Membership is not required to establish a Kentucky Colonel Branch or to be listed in the Kentucky Colonels Handbook

Kentucky Colonel Authority

Each civilian officer that is commissioned is endowed with authority in common-law when they become a Kentucky Colonel through becoming a confidant to the Head of State, the Governor through his executive power of state entrusts the individual with "special rights, privileges, and responsibilities." The authority is accepted honorably when reciprocity is demonstrated and documented, with knowledge comes authority.

What is Real Kentucky Colonel Authority you ask?

Kentucky Colonel Authority is based on a recognized civil officer benefitting from their "rights, privileges and responsibilities thereto appertaining". Specifically the authority is taken from the civilian status of being named a confidant to the head-of-state, the authority is assumed honorably based on good faith and goodwill toward civil society and government. (See John Bowman's Commission from December 21, 1776 by Virginia's First Governor)

When we say that we are "complying", we are saying that we are complying with authoritative rules that are not of our own creation. These authoritative rules can come in the form of regulations, principles, standards, guidelines, best practices, policies, and procedures. Which is which, and what makes one authoritative body a regulator and another a best practice author? Let's start with regulations and move on from there.

Statutes, regulations, and directives are rules of law that, if not followed, can result in penalties. Regulations state that something must be done. Regulations are promulgated by governmental agencies to interpret or expand the reach of statutes.
Contractual obligations are just that — contracts that, if not followed, can result in penalties.
Standards are levels of quality or attainment created by organized groups or that are generally accepted within the industry. Standards determine what must be done.
Guidelines are detailed outlines and plans for determining a course of action. Guidelines prioritize and direct the course of action.
Best practices are programs, initiatives, or activities that are considered leading edge, or exceptional models for others to follow. Best practices set the example of how to do something the best way.

Original Kentucky Colonel Commission (Form) 1932-1957

Original Kentucky Colonel Commission for Aide-de-Camp as one of Governor Ruby Laffoon's Colonels, it authorizes an imaginary rank in a fictitious militia based on a vacated (non-existent) militia order form 1932 through 1957.

Using Kentucky Colonel Authority

There is a legal hierarchy to the documents that the Kentucky Colonel and other titled authorities understand. We have identified 7 of 10 Authority Document types which are listed in their legal hierarchical status below.

Statutes (Bills or Acts)
Regulations
Regulatory Directive or Guidance
Contractual Obligation
International or National Standard
Best Practice Guidelines
Organizational Governance Documents

Statutes (Bills or Acts)

A statute is an act of federal, state, Parliament, or provincial legislation that declares the law pertaining to a certain subject (e.g., the Income Tax Act, The Canada Corporations Act, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002). Statutory law is legislatively created law. Administrative agencies adopt statutes as regulations, and lesser bodies adopt them as ordinances.

Failure to follow laws will get you put in jail or result in penalties even if you are a Kentucky Colonel; civilly it is one of the unnamed duties (responsibilities) of a colonel to follow the law.

Governing Regulations

To regulate is to bring under the force of law or a governing authority. People and businesses are subject to national, regional, and local laws. Traditional regulators are those agencies within the aforementioned levels of government. When governmental agencies create their acts, they are codifying legal documents that resulted from deliberations of their legislative bodies. Often, however, the acts passed by those legislative bodies establish broad principles rather than detailed prescriptions for the behavior of people and companies and delegate to the regulators responsibility for filling in the details and gaps. The regulators are empowered to interpret how the laws are to be implemented and to establish rules for following those laws. Those rules are then documented as regulations, such as the "Code of Federal Regulations" that we have in the United States. Regulations are enforceable by law. Failure to follow regulations will result in penalties.

Regulatory Directives or Regulatory Guidance

Directives can be legislative acts, such as those of the European Union, or organizational directives, such as those issued by the U.S. Whitehouse's Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which requires those organizations under the issuer's purview to achieve a particular result without dictating the means of achieving the result. Directives normally leave those entities that follow them with a certain amount of leeway as to the exact rules to be adopted. Directives are only enforceable against and binding for the group they address.

Contractual Obligations

There is much confusion between "regulations" promulgated by government regulators as discussed above and the rules, standards, and, yes, "regulations" promulgated by other so-called regulatory bodies and other organizations that can and do emerge to reign in our actions. Variously known as "self-regulatory bodies", "standards bodies", or by similar names, these organizations are not part of the government and do not have the force of law behind their requirements, but failure to comply with those requirements may well disqualify an entity from participating in certain businesses. The promulgators of these rules may be industry-based organizations that band together to address a concern that is common to industry members. For example, the credit card companies (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, etc.) have banded together to create the Payment Card Industry Security Standard. The promulgators may be self-appointed watchdog organizations that have gained sufficient acceptance, prominence, and/or moral authority over time and to which people turn to as authorities in the field. For example, the ability to display the BBBOnline and TRUSTe seals in online commerce has achieved this type of prominence, so it makes it worthwhile for businesses to comply with their standards. Certain membership-based organizations promote similar types of rules as a condition of membership. The unifying principle is that they all have something you want and you're willing to contractually commit to playing by their rules to get it.

We'll get to the definition of a standard in a moment, but just because something is called a standard (it can't be called a law, act, or regulation, because it does not come from the government), it doesn't mean that it can be ignored without consequences. Yes, compliance with these types of contractual standards are, legally speaking, optional. If a company is not interested in accepting credit cards as a form of payment, it is not obligated to comply with the PCI standards. However, anyone wanting to accept credit cards is required to contractually agree to comply with the PCI standards. Similarly, anyone wanting to display the BBBOnline seal must contractually agree to follow certain guidelines and processes. Failure to comply with these obligations creates a breach of contract and, depending on the contract terms, may result in a variety of fines and, potentially, the loss of valuable contractual rights — losing the ability to accept credit cards in the case of the PCI standards could have grave consequences for just about any merchant. Losing the right to use the BBBOnline or TRUSTe seals may not have as severe an effect on a merchant as being unable to accept credit cards, but it could drive customers away to competitor sites — particularly if the contractual breach is widely publicized. The payment card industry has already fined a great many organizations and affected the closure of at least one (1) organization that we know of for not properly following its standard. Because the payment card industry can exercise authority over its user body, and that user body is so large, in this instance, they can be compared to regulators, even though they haven't been given the statutory mandate of a regulator. However, there is one(1) big difference between the payment card industry and true regulators — while the payment card industry may be able to put you out of business, they can't put you in jail.

International and National Standards

We love the origination of the term "standard". Originally, a standard was a conspicuous object (a tall pole with a banner, flag, or symbol on top) that was used to mark a rallying point in battle. Today, a standard is a criterion or criteria established by an authority (government or industry) that apply to a given situation in order to reach a certain level of quality or attainment. Control models are much the same thing but tend to focus more specifically on certain aspects of implementation. In contrast to the original definition, a standard today comes into existence because people rally around it, rather than the other way around. International standards and control models are consensus models that are generally accepted by the user community (or at least by the community creating the standard), such as the "Control Objectives for Information Technology" created by Information Systems Audit and Control Association (a control model) or the International Organization for Standardization's (ISO) various standards, such as its "ISO 27001-2005 Information Security Management Standard".

Formal international standards begin as draft documents, which are then published as a Request for Comments (RFC) document. As these RFCs mature through the editing process, they become proposed standards, draft standards, and, ultimately, the final published standard.

Is your organization required to follow any given standard? Not if the standard's author isn't a regulator or a body with contractual authority over it — meaning that the standard's authors can't force your organization to use their standard under threat of legal action or penalty. Some might think de facto standards must be followed, but that isn't true.

Standards are not enforceable by law. However, failure to follow standards may result in actions contrary to regulations, which are enforceable by law.

Best Practice Guidelines

Best practices are leading edge models of methods or actions for others to follow. These are combinations of activities, processes, policies, or procedures that document the best possible way of doing something. They are generally used as instructional modelling tools for implementing authority.

Are they enforceable? Nope. As a matter of fact, many times they aren't even desirable — in their fullest sense, the "best" way to do something is often also the costliest. Too many times we've seen people spending $1,000 to fix a $100 problem by using an industry "best practice". Best practices must always be viewed in context and adapted to the particular situation. For the Kentucky Colonel it is always best to say that your authority exceeds or meets "Best Practice Guidelines."

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