Constitutional Monarchy

[JudgeRightly]

You are definitely conflating morality and law in this response but let's leave that aside and think on this from a different angle...

I don't think so.

I agree that moral guilt and judicially established guilt are distinct. A man may be morally guilty before God before his guilt is proven in court. A court does not create guilt; it establishes guilt judicially for purposes of civil punishment.

But in a Christian civil order, law is not supposed to be morally neutral procedure. Civil law is supposed to reflect justice. Romans 13 says civil rulers are ministers of God, avengers to execute wrath upon the evildoer. Genesis 9:6 grounds civil punishment for murder in the fact that man is made in God’s image. Matthew 22 distinguishes Caesar’s authority from God’s authority, and Acts 5:29 gives the controlling hierarchy when the two conflict: we ought to obey God rather than men.

That does not mean we do not obey men at all. Romans 13 says we normally should. It means human authority is real, but subordinate, not independent. When human authority commands what God forbids, or forbids what God commands, God’s authority is higher.

So I am not conflating morality and law. I am denying that civil law can be separated from moral reality as though it is merely whatever an earthly court can enforce. A king may be beyond the jurisdiction of every domestic court, but he is not beyond the authority of the law itself. The law still stands above him as the fixed standard by which his act is defined, condemned, and ultimately judged.

But since you want to set that aside for the moment, I will too.

We've been debating the issue as though there are only two possibilities:

1. An absolutely immune king.
2. A superior authority that can remove the king at will.

"Is the authority above the king?" only has two possible answers.

"Yes." In which case the king is no longer the final earthly authority, and can be controlled. He rules only so long as that superior authority permits him to rule.

"No." In which case that authority cannot finally bind him, judge him, or remove him when he refuses to be restrained.

It's the law of excluded middle. There is no middle ground here.

That's what "final authority" means. Either the king is at the top of the nation’s earthly civil order, or he is not.

There is a lot of constitutional territory between those two positions.

What you are getting into here is proceduralism, and that's definitely not a good way to resolve this question. Procedures can regulate authority, but they do not erase it. If the process can remove the king, then the process has authority over the king. If it cannot, then it does not restrain him. Adding thresholds, ratification, supermajorities, and safeguards only changes how hard the mechanism is to use. It does not change what the mechanism is.

And if the last 250 years of American history have shown us anything, it's just how well those things work at preventing evil people from manipulating the government to their own gain.

For example, imagine a constitution that allows prosecution of a king only for:

• Murder (and perhaps other major crimes such as rape)
• Treason
• Attempted overthrow of the constitution

And that further requires some large majority, say two thirds, of sitting judges to agree to remove the king and perhaps even a ratification process whereby the population of the nation has to also agree that the king has committed an offense that justifies his removal.

This illustrates my point rather than avoiding it.

If the judges and the population can authorize the king’s prosecution and removal, then the king is not the final earthly civil authority. His continuance in office depends on a process controlled by others.

All it would take is to convince enough people that the king is evil. Present false evidence. Produce false witnesses. Pressure, flatter, threaten, or corrupt enough judges. Control the flow of information. Shape public perception. Then the mechanism created to remove only a wicked king can be used to remove any king at all, especially a righteous one.

Yes, I'm simplifying a bit, but it doesn't change the nature of the danger. The more procedural machinery you create over the king, the more machinery wicked men can capture and use.

Limiting the process to severe crimes, requiring two thirds of the judges, or adding popular ratification may make the mechanism harder to use, but it does not change what the mechanism is or does.

If it can be used to prosecute and remove the king, then it exists above the throne.

At that point, no single institution possesses authority over the throne. Rather, the constitution itself creates an extraordinarily difficult process for dealing with the most extreme abuses.

But “the Constitution itself” does not act by itself. Men act under it.

If judges must initiate the process, then judges possess part of that authority. If the population must ratify it, then the population possesses part of that authority. If both are required, then the authority is distributed, but it is still authority over the throne.

Distributed authority is still authority.

A process does not cease to be superior to the king merely because it is difficult, divided, or rarely used. If the king remains king only so long as that process permits him to remain king, then he is not the final earthly civil authority. The process is.

So yes, your proposal may avoid placing removal power in one simple office that can remove the king “at will.” But it still creates a superior earthly mechanism over the king. It just makes that mechanism complex, distributed, and harder to activate.

That may mitigate one danger, but it creates another: it gives ambitious or patient men a constitutional target to capture, influence, redefine, or weaponize.

That is still my objection.

This is me going back on my earlier desire to stay out of discussions about the details of how such a legal process would work but I see no alternative way of allowing our discussion to proceed beyond our current impasse.

If I may, I think this is where the impasse actually is.

We both agree that perspective is important when trying to explain or learn. Paradigms are hard to break out of. Earlier I asked you to take a step back and look at the big picture. Otherwise, this becomes rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. We can keep adjusting procedures, thresholds, and safeguards, but if the mechanism can remove the king, then final earthly authority has already been moved away from the throne.

That is why I do not think proceduralism gets us anywhere here. The more we focus on how the process would work, the more we risk missing what the process is. My objection is not mainly to the details of the procedure. My objection is to the authority the procedure necessarily creates.

You are focused on how to design a legal process that can remove an evil king without being abused. I understand why: you believe we need a way to remove a wicked king because God is not actively intervening in our governmental affairs the way He did with Israel. But I am focused on what that process becomes once it exists.

If it can remove the king, then it has authority over the king at the decisive point. If it cannot remove him, then it cannot restrain him when he refuses to be restrained. Adding thresholds, supermajorities, ratification, or other safeguards may make the mechanism harder to use, but it does not change what the mechanism is.

So yes, the little-picture question is, “How do we remove a wicked king?”

But the big-picture question is, “What authority have we created in order to remove him, and who will control that authority later?” Because eventually, someone WILL control it.

That is the concern I do not think your proposal answers.

 

[Idolater]

Only in the sense that he is a FAKE monarch. He is a complete and absolute phony... so any thing that you say after that is irrelevant.

I appreciate your concern. I really only have one simple question here and nobody is answering it. What happens if an absolute monarch decides he's had enough? What process or procedure commences?

I am supposing that the absolute monarch is allowed to quit, if he wants to. I would expect as much. "I just want to retire," he says. Are his subjects supposed to disobey him? I think clearly not.

So what happens? Maybe he has a son or a daughter, and so this heir is crowned ... by whom? Which party holds custody of the coronation process?

obv also, what if the absolute monarch dies in office? What then? And what party, again, holds custody of what happens after an absolute monarch has died in office? Someone has to authorize what commences upon the death of the absolute monarch, especially if there is no obv heir or successor—who?

 

[JudgeRightly]

what if the absolute monarch dies in office? What then? And what party, again, holds custody of what happens after an absolute monarch has died in office? Someone has to authorize what commences upon the death of the absolute monarch, especially if there is no obv heir or successor—who?

This is answered in the "Succession Process" section at https://kgov.com/constitution.