No. The court exists because of the law. If there is no court then there isn't any law. At best there is a moral code but as I've repeatedly stated we aren't talking about morality per se, we are talking about criminal justice. Saying that there is criminal justice without a court is like saying you can play football without a goal line or a railroad without trains. Football without a goal line is called "catch" and a railroad without a train is just long strips of useless steel laid on the ground and criminal law without a court is unjust - at best.
I reject that premise. Where there is no court, there may be no earthly enforcement of the law, but that is not the same thing as no law. A court does not create the law; it has jurisdiction to apply and enforce it. If a man murders someone and escapes prosecution because no competent court can reach him, the law has still been violated. “A man is guilty the moment he commits a crime,” remember? His lack of prosecution does not make murder lawful.
Whether you accept the premise or not is irrelevant to whether it is valid. A king who can murder without penalty is not under whatever law is telling him not to do it. Rather than being subject to it, he is above it. Whether he will answer to a higher law is not relevant to this discussion because in that particular, the king is no different than the lowest of peasants.
I understand the practical point, but “cannot be prosecuted by a superior domestic court” is not the same as “not under the law.” It means the law lacks ordinary domestic enforcement against him, not that the law does not bind him or that murder becomes lawful when he does it. If he murders, he is guilty under the Criminal Code; the unresolved question is which earthly office has jurisdiction to punish the final earthly civil authority. You are treating lack of superior court enforcement as legal nonexistence. I am treating it as a jurisdictional limit.
It isn't merely weak, it is no existent in so far as the king's conduct is concerned. In the proposed system, the king would have the legal authority to release any criminal he desired and even join forces with the criminal if he chose to do so and no one would have anything to say or do about it short of civil war.
“May as well not exist” is not the same as “does not exist.” That phrase concedes the distinction I am making. You are arguing that, for practical purposes, the law is ineffective against the king because no American court can prosecute him. I understand that point. But practical non-enforcement is not the same thing as nonexistence, and it is not the same thing as permission. The law still defines the crime, identifies guilt, declares the penalty, condemns the offender, and removes excuse. What it lacks, in the king’s case, is a superior domestic court with jurisdiction to enforce it against him.
It DOES NOT do that unless there is a penalty for breaking it!
This is precisely the lesson of the dispensation of conscience. Right and wrong were very firmly in place. It was against God's moral law for Cain to kill righteous Abel and God wiped out the whole population of the Earth minus one family because they were all constantly evil. When Noah emerged from the Ark, God instituted criminal justice, where people are punished according to the crime they have committed.
Rape and murder do have penalties: death.
But that's not the question here. The question is jurisdiction: who has authority to try and punish the final earthly civil authority? The institution of criminal justice after Noah tells us that murderers ought to be punished according to their crimes, and I agree. But it does not answer where final earthly jurisdiction terminates in a civil order. Every system eventually reaches a point where there is no higher domestic court.
No one said anything about a tribunal but leaving that aside, you repeating your position does nothing to refute the fact that such a king would be in a DE-FACTO position above the law, JR! It doesn't matter what semantics you dress it up in. The law can state that the king is required to obey the law all it wants
I understand the de facto point, but that still only proves practical immunity from prosecution by an American court. It does not prove that the king is legally permitted to violate the law, that his crime becomes lawful, or that the law does not bind him. The proposed Constitution itself distinguishes those things: the king is “required to obey” the law, while no American court has standing to prosecute him. You are saying that lack of superior court enforcement makes the law unreal. I am saying it creates a jurisdictional limit over the final earthly civil authority. Those are not the same claim.
but if there is no criminal penalty then the law has no teeth and may as well not exist. That "may as well" part is what "de-facto" means.
Right, but “may as well not exist” still does not mean “does not exist.” It means the law lacks ordinary enforceability against him by a superior domestic court. I understand that practical danger, but it does not make his crime lawful, innocent, or permitted. It means the law has no superior American court with jurisdiction to punish him. That is a serious limitation, but it is still a jurisdictional limitation, not the nonexistence of law.
This is not relevant in regard to such a system existing in a nation where God Himself is not actively engaged with the affairs of the nation. This argument would have worked 3000 years ago in regard to the nation of Israel who had a covenant relationship with God, who not only chose their king but was there to deal with it when the king went off the rails.
I think you are confusing two different claims.
When I say the Constitution is theonomic, I am not saying this nation would have Israel’s unique covenantal status, nor am I saying God would directly intervene to remove wicked kings as He did in Israel. Remember, "theonomy" means "rules of God" not "rule by God" (a theocracy).
I am saying the Constitution and Criminal Code as proposed are not merely human preference. They are applications of God’s justice to civil government. That matters because the king is not outside the standard of the law merely because no American court has jurisdiction over him.
The claim, “we are not Israel,” does not answer my point. It only means we cannot rely on special covenant intervention to remove a wicked king, which I already grant. The structural question still remains: where does final earthly jurisdiction terminate?
Either it terminates in the king under God’s law applied to human government (ie, the constitution and criminal code), or it terminates in the men who can remove the king (or the one who controls them). That is the issue.
It is only the law itself that makes such offices and defines the parameters of those offices. The same law that you are here advocating should place one man above it, can just as easily be made not to do so and with as much validity.
The law defines the offices, yes, but the law does not act by itself. Men apply it, interpret it, enforce it, and decide cases under it. Saying “the law can define the office differently” does not answer the structural question; it just changes where final earthly authority resides. If the law creates a court with authority to remove the king, then final earthly jurisdiction no longer rests in the king, but in the men who can remove him. You can write that into the Constitution, but writing it down does not make it monarchy in the sense Bob was defending. It makes the king subordinate to the removal authority.
The last two sentences are contradictory. An unenforceable law is a contradiction in terms
It is only a contradiction if you define “law” as “whatever a superior earthly court can enforce.” I do not accept that definition. A law can define guilt, declare a penalty, and bind the offender even when no competent court has jurisdiction to punish him. The problem is not that the law does not exist; the problem is that there is no superior domestic court to enforce it against the final earthly civil authority. That is a serious limitation, but it is not a contradiction.
You simply do not get to have it both ways, JR. A law that cannot be enforced may as well not exist. At most it is a law in name only.
Again, “may as well not exist” is not the same as “does not exist.” You are making a practical argument about enforcement and then treating it as an ontological argument about law itself. I agree that a law with no superior domestic court to enforce it against the king is practically weak in that respect. But that does not mean the law does not bind him, that his crime is lawful, or that he is innocent. It means no superior American court has jurisdiction to punish him. That is a limitation in enforcement, not the nonexistence of law.
Okay, I'm fine with that. It's an overstatement, I think intentionally so, but I'm getting tired a repeating the same point.
The law should be the final authority, not any man. That is what "the rule of law" means.
That is exactly why the proposed Constitution and Criminal Code are theonomic. The law is not supposed to be the preference of the king, the judiciary, the populace, or any other group of men. It is supposed to be God’s justice applied to civil government.
But “the law is the final authority” does not mean the law acts by itself. Law does not arrest, indict, try, condemn, remove, or execute judgment. Men do those things. So the question remains: which earthly office has final jurisdiction to apply the law when there is no higher domestic appeal?
In Bob’s system, that final earthly jurisdiction rests in the king under God’s law. In your system, it rests in the men who can remove the king. Both systems claim law as the standard. The difference is who has final earthly authority to apply it.
All of which is criminal, JR!
I just cannot understand how you aren't seeing your own contradiction. Just a minute ago you were talking about how these judges were subordinates who can be removed from office. I presume that there would be a legal process for such removals and that it isn't a situation where the king can simply remove people from office by fiat command.
That presumption is not what the proposed Constitution says. It says the king is “the supreme judge in the land” and that “Judges serve by the will of the King.” So the judges are not an independent civil power with tenure against the king; they serve under his authority. And that is exactly the dilemma: if the king has authority over the judges, the mechanism cannot restrain him; but if the judges are made independent enough to remove him, they become an authority over the throne at the decisive point.
In other words, there would be legal processes in place to prevent such criminal conspiracies from succeeding. I mean you're talking about seditious behavior that would serve to undermine the entire government if were allowed to succeed. Why would the addition of a legally defined process for prosecuting a criminal king make it so that such conspiracies could suddenly go unchecked?
Because “illegal” does not mean “impossible,” and legal processes are only as reliable as the men administering them. Seditious conspiracies are already illegal, yet corruption, selective enforcement, lawfare, and institutional capture still happen. The danger is not that your process openly permits sedition; the danger is that it gives sedition a lawful-looking path to work through. A captured removal mechanism lets evil men say they are not overthrowing the king, but merely enforcing the Constitution.
And it wouldn't make it more complicated, anyway. How does it complicate things to say that a king's accuser cannot serve as the judge in the case? How does it complicate things to say that the parties in a case against the king, cannot gain higher office as a result of the king's conviction and removal from office? In short, how does implementing rules to remove conflicts of interest complicate anything? It doesn't! It makes it simpler!
Because you are only looking at one or two rules in isolation. The complication is not merely saying, “the accuser cannot be the judge.” The complication is creating an entire king-removal mechanism in a system intentionally designed to avoid such machinery. Now you need rules for standing, accusation, evidence, venue, judges, conflicts of interest, appeals or no appeals, enforcement, succession, sedition, false accusation, and what happens if the king treats the proceeding itself as rebellion. The proposed Constitution was designed to keep the Constitution and Criminal Code fixed, simple, and understandable. Adding a removal process moves in the opposite direction. It does not merely add clarity; it adds a new legal machine, and legal machines give clever men more parts to manipulate.
Sedition is possible - and illegal - with or without a lawful means to remove someone from office. Indeed, providing a clearly defined legal means to remove a criminal king from office, would serve to prevent sedition. The currently proposed system required not only sedition but outright civil war to remove such a king. How is that better?
You are still focused on the narrow case of one wicked king who needs to be removed. Take a step back, Clete. Take a broader look at what I'm saying. I am focused on the long-term structure created by giving some mechanism lawful authority to remove kings at all. One wicked king is indeed terrible, but he is visible, mortal, and accountable by name. A captured institution can last for generations, recruit successors, build precedent, control narratives, and remove one king after another while claiming to defend the law, and those influencing it can remain hidden behind the process. Civil war is of course terrible. But the real question here is whether creating a permanent king-removal mechanism gives evil a lawful-looking path to capture the nation for generations. A civil war is a terrible danger; a captured institution ruling through procedure for centuries is far worse.
This is true of ANY legal system, including the one you are advocating. In other words, the sword you're trying to swing here cuts both ways. As such it isn't an argument against my proposed addition, it's an argument against any man administrated legal system.
I agree that this cuts both ways. And that's kind of my point. Any man-administered legal system can be corrupted, because every civil system is administered by sinners. We will not escape that problem until Christ returns. That is why the goal is not to imagine a mechanism sinful men cannot corrupt, but to design a system that resists structural change and keeps responsibility visible. The proposed Constitution does that by fixing the Constitution and Criminal Code, forbidding amendments, rejecting committee-rule, and locating final earthly responsibility in one visible man. Your proposal adds another permanent mechanism for sinful men to capture.
I can live with that. Either way you go, it's men operating it. One has a man above it, the other does not. I'd choose the later every day and twice on Sundays.
I can live with that. Either way you go, it's men operating it. One has a man above it, the other does not. I'd choose the later every day and twice on Sundays.
But “the other does not” is not really true. Your system still has men above the king; they are just called a court, a process, or a mechanism. More men who can be evil are not better than one man who can be evil. One wicked king is visible, mortal, and accountable by name, but a class of men (not necessarily the judiciary) operating through procedure can hide behind the institution, diffuse responsibility, and continue across generations. As the saying goes, “I’d rather have one tyrant three thousand miles away than three thousand tyrants one mile away.” Multiplying the number of men who can exercise decisive power over the throne does not solve the problem of sinful men wielding authority. It spreads the problem into a less visible and more durable form.
No it isn't because the king has ways of LEGALLY dealing with seditious behavior.
That is exactly the dilemma. If the king has legal authority to deal with sedition, then a corrupt king can define the removal effort itself as sedition and use those legal tools against the judges, accusers, or officials trying to remove him. But if the removal process is insulated from the king so that he cannot stop it, then it is independent of him and above him at the decisive point. Either the king can control the mechanism, in which case it cannot restrain him, or the mechanism is beyond his control, in which case it outranks him.
My provisions would not give a judge or group of judges carte blanch to do anything they desired for any reason that they can think of. There were be no provision that allowed threats to persist that wouldn't already exist anyway. Your proposed system already provides for civil disobedience, which any king who wants to remain king for very long will do things to prevent, whether for the better or the worse. Having legal recourse to help prevent "the worse" from happening, seems like a good idea to me.
I am not arguing that your provisions would give judges carte blanche. I am arguing that once a removal mechanism exists, it becomes another high-value institution for evil men to capture, influence, or exploit. The threat is not merely open judicial lawlessness, but corruption operating through lawful-looking procedure.
Yes, civil disobedience already creates tension between a wicked king and the people. But civil disobedience is resistance from beneath. Your proposal creates an official process above the king, or at least outside his control, with authority to decide whether he remains king.
That is a very different thing.
And again, if the king has legal authority to stop threats against his rule, then a corrupt king can treat the removal effort as sedition. If he does not have authority to stop it, then the removal process outranks him. That dilemma does not disappear just because the process is carefully worded.
Well, of course it does changes the issue. It changes it a very great deal. Judges in the proposed system would not be a governing body like a Senate or House or Representative or Parliament. They are just judges with clearly defined limits to their authority and jurisdiction.
That is still not my argument. I am not saying the judges become a legislature, parliament, senate, or governing committee. I am saying that if a judicial process has authority to remove the king, then that process has authority over the throne in that respect. The judges do not need to govern day-to-day in order to have final say over whether the king remains king. So the issue is not whether they perform every function of government. The issue is whether their defined jurisdiction includes authority over the crown. If it does, then the king is subject to them at the decisive point.
All of which could happen with or without a legal process to remove the king. Sedition is illegal.
Yes, sedition is illegal either way, but evil people do not care whether something is illegal. The question is not whether the law condemns sedition. Of course it does. The question is whether your proposal creates a new lawful-looking path for sedition to operate through. Without such a process, sedition has to present itself more openly as rebellion. With a captured removal mechanism, it can claim to be defending the Constitution while removing the king who stands in its way. That is the danger: not that sedition becomes legal on paper, but that it gains a procedural disguise.
A divide that seems not to have narrowed in the slightest.
Maybe not narrowed, but I do think it has become clearer. We've definitely made progress. The divide is not really over whether murder should be punished, whether a wicked king is dangerous, or whether sedition is illegal. We agree on all of that. The divide is over where final earthly jurisdiction terminates. You think a lawful removal process over the king preserves rule of law. I think it transfers final earthly authority over the throne to the men who administer that process.
It is very cool debating with someone that isn't a lunatic though!!
It is very refreshing, isn't it?
