I see what you mean, but State authority originated from the headship of families, clans and tribes, and God warned Israel when they wanted a King that he would take their sons and daughters and possessions from them. So there is more to it that I think both you and I are missing.
Once again, it’s not primarily the laws, but the authorities and what they enforce.
This was not normative. This was special, not because they wanted a king but they wanted a king like all the nations. God already promised them a king that was nothing like the one God warned them about. And I might also point out that one major difference between the two paths, was that God would choose the good king, but the rebellious people would choose the rebellious king who is like all the nations.
I’m not a pastor but I do have a nice little sermon on this very subject.
Not sure that helps. A king likethe nations would be the normative one.
No the normative standard for a king is in Deuteronomy 17.
I think you are confusing normative as meaning normal, when the context here is philosophically meaning “ought” or “should” not what is.
Likewise, I’m no expert on the UK and Commonwealth systems.
The American system is pretty explicitly set up without this clean “chain of command.” Any local cop working for a police department will have a chain of command up to a Police Chief who will typically report to the Mayor or the City Council. Those are all directly-elected positions, without any chain of command to county executives, governors or anyone in the US national government. Those folks will be bound by court decisions that can be based on the constitution of that state, the constitution of the US, or law at any level of federal, state or local. Those laws are interpreted by judges and would be enforced typically by State Police (who report ultimately to the governor of the state) or US Marshals or similar.
Much of this was arranged even before the United States existed as the United States. Part of it has resulted from the fact that when we started, the United States were a loose federation of independent states that over time became largely dominated by a growing federal government. (Date this to 1865 when the North won the Civil War.) Some of it was explicit design early on regarding separation of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial branch, some of which dates to English Common Law and some of which was inspired by philosophers like Montesquieu.
Over time, the various parts of what could be termed “authority” in the US have kludged together an operating model that’s greatly based on professional courtesy and “this is how we’ve always done it,” much like the UK’s unwritten constitution. For instance, can local law enforcement arrest/prosecute federal agents for crimes committed in the line of duty? That’s unclear. The only time I’m aware of that this has been pursued in recent memory was following the events at Ruby Ridge in Idaho back in 1993. Ultimately an incoming (elected) DA opted to drop the charges against the federal government agents.
Currently, at both the state and federal levels, the general pecking order of authority is judicial > executive > legislative, but that’s not how the system was designed, it’s just how it’s worked out over time. It’s also not a hard-and-fast rule. If the legislative branch doesn’t like how the judiciary is interpreting a law, they are free to change it, though, of course, it will be back to the judiciary to interpret the new law as well. And executives are largely free to ignore the enforcement of laws they don’t like.
Much of this chaos was created by people intentionally pouring sand into the works of government, to make authority unclear (again, see Montesquieu). That may work out well from a pragmatic standpoint, but it’s not clear to me what it means for someone interested in respecting and obeying authority.
1 Like