From: Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@together.net)
Date: Sun Dec 20 1998 - 14:47:34 MST
dwayne wrote:
> EvMick@aol.com wrote:
>
> > It appears that retroman might have said.
> >
> > > > Then again, to an American, being
> > > > a subject of anybody is almost as bad as being a prisoner....
> >
> > To which someone replied.
> > >
> > > What a fatuous statement.
> >
> > Well no. I don't think so. I see very little difference between being a
> > "subject" or being a prisoner. But then I'm a Texan too. My ancestors
> > escaped from being "subjects" and for quiet some time we enjoyed relative
> > freedom. Unfortunately recently it has been voted away in increasing
> > increments.
>
> This is just silly. You can't see any difference between being incarcerated
> and being the subject of a monarch? Really? I mean, aside from the usual
> sophistry which surrounds this subject here, you honestly can't see any
> difference?
Under a monarchy, all political rights are seen as devolving from a central
source, the monarch, who at some point was supposedly appointed by some
supernatural being to be the sovereign. All other people in the territory
controlled by the sovereign attain political rights as delegated by the
sovereign. This is why constitutional monarchies all have language in their
Constitutions, or in some other original document which state that the monarch
is graciously granting the rights to the people or to the government in good
faith, etc., etc. etc..
Monarchies with no written constitution retain all rights. Any government in a
monarchy which grants rights to the serfs, subjects, etc. merely as a matter of
policy can rescind them at any time as convenience dictates.
In constitutional democracies, it depends on what the source of political power
is seen to be. Here we have two competing philosophies: Might is Right, or the
Force Doctrine of Rights; and Natural Law. Each of these can be vested either
in society as a whole, or in the individual as the original source. Any system
which vests originating rights in society as a whole basically assumes that the
individual is a slave living at the convenience of society, while a system
which recognises that all rights originate in the individual and are merely
delegated to society is of the type we are discussing here. So, to a individual
in an individualist state, being a subject of a monarch or being a slave in a
centralized society poses very little difference.
Mike Lorrey
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:50:04 MST