natural law vs political law
A friend shares this video of Bill Whittle talking about natural law vs. political law. Though you might not agree with his conclusions, it's definitely a valuable distinction to make, and he makes it persuasively. (Natural law: 70mph + 1/2 ton car + tree = splat; Political law: 55mph speed limit.)
One thing, though, that stuck out in his presentation just proves that even the most reasonable among us can be guilty of thinking in a way that's trapped in our own chronological or geographical territory. He says, outrageously, “The United States of America is the first, and as far as I know the only, country in the history of the world founded on natural law.”
King George would, rightfully, protest here. Royalists believed that their political order was founded on natural law, and the insurrectionists of the colonies were founding a political order on a horrible, and dangerous, upending of natural law.
To a royalist, natural law starts with God, the King of all the universe, and ends with rocks and trees and animals, which, on this earth, are under our dominion — a dominion granted to us, feudally, by our King God in the first moments of our creation. Between those two extremes, the hierarchies of man, in which men and women are placed in feudal protection and dominion of other men and women, through the two great pillars of Church hierarchy and State hierarchy, are indeed divinely appointed. We belong in not the Republic of Heaven, nor the Anarchy of Heaven, but rather the Kingdom of Heaven, and those who believe that we must not only pray but work for the condition on earth as it is in heaven must swear their fealty (often through a procession of lords, earls, barons, and other nobles) to an earthly king.
Well, I can’t be entirely persuasive on that point, because naturally I agree with Whittle that America is founded on a vision of natural law that is the correct one. But it would have scored him a few points higher to point out that England and other monarchies were operating on a political law that they believed conformed to natural law, rather than simply saying we’re natural and they’re political.
The past is indeed a foreign country!
One thing, though, that stuck out in his presentation just proves that even the most reasonable among us can be guilty of thinking in a way that's trapped in our own chronological or geographical territory. He says, outrageously, “The United States of America is the first, and as far as I know the only, country in the history of the world founded on natural law.”
King George would, rightfully, protest here. Royalists believed that their political order was founded on natural law, and the insurrectionists of the colonies were founding a political order on a horrible, and dangerous, upending of natural law.
To a royalist, natural law starts with God, the King of all the universe, and ends with rocks and trees and animals, which, on this earth, are under our dominion — a dominion granted to us, feudally, by our King God in the first moments of our creation. Between those two extremes, the hierarchies of man, in which men and women are placed in feudal protection and dominion of other men and women, through the two great pillars of Church hierarchy and State hierarchy, are indeed divinely appointed. We belong in not the Republic of Heaven, nor the Anarchy of Heaven, but rather the Kingdom of Heaven, and those who believe that we must not only pray but work for the condition on earth as it is in heaven must swear their fealty (often through a procession of lords, earls, barons, and other nobles) to an earthly king.
Well, I can’t be entirely persuasive on that point, because naturally I agree with Whittle that America is founded on a vision of natural law that is the correct one. But it would have scored him a few points higher to point out that England and other monarchies were operating on a political law that they believed conformed to natural law, rather than simply saying we’re natural and they’re political.
The past is indeed a foreign country!
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