The Second Amendment is sacred!! The First? Not so much ...

[Res Ipsa]

The current investigation in Congress is (is it not?) of undisputed legality: as somebody said in effect "the President is not a King", and is therefore subject to the law like everybody else, especially when he has left office.

Given the modern state of the Republican party, I'd hesitate to use the term "undisputed" ever. But Congress has broad investigative powers, including the power to subpoena witnesses. And I've yet to hear any credible argument that this committee is exceeding its Constitutional powers. Courts are enforcing the subpoenas the committee has issued, so...

And, as the committee is investigative, and not adjudicative, rules that apply to trials don't apply.

[Vēritās]

The current investigation in Congress is (is it not?) of undisputed legality: as somebody said in effect "the President is not a King", and is therefore subject to the law like everybody else, especially when he has left office.

Given the modern state of the Republican party, I'd hesitate to use the term "undisputed" ever. But Congress has broad investigative powers, including the power to subpoena witnesses. And I've yet to hear any credible argument that this committee is exceeding its Constitutional powers. Courts are enforcing the subpoenas the committee has issued, so...

And, as the committee is investigative, and not adjudicative, rules that apply to trials don't apply.

Please explain this to Binger so he can stop whining about cross-examinations.

[Res Ipsa]

Given the modern state of the Republican party, I'd hesitate to use the term "undisputed" ever. But Congress has broad investigative powers, including the power to subpoena witnesses. And I've yet to hear any credible argument that this committee is exceeding its Constitutional powers. Courts are enforcing the subpoenas the committee has issued, so...

And, as the committee is investigative, and not adjudicative, rules that apply to trials don't apply.

Please explain this to Binger so he can stop whining about cross-examinations.

Binger understands. I suspect he also understands that any cross examination in Congressional hearings generally consists of four minutes of speech and a "gotcha" question. There is never any court-like cross-examination of witnesses in Congressional hearings. It's a red herring.

[honorentheos]

Whether or not it was a real and legal trial depends on where you stand. Charles maintained that the court had no legal basis, and that therefore it was his duty to protect the liberty of his subjects by refusing to recognise it. Those who prosecuted him held that the people had to have the right to judge their monarch if he broke what they suggested was at least an implicit contract between the King and themselves.

I suppose my comment was obtuse enough, said somewhat tongue in cheek. Given the religious conflicts involved in the lead up and integral to the English Civil War, it was a joking reference to how far we have to go before we arrive at the same place. But yeah, we have reason to be concerned.

[Chap]

Whether or not it was a real and legal trial depends on where you stand. Charles maintained that the court had no legal basis, and that therefore it was his duty to protect the liberty of his subjects by refusing to recognise it. Those who prosecuted him held that the people had to have the right to judge their monarch if he broke what they suggested was at least an implicit contract between the King and themselves.

I suppose my comment was obtuse enough, said somewhat tongue in cheek. Given the religious conflicts involved in the lead up and integral to the English Civil War, it was a joking reference to how far we have to go before we arrive at the same place. But yeah, we have reason to be concerned.

I think the difference between Charles and Trump is shown in this part of the statement made by Charles on his second appearance in court, when he was asked to say definitely whether he recognised the court or not:




By the way, I am more inclined to the Parliament side than to Charles; but I think that on this occasion, faced with an entirely unprecedented tribunal created out of whole cloth without a legal precedent, he spoke sincerely and indeed appropriately.

The reference to "Power without Laws" changing the "fundamental laws of the Kingdom" may be thought to have some application to a certain republic at the present moment.

[honorentheos]

I suppose my comment was obtuse enough, said somewhat tongue in cheek. Given the religious conflicts involved in the lead up and integral to the English Civil War, it was a joking reference to how far we have to go before we arrive at the same place. But yeah, we have reason to be concerned.

I think the difference between Charles and Trump is shown in this part of the statement made by Charles on his second appearance in court, when he was asked to say definitely whether he recognised the court or not:




By the way, I am more inclined to the Parliament side than to Charles; but I think that on this occasion, faced with an entirely unprecedented tribunal created out of whole cloth without a legal precedent, he spoke sincerely and indeed appropriately.

The reference to "Power without Laws" changing the "fundamental laws of the Kingdom" may be thought to have some application to a certain republic at the present moment.

I, for one, don't imagine Trump has need to be part of the discussion. Cultellus may imagine that Trump is before a Rump Court vis a vis the January 6th Commission, but he hasn't demonstrated he could draw a meaningful parallel from history. His style is more news clipping and pushpin string line, if you know what I mean.

My original reference was to Charles I's attempts to impose a particular religious prerogative in a time when the Catholic/Anglican/Protestant debates were hot and getting hotter. How much might one assign what occurred to religious differences compared to the resistance to royal rule is no small debate. We are, in some ways, indebted to that religious conflicts for our democracy. There in lies the irony where those like the subject of the OP would have a new war of bishops fought with AR-15s.

[Chap]

My original reference was to Charles I's attempts to impose a particular religious prerogative in a time when the Catholic/Anglican/Protestant debates were hot and getting hotter. How much might one assign what occurred to religious differences compared to the resistance to royal rule is no small debate. We are, in some ways, indebted to that religious conflicts for our democracy. There in lies the irony where those like the subject of the opening post would have a new war of bishops fought with AR-15s.

I'd say that a better comparison was with the activities of Charles' I son, the Duke of York and later James II who succeeded his brother Charles II in February 1685 and reigned to 1688, after which he fled for refuge to the court of Louis XIV of France.

Although Charles II had converted to Roman Catholicism on his deathbed, his brother James had been an enthusiastic and openly practising Roman Catholic all his life. Strangely, despite the obvious dangers that his accession to the throne posed to the religious settlement of the Church of England, many of its members who believed in the divine right of kings to rule felt that they had no alternative to accepting his rule, even in the knowledge that he was very likely to attack the powers and even the very existence of their church - which he then proceeded systematically to do. After a few years of his policies, which included the claim by him that he had the power to suspend any law that obstructed him in his purpose of allowing Roman Catholics a prominent role in the state, and the displacement of many protestants from high office, including posts in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, opposition rose to a point where James fled from England, dropping the Great Seal of the Kingdom into the Thames, by which act he intended to paralyse the operations of government in his absence, and effectively render it impossible to maintain civil order.

For many of those who had previously felt bound to support James as King, his flight and the mode of it constituted an effective abdication from the Kingship, and they felt free to accept James's replacement in 1689 by the Protestant Prince of Orange, married to James's elder daughter Mary, herself raised as a Protestant. But there was a substantial group, including Protestant clergy, who felt unable to abandon their sworn allegiance to James, and accepted poverty and disfavour as a result.

I don't know what kind of analogy this might have to the current program of certain extreme conservative Evangelicals to establish themselves as a religious government contrary to the Constitution, or who the US equivalents of James II or William III might be ...