Rulers Law or Peoples Law

[Mods, please relocate if this thread is in the incorrect forum]

While studying political science and the fundamentals implemented into the American Constitution, I came across key principals regarding our interpretation of law. After examining these principals, I became shockingly aware of which side of the political spectrum modern day America tilts toward. I challenge the members of ATS to decide which side you believe more accurately describes where present day America stands.

Government in the dictionary is defined as “a system of ruling or controlling”.

Rulers Law:
-Authority under Rulers Law is nearly always established by force, violence, and conquest.
-Therefore, all sovereign power is considered to be in the conqueror or his descendants.
-The people are not equal, but are divided into classes and are all looked upon as “subjects” of the king.
-The entire country is considered to be property of the ruler. He speaks of it as his realm.
-The thrust of the government power is from the top down, from the people upward.
-The people have no unalienable rights. The “king giveth and the king taketh away,”
-Government is by the whims of men, not by fixed rule of law which the people need in order to govern their affairs with confidence.
-The ruler issues edicts which are called “the law”. He then interprets the law and enforces it, thus maintaining tyrannical control over the people.
-Under Ruler’s Law, problems are always solved by issuing more edicts or laws, setting up more bureaus, harassing the people with more regulators, and charging the people for these “services” by continually adding to their burden of taxes.
-Freedom is never looked upon as a viable solution for anything.
-The long history of Ruler’s Law is one of blood and terror, both anciently and in modern times. Under it the people are stratified, formed into status groups serving and paying the king as the common people exist in perpetual poverty, excessive taxation, stringent regulation, and a continuing state of misery.

In contrast to Ruler’s Law, the fathers favored People’s Law, originally practiced among the Anglo-Saxons.

Principal points of PEOPLE’S LAW:

-They considered themselves a commonwealth of freemen.
-All decisions and the selection of leaders had to be with the consent of the people, preferably by full consensus, and not just a majority.
-The laws by which they were governed were considered natural laws given by divine dispensation, and were so well known by the people they did not have to be written down.
-Power was dispersed among the people and never allowed to concentrate in any one person or group. Even in time of war, the authority granted to the leaders was temporary and the power of the people to remove them was direct and simple.
-Primary responsibility for resolving problems rested first of all with the individual, then the family, then the tribe or community, then the region, and finally, the nation.
-They were organized into small, manageable groups where every adult had a voice and a vote. They divided the people into units of ten families who elected a leader; then fifty families who elected a leader; and then a thousand families who elected a leader.
-They believed the rights of the individual were considered unalienable and could not be violated without risking the wrath of divine justice as well as civil retribution by the people’s judges.
-The system of justice was structured on the basis of severe punishment unless there was complete reparation to the person who had been wronged. There were only four “crimes” or offenses against the whole people. These were treason, by betraying their own people; cowardice, by refusing the fight or failing to fight courageously; desertion; and homosexuality. These were considered capital offenses. All other offenses required reparation to the person who had been wronged.
-They always attempted to solve problems on the level where the problem originated. If this was impossible they went no higher than was absolutely necessary to get a remedy. Usually only the most complex problems involving the welfare of the whole people, or a large segment of the people, ever went to the leaders for solution.

The Balanced Center:
The Founders struggled to get the American eagle firmly balanced in the center of the political spectrum. The following describes the division of labor between the states and the federal government:

James Madison: The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite… The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State.

Having the eagle fixed in the center of the spectrum was designed to maintain this political equilibrium between the people in the states and the federal government. The emphasis was on a strong local self-government and keeps the power base close to the people. During the creation of the Constitution, James Madison proposed a 'separation of powers,' dividing the government into three separate branches - an idea that mirrored the three functions of governance ascribed to the Lord.

Isaiah 33:22: 'For the Lord is our Judge [judicial], the Lord is our lawgiver [legislative], the Lord is our king [executive].”

First off, excellent thread. People need read this.

I don't even want, nor do I need, to make any statement as to which form of control is being exhibited over the U.S.

I would love to be a free man, making my own decisions, and this is what we are on the verge of discovering, once more. That man can be free. We built these walls (helped, at least), and we shall tear them, and their horrible paint drippings, right down. Exciting times (as Dozer from the Matrix would have said... Or was it Tank?)


Thank you. Carry on.