Constitutional Monarchy

[Clete]

I had a completely different post typed up for this, but I had a lightbulb moment, and won't be posting it for now.

Instead, I think I finally understand why this discussion has kept going in circles, and why you feel that I keep failing to address your position.

I have been answering the same underlying disagreement from several different directions, treating each application as though it were a separate argument. You answer one formulation, and I return to the same underlying issue through jurisdiction, accountability, the rule of law, judicial review, wrongful removal, or final authority. From your perspective, that understandably looks repetitive.

So let me reduce my position to its actual foundation.

First, a constitution can assign and define jurisdiction as positive law, but the enactment of that jurisdiction does not, by itself, establish that the jurisdiction is morally rightful. It must be justified by some principle higher than the provision that creates it.

Second, being subject to the Constitution is not identical to being judicially subordinate to another domestic office. Bob's king is legally bound by the Constitution. His authority is limited by it, his unlawful acts remain unlawful, and his unlawful commands need not be obeyed. What he lacks is a superior domestic tribunal capable of prosecuting and removing him.

Third, every earthly hierarchy must terminate somewhere. A removal mechanism does not eliminate final human authority. It relocates it to whoever renders the final judgment against the king.

Everything else I have raised follows from those three claims.

My biblical arguments concern the higher principle that legitimizes jurisdiction.

My rule-of-law argument concerns the distinction between legal subjection and judicial subordination.

My questions about wrongful removal, treason, appeals, succession, and corruption concern where final authority terminates after it has been relocated.

So rather than continuing to answer every individual statement and going around the same circle again, let us identify the foundational disagreement.

Which of those three propositions do you reject, and why? Or where, specifically, do you believe the reasoning from them fails?

First, I want to thank you for reducing your position to three foundational premises. This is exactly the sort of discussion I've been hoping we could have. I think we've finally gotten past responding to one another a sentence at a time and have reached the actual point of disagreement.

Having said that, I reject all three of your premises.

Your first premise is that a constitution may assign jurisdiction, but that jurisdiction is not morally justified simply because the constitution creates it. As far as that goes, I agree, because no constitution can make injustice just merely by declaring it lawful. But that principle cuts both ways. You seem to assume that your allocation of jurisdiction is morally justified while mine is not. That is precisely what we're debating. The question is not whether constitutional provisions require moral justification. They do. The question is what moral principle justifies them. My principle is the rule of law. Yours appears to be preserving the king's immunity from domestic prosecution because of a suppose strict necessity to preserve a one way chain of command.

I argue that allowing a known murderer to remain in office as the highest judge, immune from prosecution and punishment, is fundamentally inconsistent with justice. If you wish to defend that constitutional arrangement, then the burden is on you to explain why that arrangement is morally superior, not merely why it can be written into a constitution.


Your second premise is where I think we fundamentally diverge.

You continue speaking in terms of one office being "above" another. I don't think that is how constitutional government works.

Constitutions do not establish governments by placing one man over another. They establish offices, assign jurisdictions to those offices, and limit those jurisdictions. The law creates the king's office. The law creates every other office. The law determines what authority each office possesses. That is why I said in my previous post that the jurisdiction is created by the law, not by the king's crimes.

If the constitution grants a particular office jurisdiction to hear criminal charges against the king under narrowly defined circumstances, that does not make the occupants of that office constitutionally superior to the king any more than a jury, in our current system, becomes sovereign because it may convict a governor or a judge becomes sovereign because he may sentence a criminal.

In short, jurisdiction is not superiority. That distinction is, I think, the heart of our disagreement.


Your third premise suffers from the same assumption.

You argue that every earthly hierarchy must terminate somewhere and that a removal mechanism merely relocates final authority. I reject the premise because it assumes that exercising final jurisdiction in one narrowly defined matter is the same thing as becoming the supreme constitutional authority.

It is not.

Our own constitutional system demonstrates the point. Congress may create or abolish judgeships. The President nominates judges. The Senate confirms them. The Supreme Court may invalidate acts of Congress. None of those facts make any one branch generally superior to the others. Each exercises final authority within a jurisdiction assigned by the Constitution.

The Constitution itself is supreme. The offices are not. Whether you agree with our form of government or not, the point stands. That point being that it is not so that earthly hierarchy must terminate somewhere. It doesn't. Playing a single game of rock, paper, scissors proves the premise false.

Such a power checking mechanism is exactly how I envision a constitutional monarchy. The Constitution would create the king's office, define its powers, limit its authority, and assign narrowly defined jurisdictions to other offices under extraordinary circumstances. None of those offices would become "above" the king. They would simply be exercising the jurisdiction assigned to them by the supreme law of the land.

I think this is why we've spent months talking past one another. You consistently describe my proposal as placing men above the king. I consistently describe it as placing the king beneath the Constitution.

Those are not the same thing! The whole purpose of constitutional government is that no office created by the Constitution stands above the Constitution itself.

That is why I continue to reject Bob's proposal. If the king may knowingly violate the Constitution, commit murder, imprison innocent people, confiscate property contrary to law, and nevertheless remain constitutionally immune from prosecution simply because he occupies the highest office, then the Constitution is no longer governing the king. Rather it is the king that is governing the Constitution.

 

[JudgeRightly]

First, I want to thank you for reducing your position to three foundational premises. This is exactly the sort of discussion I've been hoping we could have. I think we've finally gotten past responding to one another a sentence at a time and have reached the actual point of disagreement.

You're welcome.

Having said that, I reject all three of your premises.

Your first premise is that a constitution may assign jurisdiction, but that jurisdiction is not morally justified simply because the constitution creates it. As far as that goes, I agree, because no constitution can make injustice just merely by declaring it lawful.

Then you actually accept my first premise. What you reject is my application of it.

You identify the rule of law as the higher principle that justifies domestic jurisdiction over the king, yes? If so, that's fine, but the remaining question is whether the rule of law actually requires that arrangement. Naming the principle does not establish the institutional conclusion.

But that principle cuts both ways. You seem to assume that your allocation of jurisdiction is morally justified while mine is not. That is precisely what we're debating. The question is not whether constitutional provisions require moral justification. They do. The question is what moral principle justifies them. My principle is the rule of law. Yours appears to be preserving the king's immunity from domestic prosecution because of a suppose strict necessity to preserve a one way chain of command.

Yes, it cuts both ways. I am not assuming Bob's arrangement is justified while yours is not.

Nor is my principle immunity for its own sake. My position is that rightful jurisdiction must follow from God's moral order, that the Constitution can bind the king without making him judicially subordinate to another domestic office, and that final earthly authority must terminate somewhere.

You must establish that the rule of law requires transferring controlling jurisdiction over the king to those administering the removal process.

I argue that allowing a known murderer to remain in office as the highest judge, immune from prosecution and punishment, is fundamentally inconsistent with justice. If you wish to defend that constitutional arrangement, then the burden is on you to explain why that arrangement is morally superior, not merely why it can be written into a constitution.

I accept that burden. You bear the corresponding burden of showing that domestic removal jurisdiction is morally required and produces the more just arrangement.

Murder deserves punishment. That is not disputed. What is disputed is whether the absence of domestic prosecution makes the entire structure unjust despite the king remaining legally bound, subject to resistance when acting unlawfully, publicly accountable, and ultimately answerable to God.

Describing the arrangement as “allowing” murder does not establish that your remedy is required or morally superior.

Your second premise is where I think we fundamentally diverge.

You continue speaking in terms of one office being "above" another. I don't think that is how constitutional government works.

Constitutions do not establish governments by placing one man over another. They establish offices, assign jurisdictions to those offices, and limit those jurisdictions. The law creates the king's office. The law creates every other office. The law determines what authority each office possesses. That is why I said in my previous post that the jurisdiction is created by the law, not by the king's crimes.

If the constitution grants a particular office jurisdiction to hear criminal charges against the king under narrowly defined circumstances, that does not make the occupants of that office constitutionally superior to the king any more than a jury, in our current system, becomes sovereign because it may convict a governor or a judge becomes sovereign because he may sentence a criminal.

In short, jurisdiction is not superiority. That distinction is, I think, the heart of our disagreement.

That is a fair correction to my wording. Possessing jurisdiction over the king in one matter would not make that office generally sovereign or superior in every constitutional function.

It would, however, make the king judicially subordinate to that office in that matter. And when the matter in question is whether his entire reign continues, the consequence is hardly narrow. The authority to remove him determines whether he may thereafter exercise any power of the crown.

My premise is that legal subjection to the Constitution is distinct from judicial subordination to another domestic office. Your proposal adds the latter.

Your third premise suffers from the same assumption.

You argue that every earthly hierarchy must terminate somewhere and that a removal mechanism merely relocates final authority. I reject the premise because it assumes that exercising final jurisdiction in one narrowly defined matter is the same thing as becoming the supreme constitutional authority.

It is not.

I did not claim that final jurisdiction in one matter makes an office universally supreme. I said that the removal process must terminate in a final human judgment, and whoever renders that judgment possesses final authority in that matter.

Your own description concedes the point:

Our own constitutional system demonstrates the point. Congress may create or abolish judgeships. The President nominates judges. The Senate confirms them. The Supreme Court may invalidate acts of Congress. None of those facts make any one branch generally superior to the others. Each exercises final authority within a jurisdiction assigned by the Constitution.

Final authority may be distributed among jurisdictions, but it still terminates somewhere within each one.

Either the removal judgment can be reversed, in which case final authority lies with whoever can reverse it, or it cannot, in which case the removal authority has the final word.

The Constitution itself is supreme. The offices are not. Whether you agree with our form of government or not, the point stands. That point being that it is not so that earthly hierarchy must terminate somewhere. It doesn't. Playing a single game of rock, paper, scissors proves the premise false.

Rock, paper, scissors is not a hierarchy. It is a cycle of pairwise superiority, and every individual game still terminates in a definite result.

Likewise, constitutional authority may be distributed among several offices without making any one office universally supreme. But every binding judgment must still be rendered by human beings whose decision controls that case.

The Constitution is supreme as the legal standard. It cannot interpret evidence, render judgment, remove the king, or enforce the result. Men do those things. Distributed final authority is still final authority.

Such a power checking mechanism is exactly how I envision a constitutional monarchy. The Constitution would create the king's office, define its powers, limit its authority, and assign narrowly defined jurisdictions to other offices under extraordinary circumstances. None of those offices would become "above" the king. They would simply be exercising the jurisdiction assigned to them by the supreme law of the land.

The triggering circumstances may be narrowly defined, but the consequence is comprehensive. Removing the king determines whether his entire reign continues and whether he may ever again exercise any power of the crown.

Those officials need not become generally sovereign. But their judgment controls the king in the matter governing the continuation of all his authority.

That the Constitution assigns them this jurisdiction identifies its legal source. It does not establish its moral justification.

I think this is why we've spent months talking past one another. You consistently describe my proposal as placing men above the king. I consistently describe it as placing the king beneath the Constitution.

Those are not the same thing! The whole purpose of constitutional government is that no office created by the Constitution stands above the Constitution itself.

“The purpose of a system is what it does.”

You may describe the purpose as placing the king beneath the Constitution, but the Constitution cannot investigate, judge, remove, or execute him. Men must do those things. Your system therefore gives another person or body binding authority over the king that he cannot overrule.

Calling that “placing the king beneath the Constitution” states your justification for the mechanism. It does not change what the mechanism actually does.

That is why I continue to reject Bob's proposal. If the king may knowingly violate the Constitution, commit murder, imprison innocent people, confiscate property contrary to law, and nevertheless remain constitutionally immune from prosecution simply because he occupies the highest office, then the Constitution is no longer governing the king. Rather it is the king that is governing the Constitution.

That does not follow. Violating the Constitution is not the same thing as governing it. Otherwise, every criminal would govern the law he violates.

The king would govern the Constitution if his will determined its content or legal effect, such that he could make murder lawful, alter his constitutional limits by decree, or impose a lawful duty to obey his unconstitutional commands. Bob's king can do none of those things.

The relevant difference is that no domestic court possesses jurisdiction to prosecute him. That concerns enforcement, not whether his will governs the Constitution. Your conclusion still assumes that the Constitution cannot govern the king unless another domestic office can prosecute and remove him. That is precisely the premise in dispute.

 

[Clete]

You're welcome.



Then you actually accept my first premise. What you reject is my application of it.

You identify the rule of law as the higher principle that justifies domestic jurisdiction over the king, yes? If so, that's fine, but the remaining question is whether the rule of law actually requires that arrangement. Naming the principle does not establish the institutional conclusion.



Yes, it cuts both ways. I am not assuming Bob's arrangement is justified while yours is not.

Nor is my principle immunity for its own sake. My position is that rightful jurisdiction must follow from God's moral order, that the Constitution can bind the king without making him judicially subordinate to another domestic office, and that final earthly authority must terminate somewhere.

You must establish that the rule of law requires transferring controlling jurisdiction over the king to those administering the removal process.



I accept that burden. You bear the corresponding burden of showing that domestic removal jurisdiction is morally required and produces the more just arrangement.

Murder deserves punishment. That is not disputed. What is disputed is whether the absence of domestic prosecution makes the entire structure unjust despite the king remaining legally bound, subject to resistance when acting unlawfully, publicly accountable, and ultimately answerable to God.

Describing the arrangement as “allowing” murder does not establish that your remedy is required or morally superior.



That is a fair correction to my wording. Possessing jurisdiction over the king in one matter would not make that office generally sovereign or superior in every constitutional function.

It would, however, make the king judicially subordinate to that office in that matter. And when the matter in question is whether his entire reign continues, the consequence is hardly narrow. The authority to remove him determines whether he may thereafter exercise any power of the crown.

My premise is that legal subjection to the Constitution is distinct from judicial subordination to another domestic office. Your proposal adds the latter.



I did not claim that final jurisdiction in one matter makes an office universally supreme. I said that the removal process must terminate in a final human judgment, and whoever renders that judgment possesses final authority in that matter.

Your own description concedes the point:



Final authority may be distributed among jurisdictions, but it still terminates somewhere within each one.

Either the removal judgment can be reversed, in which case final authority lies with whoever can reverse it, or it cannot, in which case the removal authority has the final word.



Rock, paper, scissors is not a hierarchy. It is a cycle of pairwise superiority, and every individual game still terminates in a definite result.

Likewise, constitutional authority may be distributed among several offices without making any one office universally supreme. But every binding judgment must still be rendered by human beings whose decision controls that case.

The Constitution is supreme as the legal standard. It cannot interpret evidence, render judgment, remove the king, or enforce the result. Men do those things. Distributed final authority is still final authority.



The triggering circumstances may be narrowly defined, but the consequence is comprehensive. Removing the king determines whether his entire reign continues and whether he may ever again exercise any power of the crown.

Those officials need not become generally sovereign. But their judgment controls the king in the matter governing the continuation of all his authority.

That the Constitution assigns them this jurisdiction identifies its legal source. It does not establish its moral justification.



“The purpose of a system is what it does.”

You may describe the purpose as placing the king beneath the Constitution, but the Constitution cannot investigate, judge, remove, or execute him. Men must do those things. Your system therefore gives another person or body binding authority over the king that he cannot overrule.

Calling that “placing the king beneath the Constitution” states your justification for the mechanism. It does not change what the mechanism actually does.



That does not follow. Violating the Constitution is not the same thing as governing it. Otherwise, every criminal would govern the law he violates.

The king would govern the Constitution if his will determined its content or legal effect, such that he could make murder lawful, alter his constitutional limits by decree, or impose a lawful duty to obey his unconstitutional commands. Bob's king can do none of those things.

The relevant difference is that no domestic court possesses jurisdiction to prosecute him. That concerns enforcement, not whether his will governs the Constitution. Your conclusion still assumes that the Constitution cannot govern the king unless another domestic office can prosecute and remove him. That is precisely the premise in dispute.

Alright, so the fact that you've reduced your position to three foundational premises, is genuine progress, but the problem is that I am now fully convinced that our disagreement to be axiomatic. What I can't tell yet is whether you're able to see it.

You believe a constitution remains the supreme law of the land even if it intentionally creates an office against which its own commands cannot be constitutionally enforced. I do not. Indeed, it cannot be. Contradictions cannot exist.

Law that cannot be enforced is not functioning as law. It is merely an expression of what someone wishes would happen. A constitution that intentionally exempts its highest office from the enforcement of its own supreme law is no longer governing that office. It is merely expressing the duties that office ought to perform.

That is why I reject the notion that Bob's proposal is a constitutional monarchy. A constitutional monarchy whose monarch is constitutionally beyond the enforcement of the constitution is a contradiction in terms. Once the highest office is intentionally placed beyond the reach of the supreme law, what remains is simply a monarchy accompanied by a constitution.

As such, I don't think we're arguing about monarchy anymore. We're arguing about what constitutional government is.

 

[Idolater]

It does not make such a situation impossible.

Civil disobedience is not limited to government officials. The regime still depends upon soldiers, judges, workers, suppliers, taxpayers, and ordinary subjects. The king may replace resisters, but widespread noncooperation can still obstruct his government.

If he can find enough willing accomplices to replace every resister and suppress everyone else, however, the nation is already nearing collapse. No governmental structure can guarantee justice once nearly everyone required to sustain it has become corrupt.

Those officials would not constitutionally control the succession. The king’s eldest son succeeds him automatically. If there is no heir, the Queen, eldest daughter, or finally the chief military officer merely oversees the prescribed lottery. The overseer does not select the winner.

A wicked king could therefore raise a wicked heir, but his appointees could not constitutionally perpetuate themselves by choosing one of their own. If succession passes to the lottery, the new king may dismantle the corrupt network.

Of course, this assumes they still recognize the Constitution as binding. If they discard it, seize power, and install their own ruler, then the constitutional order has already collapsed. At that point, all bets are off.

You're right. A written or unwritten constitution is not a self-defending thing, its defense depends 100% on its people, its polity, its nation, to back it up, to protect it, to preserve it, to honor it, and to obey it.

Stalin, Lenin, Hitler, Mao, were able to run roughshod because they established criminal organizations, basically gigantic mobs, which controlled their countries. The people were passive and disengaged from politics. Someone of their own race, ethnicity, nationality, in a uniform, wearing a special hat, yelling at them, and pointing a gun, was the end of their engagement in politics for the Russian, German, or Chinese under these rogue autocrats, there was no constitution to these countries under these absolutists, it was just a gigantic mafia, rule of terror rather than rule of law.

In contrast, Americans are fierce about our Constitution. We have an exceptionally strong sense of justice which was inherited from our founding generation, which developed their own sense of justice from their English inheritance combined with the unique circumstances of existence and subsistence in the 13 American colonies. Just another reason to hold to American Exceptionalism.

 

[VladtheDestroyer]

 

[Nick M]

That is why I continue to reject Bob's proposal. If the king may knowingly violate the Constitution, commit murder, imprison innocent people, confiscate property contrary to law, and nevertheless remain constitutionally immune from prosecution simply because he occupies the highest office, then the Constitution is no longer governing the king. Rather it is the king that is governing the Constitution.

His proposal assumed moral standing. But as John Adams said about our in fact lousy system of government....

I think we will have a monarchy. The authority will flow down hill from Jerusalem after his return. At least I think government will still exist and he won't just vaporize people that are evil. We learned from him he delegates authority. I would like to think in the Millennium if the King is bad, Michael will show up and take care of the problem. Time will tell.

 

[JudgeRightly]

Alright, so the fact that you've reduced your position to three foundational premises, is genuine progress, but the problem is that I am now fully convinced that our disagreement to be axiomatic. What I can't tell yet is whether you're able to see it.

Yes, I see that our disagreement has reached the level of foundational premises (finally!). What remains disputed is which premise is correct.

Calling the disagreement axiomatic identifies where our reasoning diverges. It does not establish your premise as true or place it beyond challenge.

As I understand it, your axiom appears to be that a constitution governs an office only if another domestic authority possesses coercive jurisdiction to enforce it against the occupant of that office. I deny that premise unless and until you establish it.

It might be useful at this point to bring Frédéric Bastiat into the discussion. In The Law, Bastiat argues that law is the collective organization of force for purposes that are already morally legitimate. In other words, the law does not make a use of force just merely by authorizing it; the justification for that force must exist prior to the enactment.

That fits the distinction I have been making. Even if we agree that law necessarily involves enforcement, the deeper question remains: what prior moral principle makes the particular coercive jurisdiction you want over the king rightful?

You believe a constitution remains the supreme law of the land even if it intentionally creates an office against which its own commands cannot be constitutionally enforced. I do not. Indeed, it cannot be. Contradictions cannot exist.

There is no contradiction.

The Constitution can define and limit the king's lawful authority, deny lawful force to his unconstitutional commands, and provide that those commands need not be obeyed, while withholding from subordinate domestic offices jurisdiction to prosecute or remove him.

Those propositions are entirely compatible. They become contradictory only after inserting your disputed premise that constitutional supremacy necessarily requires coercive domestic jurisdiction over every officeholder.

I distinguish between the Constitution being supreme as the legal standard and another domestic office possessing jurisdiction to prosecute and remove the king. You treat the latter as necessary to the former. That is precisely what still needs to be established.

Law that cannot be enforced is not functioning as law. It is merely an expression of what someone wishes would happen. A constitution that intentionally exempts its highest office from the enforcement of its own supreme law is no longer governing that office. It is merely expressing the duties that office ought to perform.

That defines “enforcement” too narrowly.

Interestingly, we were already circling this issue six years ago. I quoted Bob's political argument:

Man cannot devise a system of checks and balances likely to produce just leadership.

You replied:

First of all this is an unsupported presupposition.

Even if it were true, which I doubt, so what?

And I answered:

It means that the only alternative is to leave the judgment of the king, rightfully, to God, who is the standard on which the law rests, and the law is above the king.

I think Bob was getting at the right problem there, although his wording did not fully expose the principle underneath it.

A check on political power does not operate by itself. It is exercised by another man or group of men, who remain morally fallible merely because the Constitution assigns them a checking function. Add another check upon them and the same problem repeats. Within any particular dispute, some human judgment must control the outcome.

Checks can restrain power, divide it, and alter incentives. What they cannot do is manufacture the moral judgment necessary to exercise power justly. If the men operating the system substantially share a just moral framework, that framework supplies the standard by which their authority is exercised. If they do not, additional checks may restrain particular abuses, but they cannot supply the missing moral standard.

So Bob's point was not that institutional design is useless. It was that institutional design cannot substitute for the moral foundation necessary for just government.

And that gives a fuller answer to your old “so what?” If a checking mechanism cannot supply its own justice, then calling something a constitutional “check” does not establish that the jurisdiction or force it exercises is rightful.

Bastiat's point matters here for exactly that reason. Law organizes force; it does not manufacture the moral legitimacy of that force merely by authorizing it. The justification must precede the legal mechanism.

We have already applied that distinction to the king. If he is actively murdering someone, those present may use force to defend the innocent because that use of force is independently just. But the right to stop an immediate murder does not by itself establish a standing jurisdiction to prosecute, punish, and remove him afterward.

Under Bob's system, meanwhile, the Constitution still has real legal effect. An unconstitutional command possesses no lawful force, imposes no duty of obedience, and may be refused or resisted. What is withheld is a particular form of coercive enforcement: subordinate domestic jurisdiction to prosecute and remove the king.

So our disagreement is not between functioning law and a mere wish. It is over which forms of enforcement are morally authorized, and who possesses jurisdiction to exercise them.

That is why I reject the notion that Bob's proposal is a constitutional monarchy. A constitutional monarchy whose monarch is constitutionally beyond the enforcement of the constitution is a contradiction in terms. Once the highest office is intentionally placed beyond the reach of the supreme law, what remains is simply a monarchy accompanied by a constitution.

As such, I don't think we're arguing about monarchy anymore. We're arguing about what constitutional government is.

That conclusion follows only from your disputed definition of constitutional government.

Bob’s Constitution creates the king’s office, defines and limits his lawful authority, and determines whether his commands possess lawful force. He cannot make an unlawful act lawful merely by committing it, expand his jurisdiction by decree, or make an unconstitutional command binding merely by issuing it.

What he lacks is a superior domestic tribunal with jurisdiction to prosecute and remove him. Calling that “a monarchy accompanied by a constitution” simply assumes that constitutional limits are not genuine unless another domestic office can coercively enforce them against the monarch.

So yes, we are now arguing about what constitutional government is.

The precise question is whether constitutional supremacy requires domestic coercive jurisdiction over the final earthly ruler, or whether a constitution can genuinely define and limit his lawful authority without creating another domestic authority over him.

 

[Clete]

His proposal assumed moral standing. But as John Adams said about our in fact lousy system of government....

I think we will have a monarchy. The authority will flow down hill from Jerusalem after his return. At least I think government will still exist and he won't just vaporize people that are evil. We learned from him he delegates authority. I would like to think in the Millennium if the King is bad, Michael will show up and take care of the problem. Time will tell.

During the Millennium Christ will be the literal King of Kings. He will be the highest sovereign authority over all other authority on the planet. If the ruler (whether he's a "king" or not) is sufficiently "bad", as you put it, Jesus will deal with that ruler as needed. The country with the bad king won't have to sit around being suppressed by his despotic rule for the rest of that king's life hoping that he isn't training his heir to just like him.

 

[Clete]

Yes, I see that our disagreement has reached the level of foundational premises (finally!). What remains disputed is which premise is correct.

Calling the disagreement axiomatic identifies where our reasoning diverges. It does not establish your premise as true or place it beyond challenge.

As I understand it, your axiom appears to be that a constitution governs an office only if another domestic authority possesses coercive jurisdiction to enforce it against the occupant of that office. I deny that premise unless and until you establish it.

It might be useful at this point to bring Frédéric Bastiat into the discussion. In The Law, Bastiat argues that law is the collective organization of force for purposes that are already morally legitimate. In other words, the law does not make a use of force just merely by authorizing it; the justification for that force must exist prior to the enactment.

That fits the distinction I have been making. Even if we agree that law necessarily involves enforcement, the deeper question remains: what prior moral principle makes the particular coercive jurisdiction you want over the king rightful?

Do we agree that law necessarily involves enforcement?

If we do, it was a waste of time for you to have written the entire rest of your post because under Bob's proposed system there can be no enforcement against the king. No enforcement equals no law, by your own stated argument.

Notice that I am not saying that there is no right and wrong. Stealing was wrong before God gave Moses the Ten Commandments. Murder was wrong before God told Noah to execute those convicted of murder. The difference is the rule of law. Your version of the king reverts his status back to before Noah's flood where people were governed by nothing but their own conscience.

As Bastiat said, law is the organization of force for purposes that are already morally legitimate.

It is morally illegitimate for a king to commit treason. It is morally legitimate to force the king not to commit such an act and to punish him if he does. Where there is no force there is no law. An unenforceable law is not a law, it's just wishful thinking. There is still a moral code, but that isn't the sort of law we are discussing here and we have the entire dispensation of conscience to teach us what happens when men are left to their own devices and allowed to do what is right in their own eyes.