Chapter IV: The President is just one person

A fundamental principal of America is that every man and woman is politically equal.

Often, people try to elevate the person of the President above the rest of us. This is not the American way. The Constitution says, "No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States".

Why should we call the President, "Mr. President"? Don't you think it is pretentious and silly the way I have been capitalizing "President" throughout this document?

The Presidency might be something important, but the president is just some guy (or gal).

• If I were president, I would encourage people to call me by my last (and sometimes first) name, rather than "Mr. President".

In my mind, this is related to the issue of dissent. In any organization, especially a political one, there is a tendency to get people to "pull together" and not publically question the decisions made by the people in charge. I think this is usually counterproductive. But, when this happens within a democratic government, I think it is dangerous.

Stifling dissent is an offense to the natural, democratic impulse that people have to discuss how they think things should be run. And it closes the communication channels that democracies rely upon to keep people informed.

When an administration tells its people to shut up, the administration loses the benefit of their advice. Just as dangerously, the rest of the people lose information about what is really going on inside the administration. This is no small loss, since the administration is supposed to be an employee of the people. How can the people monitor their employee when they don't know what's going on?

Fundamentally, though, to stifle dissent is to suppose that one person (the president) is on a higher plane than another. When we realize that the president is just a guy, we realize that there's no reason why the president's views should be given special consideration. Yes, the president is probably smarter than your average guy, but then so are the people working for him. Why should they have to shut up just because they disagree with him?

• I would permit those in my administration to speak their mind to the public if they disagree with anything. I would not punish them for criticizing me publically. However, I would insist that they tell me beforehand what they are going to say, and that they never do it anonymously.

Certainly there would be times when I would encourage people to pull together. People would come to me and say, "I disagree with this and I think I'll tell the media". And I'd say, "I won't stop you but I think that's a bad idea. It'll distract attention, and that will make it less likely that such-and-such will happen, which we both want". The difference is that there wouldn't be any threat of punishment.

And it hardly needs to be said that just as I would obey Congress even if I disagreed, I would expect the president's administration to implement his commands even while disagreeing.

(todo: non-sequitur; should explain about not keeping secrets)

Diversity of view in the cabinet

Another place where diversity of views would be useful is in the cabinet.

• I would start out by inviting all of the previous guy's cabinet members to hang around and join my cabinet also. I would still appoint my own new cabinet members for every position; the old guys would be there in a purely advisory capacity.

This would provide a great diversity of views. Just as important, when we did all agree on something, those guys would be able to explain to "the opposition" why, in that one case at least, my administration is making the right choice.

It would make it hard to keep anything a secret from the opposition. But as I've said, I don't think the administration should be keeping many secrets from the people, anyway.

If there is something that is important to keep secret, I would trust that the representatives of "the opposition" would have as much loyalty to America as my people, and that they would keep it a secret. If they do not, maybe I was wrong about it needing to be kept secret. Maybe the opposition released the secret because they thought it was in the best interests of the country to do so. Maybe they were right.

If there was anyone whom I trusted so little that I thought they would release an important secret of the United States not because they thought that was in the best interests of the country, but for personal gain; then I would remove that person from the cabinet.