The Proper Whopper?

One of the 1980s ad campaigns for the Whopper at Burger King was that you get to have it "your way"--meaning you could not only order a Whopper, but you could also even tell Burger King how to make it. You could say "Hold the pickles" or whatever.

There is no "proper Whopper" then, though there is an "official" one modelled after a certain mix of condiments. In matters of opinion or matters of taste, people should retain the "freedom to choose." But what about matters of fact and justice? Should people be free to choose then?

For people still wondering why "capitalism" didn't work in Latin America, just look at the cultural philosophy which has been dominant down there. Many people down there have had it in their heads that people should be free to choose everything--not just personal matters of opinion or taste, but everything.

They have also thought that numbers give you moral strength, even in matters of fact and justice.

If a large enough group "feel" that someone should be indicted, than that person gets indicted. If a large enough group "feel" that government's job is to rob the most productive people, and redistribute their wealth to less productive people, then that happens too. If a large enough group says "2+2=5" ...?

It is whatever the "mob" wants ("mob rule"). This is called "populism" or "direct democracy"--and it refers to unconstitutional governance where everything, even law, is subject to a popular (majority) vote. Capitalism is the only social system governed by justice--getting what you earned, and only what you earned.

This means it won't "work" in cultures where most people still think that they should be free to choose everything, including whether other people get to keep their stuff or not, or whether expressed opinions constitute "micro-aggressions" which need to be rooted out by an all-powerful government backed by nothing firm, only by majority vote.

There isn't such a thing as a proper Whopper, but there is such a thing as proper human governance, and direct democracy (populist, mob rule) is not it.

The proper government for human beings is a rights-based constutitional republic, where even government itself has to follow pre-determined law created for the sole purpose of protecting individual rights from all intrusions--even intrusions from the government itself.

Image Attribution

Page URL: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WHOPPER_with_Cheese,_at_Burger_King_(2014.05.04).jpg

Attribution: Lombroso [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]