Constitutional Monarchy

[Clete]

If judges have final say over whether the king remains king, then they are sovereign over the kingship, whatever else you may call it.

Once again, this would only be so if the judges wrote the law or could remove the king by fiat. If all they are doing is performing a legal duty then it is not the men but the law that is removing the king by the same authority by which it also seated him.

They may not be sovereign over every royal function, but they are sovereign over his continued possession of the office.

Only if they are the source of the law, which they are not.

That's the contradiction I've been trying to point out to you this entire time.

It is not a contradiction. Your idea of how the law works, which is to say your understanding of what the rule of law means is faulty.

You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

It's one or the other.

Yeah, well, we live in a country right now that demonstrates that your all or nothing stance is a false dichotomy. This country has existed with a separation of powers that are each designed to limit and check the other branches of government - and it works. It's far away from perfect but it has demonstrated over a dozen or more generations that it does, in fact, work. The Congress can remove the President but it has failed to do so even once and that's with the Congress having the power to write new law. How much harder would it be for a sitting, but unpaid, non-political judge who cannot write new law to wield sufficient sway over a king by virtue of the mere threat of a legal proceeding that is not guaranteed to remove him from office, especially if the charges are trumped up?

 

[JudgeRightly]

Once again, this would only be so if the judges wrote the law or could remove the king by fiat. If all they are doing is performing a legal duty then it is not the men but the law that is removing the king by the same authority by which it also seated him.


Only if they are the source of the law, which they are not.


It is not a contradiction. Your idea of how the law works, which is to say your understanding of what the rule of law means is faulty.


Yeah, well, we live in a country right now that demonstrates that your all or nothing stance is a false dichotomy. This country has existed with a separation of powers that are each designed to limit and check the other branches of government - and it works. It's far away from perfect but it has demonstrated over a dozen or more generations that it does, in fact, work. The Congress can remove the President but it has failed to do so even once and that's with the Congress having the power to write new law. How much harder would it be for a sitting, but unpaid, non-political judge who cannot write new law to wield sufficient sway over a king by virtue of the mere threat of a legal proceeding that is not guaranteed to remove him from office, especially if the charges are trumped up?

Are judges and kings under the law?

 

[Clete]

Are judges and kings under the law?

They should be. The king is not under the law in the proposed constitution, except in theory and only barely that, it seems. The population is left to wait out the life span of a rogue king and just hope that his heir isn't as bad or worse.

 

[JudgeRightly]

They should be.

That's not what I asked.

Are the judges and the king under the law in principle?

 

[Clete]

That's not what I asked.

Are the judges and the king under the law in principle?

Asked and answered.

 

[Nick M]

He is judged by no man

Yes he is. I condemn him right now.

 

[JudgeRightly]

Asked and answered.

No, it wasn't.

You're making this way more difficult than it has to be. It's a simple yes or no question about your principles.

Fine, different question: are the king and the judges coordinate offices under the law, each with distinct authority and jurisdiction?

In other words, neither office is inherently above the other, correct?

 

[Idolater]

Yes he is. I condemn him right now.

Thanks for playing Nick.

 

[Idolater]

... those things are just the monarch's grunt work anyway. That's the work nobody else CAN do, it HAS to be him. It doesn't make any sense for anybody else to do those tasks and have those responsibilities, just him, the monarch. And there's no glamor in it either, it's hard work, thankless work, long work. None of it's fun. It's work. And somebody has to do it. And skubalon flows downhill, and that's where he is. He's at the bottom of the hill when it comes to responsibilities and duties, as the monarch.

Under Enyart's proposal, the king ought to look haggard and tired all the time, from working so much. Hopefully he doesn't need much sleep, to be completely refreshed, because otherwise, we pity his existence. He won't be able to ever really take a vacation, or even a weekend off from his nonstop duties. He's going to need his sleep, and he's not going to be able to get it.

He'll have servants tending to his every physical need, but that's still not going to buy him sleep, and he's still going to be working his fingers to the bone, administratively. Whatever his psychological bandwidth is, will be completely consumed 100% of the time by his responsibility as monarch, under Enyart's proposal. It's not a cushy job at all. We pity him, his subjects. We pray for him, and hope he does a good job, but we pity him. Under Enyart's proposal.