The Three Circle Theory of Politics 

A very successful football coach I know once said that coaches must have more than one way to explain the same thing, because not everyone learns or understands the same way.

In my book, I present a Monkey Head Theory of evaluating political solutions to social issues. When and if I ever do a re-write, I want to add what I’m calling a Three Circle Theory for analyzing political solutions to social issues.

We need theories like these to help people understand the impact of social issues. Why?--Because social issues are being used to divide and distract us. If we hope to make progress towards consensus and actually solving our biggest challenges to our freedom, livelihood and way of life, then we must learn to focus on what really matters to us that we can control and less on the things we can’t control. The success gurus call that not majoring in minors.

Here’s what I mean by the Three Circles.

Imagine all the behaviors in the world, good and bad, were contained in a circle. Imagine those behaviors being divided by drawing a second circle inside the first one. All the “good and acceptable” behaviors are placed inside the second circle and all the “bad and unacceptable” behaviors are outside the second circle. For example, some behaviors outside the circle would include robbery, murder, assault and rape. These are things so anti-social they get you put in jail.

Inside the second circle are the behaviors that not all of us agree about, but are usually acceptable with a live and let live attitude. Some may have legal restrictions attached to them. Let’s use gambling for an example. In some states certain forms of gambling are not allowed. Yet you can travel to another state and freely indulge in that behavior. For some people gambling is something they really like to do. For others, gambling is a take it or leave it activity. These people may not gamble themselves, but they have no qualms about others gambling. Still another group not only does not gamble themselves, this group wants to prevent others from gambling. This last group wants a third circle drawn.

This last group wants a third circle drawn because they don’t want anyone to gamble. Simply not gambling themselves is not adequate for their sense of right and wrong. Since they are unable to persuade other people not to gamble, they want to use the power of government and legislation to keep other people from gambling. In other words, if they can’t persuade you to join them in the third circle, then they intend to force you, like it or not, into the third circle with them.

Think of it this way. Think of all the big box retailers out there, Wal Mart, K Mart, Target, etc. Each of them competes on an equal footing in the market place with their pricing, advertising and merchandise to convince you to shop at their store instead of their competitors. This is called free enterprise. Now what if one of those retailers got sufficient leverage in the political system to have a law passed that you had to shop at their store exclusively? You would immediately say, “That’s against the rules. You can’t do that.” And that is part of our problem today. We have forgotten the rules.

We have social and religious groups who want to get a law passed that will make us “shop at their store” exclusively on the issues of abortion, gay marriage and stem cell research. Deeply frustrated by their inability to persuade us to adopt the position they advocate, they seek to force us into a third circle, like it or not, through legislation and then use the power of government (and our own tax dollars) to ensure compliance. Indeed, these groups are actively working to re-write history for their membership and persuade that membership of the rightness of their action. See, for example, the book Thy Kingdom Come (http://www.amazon.com/Thy-Kingdom-Come-Religious-Evangelicals/dp/0465005195/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-8900014-4015813?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1184205442&sr=1-1) which exposes and explodes these untruths.

Today, no American politician would think of running for election on the premise that they would re-institute Prohibition (a clear historical example of a third circle issue). The reason is that the issue has been settled. We should probably look to how we settled Prohibition as a model for how we can settle the third circle issues of our time.

Without the third circle issues, we can major on majors, for the minors have gone away.