From what I have heard, from all that I have been told, I deduce a basic rule applying to lifeforms deemed intelligent."… "And what is this rule?" "T… - Wasp

It's your right to refuse to believe. That's freedom, isn't it?
"Up to a point. A man has duties. He's no right to refuse those."
"No?" She raised tantalizing eyebrows, delicately curved. "Who defines those duties—himself, or somebody else?"
"His superiors, most times."
"No man is superior to another. No man has the right to define another man's duties." She paused, eyeing him speculatively. "If anyone on Terra exercises such idiotic power, it is only because idiots permit him. They fear freedom. They prefer to be told. They like being ordered around. What men!"

The first rule of captaincy is to consider the men before considering an exterior problem. There is no real solution to any predicament unless there is also the means to apply it.

The reaction showed that the audience had never encountered this argument before or concocted anything like it of their own accord. None were stupid enough to accept it as serious assertion of fact. All were sufficiently intelligent to recognize it as logical or pseudo-logical denial of something self-evident and demonstrably true.