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Sunday, July 31, 2005

All Hail King Bush, God's Captain and Leader of His People

Brian Tamanaha

The 1628 session of the English House of Commons was occupied with debates over the king's claimed martial power to imprison people outside of ordinary legal processes as the king deemed necessary in defense of the state. The king's Secretary gave the following justification:

There is no man but desires to live under the law, and we all hold the common law our inheritance that does preserve us. We are in the government of a state. The martial law touches kings highly. It is their very original. They are God's captains and leaders of his people. The name of kings is sacred, and the foundation of the commonwealth depends on them. All civil government may pass well and have a happy success. And for arms and conducting of armies, it can admit of no formal law.

Four Centuries later, the Bush Administration has offered much the same argument: we are a nation under laws, but in his global war on terror Bush exercises authority above the law.

Sir Edward Coke's short answer to this argument, as sound then as it is now, was that England is a nation of laws. Either we abide by the rule of law, or we don't.

Comments:

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Merci pour est un bon blogger.
 

The best way to overcome fear is to start doing what you are afraid of.
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