Constitutional Monarchy

[JudgeRightly]

Posting this here so I remember it later. No need to respond.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1750871207740834297

 

[Clete]

Posting this here so I remember it later. No need to respond.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1750871207740834297

Man! That guy sure knows how to turn a phrase. I love it when people say so much in a single sentence like that!

 

[JudgeRightly]

 

[Mike12]

I find it interesting that the Anglican Church is worth 2 billion dollars and all Presbyterian 1st world churches is 200 million dollars. The Church of England is 2 billion dollars? Is this some bones or what? Trafalgar Square? St. Pauls? Constitutional Monarchy? Where is the Republic of Oliver Cromwell or the Republic of the United States of America without the concern of Christendom or acknowledgment thereof?

A King of the US must be born in the United States? That isn't the office or function, they run to and from Rome , Bonnie Prince Charlie? Most Communist Countries just flopped over to some ultra-RELIGIOUS mumbo jumbo, some junta.

 

[Clete]

I find it interesting that the Anglican Church is worth 2 billion dollars and all Presbyterian 1st world churches is 200 million dollars. The Church of England is 2 billion dollars? Is this some bones or what? Trafalgar Square? St. Pauls? Constitutional Monarchy? Where is the Republic of Oliver Cromwell or the Republic of the United States of America without the concern of Christendom or acknowledgment thereof?

A King of the US must be born in the United States? That isn't the office or function, they run to and from Rome , Bonnie Prince Charlie? Most Communist Countries just flopped over to some ultra-RELIGIOUS mumbo jumbo, some junta.

That post made no sense.

 

[JudgeRightly]

That post made no sense.

Yeah, I banned him. Seems like just a thought vomit account.

 

[JudgeRightly]

Okay, first of all, I want to acknowledge the time you spent writing this very long post and I want to make clear that my brief response is not about me blowing off anything you've said but only my attempt to focus the discussion and to sort of reset the length of the posts so that the responses are more manageable.

No worries.

The above portion of your post sort of nutshells your primary argument. My response, not only to the above portion but to the whole gist of your response is that it doesn't really argue against having a way to get out from under a rogue king but rather argues against the whole notion of setting up a constitutional monarchy in the first place, at least it does where setting up such a government would be in opposition to whatever government it was replacing.



No, it doesn't. That would only be the case if the removal of the king was done by the people in an unlawful manner because the same law that gives the king his throne, provides for his removal from that throne if he fails to abide by the law that put him there in the first place.



That's true now, right? If Mrs. Clinton never sees any punishment for her crimes on this Earth, she'll see them when she faces her Creator and so will every other corrupt politician.

In other words, this is no more an argument against my position than it is against the whole idea of implementing a biblical form of government in the first place.


Of course, I understand the focused point you're making here and while a just criminal justice system might not be able to prevent someone from doing something if they really want to do it, it would prevent a great many people from wanting to do it, which is why I clarified my point by saying that the same fear that prevents crime in the population should be present in the mind of the king.

And I think it would be, even if we didn't have a way to remove an evil king.

I'll explain why below.

That's not true at all. It is fear of the law that teaches people to fear God, not the other way around. People who fear God don't need the law.


Then why bother setting up anything other than what we already have?


It is the law that defines authority. Both who has it and under what circumstances.


That is ONLY true if the action was taken in opposition to the law.

In other words, you're begging the question here. Your objection would only be valid from within the system as you're proposing be set up. If it was set up differently, then the objection would no longer be valid.

Again, it was the law that defined the parameters of seating a king on the throne. If the same law defined parameters for his removal from that same throne then enacting those provisions is not a usurpation of anything, by definition.


Of course it means exactly that. That's what the phrase "rule of law" means. There ought not be anyone above the law, including the king. If the king usurps the law, then he usurps his own authority because it is the law that grants him the right to sit as king. Any such king ought to be removed.


Well, "legal subversion" of the government is an oxymoron. And, once again, we can submit ourselves to the corrupt government we already have and let God pick up the pieces after the game is over. If that's the argument, why bother doing government in any other way than its being done now?


There isn't any back flow, JR! The SAME LAW that provides for the king's seating is the SAME LAW that provides for his replacement.
And, by the way, I am saying that it would provide for the king's replacement with a different king, not his replacement with something other than a king, whatever that might be. It's nothing more than the law seating a king that is not allowed to flagrantly break the law that seated him in the first place. If a king were allowed to do so, as the system you're advocating for would allow, then that the king is in a de-facto position above the law.


Okay, so this is where we come to the place that I cannot get past even in my own mind except to say that there wouldn't be any real way to set up a purely biblical government for any nation other than Israel and only then during a dispensation when God is directly intervening in not only the selection of the king but also in other big picture affairs of the nation.

IF the goal is to set something up that is purely biblical then my proposal goes out the window. However, since setting up a PURELY biblical government is not possible outside the context of the nation of Israel, then that "IF" stops being a mere mountain and becomes an immovable object. Therefore, if being purely biblical is no longer that actual goal then I see no reason not to include a provision in the law that would serve to protect the nation from a rogue king.



Okay, so I'm going to leave it there, again, just to try and manage the length of the posts. Most of the rest would be repetition anyway. For example, you bring up civil disobedience, to which I'd respond, "If a provision in the law to remove a rogue king is a back flow of authority, how would that not be true of civil disobedience, which is a direct usurpation of the king's authority?" Which is only a slightly different point than the points that have already been made.

If, there's a specific point you really want me to respond to directly then just say so and I will gladly do so.

Clete

Alright, so, I think I have an answer to the whole conundrum of having a means of removing an evil king.

There's a saying that I heard within the last year, most prominently on the Making The Argument podcast with Nick Freitas. It goes something like this:

Good times make weak men.
Weak men make hard times.
Hard times make strong men.
Strong men make good times.

And so the cycle repeats.

The idea being that, at least to some extent, the cycle between good times and hard times is cyclical, and the duration of each is determined by the quality of men in your society.

Now, I don't 100% hold to this, but I can't really find any fault with it, and certainly what it says is true, at least to some extent.

I also think it has value here in this discussion (obviously, or I wouldn't have brought it up).

Before I get into why, I want to say that I'm glad we've had this discussion, and that you've been patient with me as I take months to mull this discussion over in my brain before each of my posts, and that if I hadn't been allowed to, I think I would have conceded this discussion long ago. But I think I have an answer.

You make a compelling case for being able to implement a system for removing an evil king, and while I'm not 100% convinced you're right, I'd like to cede the argument (at least for the moment) to you on whether we COULD have one, and ask you to consider this argument on whether we SHOULD have such a system, and this is where the above comes into play. It comes down to the law of unintended consequences.

Even if we could come up with an even halfway deccent system for removing an evil king, I don't think we should.

An evil king is, generally speaking, a weak man.

If you remove the weak men from the picture, you might delay the inevitable hard times, but you still run the risk of having another weak man take his place. Meanwhile, the good times are still producing more and more weak men, and soon knowledge on how to become strong men becomes scarce. Finally, the hard times kicks in, and instead of those hard times creating strong men, as a result of losing at least some of the knowledge on how to be strong men, at best you get mediocre men. And now, without the strong men, you can no longer produce good times.

Removing the weak men in an effort to mitigate the hard times, will only produce more hard times, because in doing so, you remove the ability for the weak men to become strong men, as they're stuck in the good times, because there is no opportunity for growth.

However, if you leave the weak man in charge, he will make hard times. Those hard times will produce strong men, and even the weak king could grow and learn from his mistakes, and become strong, and thus strong men make good times.

In other words, removing the weak man from the throne during good times runs a higher risk of having another weak man take his place, and potentially weaker than the one removed. Sure, it means you might get a strong man, but it isn't as likely as getting a weak man.

Something else to consider is that if such a system of removal were implemented, the only consequence of an evil kings actions are that he's removed, and perhaps punished, but his legacy will that he was removed... which prevents him from making things right.

So with the likelihood of getting another weak man to rule instead of a strong man being higher, and now you have hard times across the nation, sure, eventually you'll get a strong man, but you also run the risk of progressing to mediocrity.

Additionally, and probably more importantly, removing the weak king teaches that the king won't have to deal with the lasting consequences of his actions, because he'll be removed from his throne long before the corrections are made and the nation recovers.

Removing the weak/wicked king teaches men that instead of being held to a higher standard, the leader of their nation doesn't have to face the earthly consequences of their actions, while they the citizenry do, and it slowly weakens the nation by producing more and more weak men and fewer and fewer strong men, and it runs a higher risk of replaing an evil king with an even more evil king, where a strong and good king is far less likely, as a result of the formerly good times turned mediocre.

There was a post today that I quoted from (I presume) someone who was at least semi-conservative, who had posted a tiktok of a woman who was a divorce coach who was ranting about the desire to remove the ability to file for no-fault divorce, and as I was watching the video, I was like, Yeah, everything you're complaining about, lady? That's a GOOD thing. It SHOULD be harder to get a divorce. You are literally tearing apart your family, why, because you don't think you're compatible anymore? WORK THROUGH your problems that you've encountered with your spouse, don't run away from them. (You can find the quoted post on X at my handle @TheJudgeRightly.)

Installing a new king is like a marriage (and yes, this is going to be a poor analogy, not everything will line up). The king is married to his job (in a good way), he lives and breathes being the ruler of the nation.

Having a system that removes the king from his position is like no-fault divorce. The nation, being the spouse of the king, files for divorce and says "we're just not compatible anymore," and while the individual might be punished for his wrongdoings, the "king" status goes away, and the nation goes to find another king.

The king is supposed to lead his nation, in sickness and in health, "Till death do us part." What good does it do if the nation isn't FIGHTING to love and support her king, even during the hard times? What good does it do if the expectation is that the king fights for his nation?

If the nation just runs away at the drop of a hat, that shows a lack of maturity. Children run away from their problems. Responsible adults face their problems head on, and even if the best outcome isn't achieved, then at the very least they fought for it!

Having a way for the king to avoid the consequences of his actions as king, even though he may be worthy of death, would foster the thought that, "hey, even if I tank this nation's economy, commit war crimes, and grind this nation to a halt, I don't have to deal with the consequences of that, because I'll just be removed from the throne. So what, I may lose my life, or at the very least, never be king again, but I can shirk the responsibility and let all of you, whom I hate, deal with the consequennes of my actions."

And even if the king ultimately does not repent, he will be held all the more resonsible by God on judgement day for his unrepentance.

The constitution as proposed makes it clear that God exists, and that evil men will face God on judgement day for being wicked, so the king would have no excuse to say, "well, I don't believe in God, thus my actions as king don't matter."

In other words, a far more severe and appropriate punishment for an evil king is to force him to deal with the consequences of his actions as king.

 

[Clete]

No worries.



And I think it would be, even if we didn't have a way to remove an evil king.

I'll explain why below.



Alright, so, I think I have an answer to the whole conundrum of having a means of removing an evil king.

There's a saying that I heard within the last year, most prominently on the Making The Argument podcast with Nick Freitas. It goes something like this:

Good times make weak men.
Weak men make hard times.
Hard times make strong men.
Strong men make good times.

And so the cycle repeats.

The idea being that, at least to some extent, the cycle between good times and hard times is cyclical, and the duration of each is determined by the quality of men in your society.

Now, I don't 100% hold to this, but I can't really find any fault with it, and certainly what it says is true, at least to some extent.

I also think it has value here in this discussion (obviously, or I wouldn't have brought it up).

Before I get into why, I want to say that I'm glad we've had this discussion, and that you've been patient with me as I take months to mull this discussion over in my brain before each of my posts, and that if I hadn't been allowed to, I think I would have conceded this discussion long ago. But I think I have an answer.

You make a compelling case for being able to implement a system for removing an evil king, and while I'm not 100% convinced you're right, I'd like to cede the argument (at least for the moment) to you on whether we COULD have one, and ask you to consider this argument on whether we SHOULD have such a system, and this is where the above comes into play. It comes down to the law of unintended consequences.

Even if we could come up with an even halfway deccent system for removing an evil king, I don't think we should.

An evil king is, generally speaking, a weak man.

If you remove the weak men from the picture, you might delay the inevitable hard times, but you still run the risk of having another weak man take his place. Meanwhile, the good times are still producing more and more weak men, and soon knowledge on how to become strong men becomes scarce. Finally, the hard times kicks in, and instead of those hard times creating strong men, as a result of losing at least some of the knowledge on how to be strong men, at best you get mediocre men. And now, without the strong men, you can no longer produce good times.

Removing the weak men in an effort to mitigate the hard times, will only produce more hard times, because in doing so, you remove the ability for the weak men to become strong men, as they're stuck in the good times, because there is no opportunity for growth.

However, if you leave the weak man in charge, he will make hard times. Those hard times will produce strong men, and even the weak king could grow and learn from his mistakes, and become strong, and thus strong men make good times.

In other words, removing the weak man from the throne during good times runs a higher risk of having another weak man take his place, and potentially weaker than the one removed. Sure, it means you might get a strong man, but it isn't as likely as getting a weak man.

Something else to consider is that if such a system of removal were implemented, the only consequence of an evil kings actions are that he's removed, and perhaps punished, but his legacy will that he was removed... which prevents him from making things right.

So with the likelihood of getting another weak man to rule instead of a strong man being higher, and now you have hard times across the nation, sure, eventually you'll get a strong man, but you also run the risk of progressing to mediocrity.

Additionally, and probably more importantly, removing the weak king teaches that the king won't have to deal with the lasting consequences of his actions, because he'll be removed from his throne long before the corrections are made and the nation recovers.

Removing the weak/wicked king teaches men that instead of being held to a higher standard, the leader of their nation doesn't have to face the earthly consequences of their actions, while they the citizenry do, and it slowly weakens the nation by producing more and more weak men and fewer and fewer strong men, and it runs a higher risk of replaing an evil king with an even more evil king, where a strong and good king is far less likely, as a result of the formerly good times turned mediocre.

There is a big difference between being weak and being evil. A rogue king that has gone far enough off the reservation to trigger a process intended to remove him from the throne would not be merely weak but actively unjust and unacceptably tyrannical and destructive.

There are few other problems with your line of thinking.

First, a "weak" king is not the only source of a nation's "bad times". Regardless of how good of a king a nation has, there are still going to be good times and bad. There are times of war and times of piece, times of plenty and times of want, etc. With a good king the good time might be better and the bad times less bad but the fact remains that life ebbs and flows.

Also, "good times" aren't good for everyone and neither are "bad times". As such, even under a good king, some are going to have a rough time of it. Further, good times do not cause every man to be weak, (never mind wicked) nor do bad times cause every man to be strong. In every population there are those who buck the trend and in all cases, it would be possible - even easy - to find someone to take the throne should a wicked king be removed.

There was a post today that I quoted from (I presume) someone who was at least semi-conservative, who had posted a tiktok of a woman who was a divorce coach who was ranting about the desire to remove the ability to file for no-fault divorce, and as I was watching the video, I was like, Yeah, everything you're complaining about, lady? That's a GOOD thing. It SHOULD be harder to get a divorce. You are literally tearing apart your family, why, because you don't think you're compatible anymore? WORK THROUGH your problems that you've encountered with your spouse, don't run away from them. (You can find the quoted post on X at my handle @TheJudgeRightly.)

Installing a new king is like a marriage (and yes, this is going to be a poor analogy, not everything will line up). The king is married to his job (in a good way), he lives and breathes being the ruler of the nation.

Having a system that removes the king from his position is like no-fault divorce. The nation, being the spouse of the king, files for divorce and says "we're just not compatible anymore," and while the individual might be punished for his wrongdoings, the "king" status goes away, and the nation goes to find another king.

The king is supposed to lead his nation, in sickness and in health, "Till death do us part." What good does it do if the nation isn't FIGHTING to love and support her king, even during the hard times? What good does it do if the expectation is that the king fights for his nation?

If the nation just runs away at the drop of a hat, that shows a lack of maturity. Children run away from their problems. Responsible adults face their problems head on, and even if the best outcome isn't achieved, then at the very least they fought for it!

Having a way for the king to avoid the consequences of his actions as king, even though he may be worthy of death, would foster the thought that, "hey, even if I tank this nation's economy, commit war crimes, and grind this nation to a halt, I don't have to deal with the consequences of that, because I'll just be removed from the throne. So what, I may lose my life, or at the very least, never be king again, but I can shirk the responsibility and let all of you, whom I hate, deal with the consequennes of my actions."

Well, I am not advocating that there should be a system in place where a king can be removed for any reason whatsoever or for no reason at all. On the contrary! I'm talking about having a system in place that allows for a the removal of a king that ignores the law, who murders people, who betrays the nation or in some other way flagrantly and egregiously disregards his duty at king.

In terms of the divorce analogy, it would be the husband who commits adultery or attempts to murder his wife, in which cases, divorce is not only allowed, it is wise!

And even if the king ultimately does not repent, he will be held all the more responsible by God on judgement day for his unrepentance.

The constitution as proposed makes it clear that God exists, and that evil men will face God on judgement day for being wicked, so the king would have no excuse to say, "well, I don't believe in God, thus my actions as king don't matter."

In other words, a far more severe and appropriate punishment for an evil king is to force him to deal with the consequences of his actions as king.

Well, perhaps, but I'm not so much worried about punishing the king as I am concerned about ensuring just governance of the nation.



(I feel bad about how brief my response is! Please don't think I'm making light of your efforts!)