Popular business axioms and management theories are thrown around in such cavalier fashion these days they can actually result in flawed decisioning.

FORBES: Best Practices - Aren't

If the mainstream philosophical consensus is to be believed, Rand was wrong to claim that this dispute can be resolved objectively by an appeal to reasoned argument from uncontroversial axioms.

FORBES: What Was Ayn Rand Wrong About?

And in Germany, as everywhere in Europe (see Charlemagne), the challenge posed by immigration and political Islam is forcing people to think about the axioms a liberal democracy must uphold.

ECONOMIST: German values

Every community built around an idea, a principle or an aim (from fox-hunting enthusiasts to Freudian psychotherapists) will always face hard arguments about where the boundaries of that community lie, and how far the meaning of its founding axioms can be stretched.

ECONOMIST: Wanted: Islam��s Voltaire

Later, as the war did not progress as advertised, I heard the secretary of defense dismiss failures that had clearly resulted from poor or nonexistent planning by tossing off snappy quips ("stuff happens") or by quoting old military axioms ("No plan survives contact with the enemy").

NPR: 'Battle for Peace' in Iraq Echoes Vietnam

Although the prescription to base your compliance efforts on an assessment of risk is the most basic of common sense axioms, and although it applies generally to your entire compliance program, the Department of Justice has driven the point home and made it clear as well that an anti-corruption risk assessment is an absolute must-do.

FORBES: Risk Assessments: The Most Important Effort You're Doing All Wrong