Because man is basically evil, and the system has man as an inherent part of itself.
A little leaven leavens the whole lump.
Simply by man being man.
No, the committee only exists long enough to bring charges and select a judge for the trial.
Problem 1: How do you guarantee that the committee lasts only as long as you want it to? If one man, the king, can (and will) act above the law, what makes you think that millions won't?
Problem 2: How do you guarantee that the judge himself is not a) just another wicked man, and b) will not himself take advantage of the system to install himself permanently after removing the king?
[Side note: I once did an estimation for how many judges there would be under the same sort of system implemented in the proposed constitution, originally found in Exodus 18. It comes out to around 13 million judges, assuming that under the king are five judges (1 judge per 10 states), and then under those five judges are 10 each, and under those fifty are 10 each, and under each of those are 10 each, etc... down to the lowest level of judge, which is a judge over 10 households.]
The point being that any such objection can be overcome with the sort of reasons that you've been defending the system as proposed. That reason being that the existence of such a "committee" (your word, not mine) would be defined by parameters set forth in the law.
And who enforces those parameters when the committee DOESN'T comply with the law?
There would also need to be a provision in the law concerning the replacement for a king convicted of a crime worthy of death. Perhaps the crown would pass to the king's heir or perhaps the king's conviction sets aside his family from being the monarch and an entirely new king is selected just as the first king was. So long as the process is set out clearly by the law, practically any way would be at least as good as the proposed selection of the king by a totally blind and random lottery system.
The succession process is already defined by the proposed constitution, and includes what should happen should the king die.
No. There wouldn't be anything in the law that would give any group of judges the authority to throw out the whole system and become some sort of oligarchy.
Neither is there anything in the law that would give any king the authority to throw out the whole system and become a dictator
The same provisions in the law that help to prevent the king from making new law would be just as effective, if not more so, in preventing such an assumption of power.
Saying it doesn't make it so, Clete.
In fact, if anything, you're going backwards towards democracy, rather than towards maintaining a monarchy.
Here's why:
You argue that the king would be above the law (effectively, if not in actuality), but then propose a system that could just as easily, if not MORE easily, have men (up to several million of them, but at least one) acting above the law, in the hopes of stopping the king from acting outside of the law.
What, in your proposed corrective system, is to stop this judge that gets appointed (or any of the judges that appoint him) from himself acting out of line?
I've never bought this argument either.
You know just as well as I do that an argument from incredulity is a logical fallacy, Clete.
Just because you don't buy it doesn't make it wrong.
Neither does me (or for that matter Bob) arguing it make it correct, of course.
While any one jury might get a verdict wrong, by and large, juries get the verdict correct based on the law.
A trial by committee is unjust, regardless of how many times the committees make the correct verdict.
Trial by juries are, quite literally, the ultimate form of "appeal to popularity."
Justice isn't a matter of popularity. As I've stated before, correct moral principles don't change.
It's the law that is corrupt.
Agreed, but that doesn't mean that juries are just.
It is an error to equate the majority of humanity with a particular group of tens of people.
Just as 6 out of 10 people agreeing that something is just doesn't make it so, so too 5,000,001 out of 10,000,000 doesn't make it just.
Again, this is the claim but I've not seen the proof.
I just gave you an example, evidence, of how it could happen. The very person who would get appointed would, at least for the purpose of removing him, be acting in authority above the king, placing him on a level on par with the law.
I see no reason why the law cannot be the absolute rather than any particular king.
If the law could make people righteous, then there would have been no need for Christ to come.
But it cannot. Hence why the law is called the tutor to bring people to Christ. In the same way, the law cannot prevent someone from violating it, and that applies to both the king and anyone appointed to removing him.
The law set the rules for selecting the king, the same law can set the rules for removing him and it would be up to the people to disobey if the law was being usurped which is a critical aspect of the proposed system in spite of the fact that the majority is wicked, right?
This seems to me like it would just be adding process to a government that was formed on the idea of eliminating as much excess process as possible. (I.O.W., counterproductive).
No it doesn't. His eldest living son is guaranteed the thrown throne. Why couldn't a wicked king murder any sons he had that didn't think like him?
Which would be done, as I said, under his own reign...
Yes, any evil thing that he could do would very likely have an affect on the next person who takes the throne and his reign, but the wicked king's wickedness would be done by him, and thus, limited to his own reign.
In other words, as Yorzhik said:
It might be fair to say that a king has to put his name on whatever ultimately happens by necessity . . .
I'm not saying that his actions wouldn't be felt by subsequent rulers, but simply that his actions are his own.
Like I said, I've always disagreed with this thinking.
Ok.
Saying it doesn't make it so.
The king didn't install himself, did he?
No.
Assuming the system is already in place and there was a king previously installed, he either inherited the throne because he was the oldest son, or he was chosen by lottery picked by the queen, or if none, the oldest daughter of the former king, or if none, America's chief military officer.
Whatever your answer to that question, the same should be able to remove that authority from him.
The former queen, the former king's daughter, the chief military officer, none of them have the authority to remove their king from his throne.
The citizens.
Who is this "civil" person? Is it not the great mass of humanity, the majority of which is evil?
Yes.
What gives the whole population of mostly evil people the authority to disobey the king?
God. As Peter said: "we must obey God rather than man."
The law comes from God.
If the law can give a whole mob of thousands upon thousands of mostly evil people the authority to usurp the king's authority,
Not usurp. Disobey.
then why can it not give authority to a majority of sitting judges to bring charges against the king in criminal court where his guilt must then be established by the evidence against him and where the threat of the law's punishment can act as a deterrent to the king's evil, just as it does for everyone else?
Because Jesus said that the majority is wicked.
There would be no new members. It isn't even rightly referred to as a committee because that term implies not only a permanence but an actual body that wouldn't exist. What I'm thinking of would work more like the way a petition works now. Any judge could start such a petition but no charges could be brought unless some very large percentage, say two thirds, of all of the nation's judges signed it. Then, once charges were brought, then there'd have to be some objective process that resulted in the appointment of a judge to preside over the trial but there would be no formally empaneled committee with a chairman and an agenda, etc, but merely a legal process that was taken up by already seated judges.
So what should be done about the following possibility?
A wicked judge who didn't like the current king started a petition to remove the king, and two thirds of the nation's judges signed it, charges are brought, another wicked judge is appointed to preside over the trial, and so the king, who was a good king, gets removed.
What then?
Who holds not only the judge who presided over the wrongful (despite following the law) removal of the king, but also the judge who started the petition and the 2/3rds of the judges who signed it, accountable?
I would not be in favor of any such committee.
What I'm proposing is merely some sort of legal process that places the king under the jurisdiction of the law so that there is truly the rule of law and not the rule of man.
What happens when wicked men use that legal process to remove a good king?
It's the very reason that the proposed constitution has NO WAY to remove the king. Yes, you may get an evil king. In fact, it's almost a guarantee that the majority of the nation's kings will be evil to any extent. But in this case, what you want to apply only to evil kings will more likely be used against good kings, because man is wicked.