with the rest of ours. This left the national treasury at twenty-six caseys. We were now short twelve caseys if we wanted to return the money equally.
One of the former members of the Imperial Guard stood up. "Here, I'll give back the extra two caseys that Whitlaw paid me. I don't think it's fair for me to keep it." He poked his buddy, who also stood up. "Yeah, me too." Two more former soldiers also chipped in then, but the last two just sat in the back of the room with their arms folded.
"We earned it fairly. We're entitled to it."
"Well," said Whitlaw, "that brings the national debt down to two caseys. Not bad. Now all you have to do is decide who gets the short straws."
"This isn't fair!" said Mariette again.
Whitlaw agreed with her. "You're beginning to see it. No matter how hard we try, the government cannot be fair to everybody. Cannot. The very best that it can do is treat everybody equally unfairly."
The immediate classroom problem was finally resolved when John Hubre realized that the casey isn't indivisible. Thirty-eight students, each of whom had paid one casey in taxation, were repaid ninety-four cents each. There was twenty-eight cents left over. Whitlaw started to pocket it, but Hank Chelsea said quickly, "Sorry-that's the national treasury. We'll have one of our own hold it, if you don't mind."
Whitlaw passed it over with a grin. "You're learning," he said.
TWENTY-SIX
"ALL RIGHT," said Whitlaw. "Obviously, there was a point to that little exercise. No, put your hands down. I'm just going to give you this straight out. There's no such thing as a government."
He looked around the room. "Point to it. Show me the government. Show me any government." He waved our hands down again. "Forget it. You can't. You can show me some buildings, and some people and some rules written down on paper, but you can't show me a government. Because there's no such thing in the physical universe. It's just something we made up. It exists only by our agreement that it does. You just proved that here. We agreed that we wanted some stuff managed and we agreed on some rules for how it should be managed. The agreements are the government. Nothing else.
"How big the government gets depends on how many agreements you make. If enough people agree, we'll build some buildings and hire some people to work in them and manage the agreements for us. Now, here's the question-how do you know if something is the business of the government or not?-that is, the business of the people we've hired to work in our buildings and manage our agreements for us. How do they know what to manage? What's the test?
"No-put your hand down. It's too simple. A person, place, or thing is in the jurisdiction of a government if it tests that government's agreements. If it doesn't, it isn't.
"The government doesn't have to manage the people who keep the agreements. They don't need managing. They're being responsible. It is the business of the government to manage those people who test the agreements. This is it. The whole of government consists of the art of managing people to keep the agreements-especially those who do the managing."
Whitlaw moved thoughtfully to the back of the room. He sounded as if he were speculating idly aloud. "Now ... management is decision-making, right? Anyone not see that? So, the question is-what are the guidelines by which the managers make their decisions? What is the meter-stick?" He looked around at us.
Marcie something-or-other: "The agreements, of course. The rules."
Whitlaw snorted. "Not bloody likely. The rules are just the context-the authorization for the decisions. In fact, the history of this nation is about men and women not following the rules. History is a list of who tested what agreements.
"Every time an agreement is tested, the person whose responsibility that agreement is, is also being tested. So, what does that person use for guidelines?-particularly when there are no guidelines! What is the source of that person's choice?" Whitlaw shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and turned slowly around, making sure we were all paying attention. When he spoke, his voice was low and quiet. "The truth is that ultimately every single choice ... is a reflection of the integrity of the individual making it."
"You might want to notice that-that everything we've done in this country, everything that we've accomplished-good or bad -in nearly two and a half centuries, has been done out of the integrity-or lack of integrity---of people like ourselves who are willing to make decisions and be responsible for them, especially when they know those decisions will be unpopular."
I wondered what he was working toward. He wandered back to the front of the room and sat down on his desk, facing us with an anticipatory expression on his face.
"Do you think the Moscow Treaties were fair?" he asked abruptly.
The class was divided. Some thought yes, some thought no. Most weren't sure.
Whitlaw said, "Well, let's look at it from the rest of the world's point of view. How do you think we looked to them?"
"We're the home of the free, the land of the brave-all the refugees come here." That was Richard Kham Tuong. He had almond eyes, brown skin and curly blond hair. He said it proudly. "People come here looking for freedom. We're a source of hope."
"Uh huh," said Whitlaw, unconvinced. He stood up and strode casually back to stand directly in front of Richard Kham Tuong. "Let me run some statistics by you. One half of the world's population goes to bed hungry every night. There are nearly six billion people on this planet-but the three hundred million who are lucky enough to live in the United States consume one-third of the planet's resources every year. For most of the last century, it was closer to one-half, by the way. Do you think that's fair?"
"Uh . . ." Richard recognized that as a loaded question and did the only thing he could. He stalled.
"Or let me try it another way," Whitlaw went on. He was sandbagging Richard now; we all knew it. "Suppose we order a couple of pizzas for this class. There are twenty-two very thin slices in a pizza, so there should be just enough for everybody to have a little bit. But when they arrive, I take fifteen of the slices for myself and leave the rest of you to fight over what's left. Is that fair?"