05-22-2020, 09:42 PM
** 22-May-2020 World View: Constitutional law
You're right that you and I look at these issues from very different
angles.
I've looked at some aspects of this, though I try to relate social
progress to technology. For example, I would think that the invention
of the printing press would have had a big impact on social progress.
Going from the Agricultural age to the Industrial revolution would
seem to be technology based.
When I was writing my book on Iran, I had to dive deeply into the
development of constitutions, since Iran's Constitutional Revolution
in the 1900s decade was a generational crisis war.
Constitutional law is mainly concerned with human rights. You have
Roman Law and Sharia Law that have been around for millennia, but
those bodies of law have to do with things like marriage, children,
commerce, or tax collection. But constitutional law is different
because it's objective is to limit the power of the monarchs (i.e.,
human rights). In Europe, the first law of that type was the Magna
Carta in June 1215, when King John's barons forced it on him.
The U.S. Constitution is thought to be the oldest written constitution
still in use today. After it was successfully adopted in America, it
started to spread across Europe. Napoleon announced a constitution in
1800 which was greatly admired. In 1804, this became the Napoleonic
Code which you've mentioned several times.
In my book, I quoted Jean-Antoine Chaptal, one of Napoleon's
ministers, who was pleased that it limited some of Napoleon's powers:
"Truly it is difficult to conceive of a constitution which offers more
guarantees for the rights of the people. It is difficult to leave less
to the fiat of the head of the government. The limits of power are
clear and unambiguous."
Norway and Belgium followed suit, adopting their own constitutions.
They didn't just copy the US constitution, but they were inspired by
it.
It took until the early 1900s for Iran to finally develop a
constitution. The reason it took so long was because Iran was pretty
isolated from Europe.
Your view and my view are not contradictory, and ideally they can be
merged in some way.
(05-20-2020, 11:11 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: > But you seem to have your own interests, so I wouldn’t expect you
> to concentrate on the same things.
> This conversation has made a little clearer how stepping out of
> the Industrial Age pattern has several semi independent aspects.
> There is xenophobia, the Enlightenment values, the colonial
> aspect, and each could turn at independent times. The Reformation
> had something to do with it, splitting the Catholic south off of
> the Protestant north and helping to create the Protestant work
> ethic which became part of the Industrial Revolution which in turn
> fed off colonial exploitation. There are many areas to focus on,
> and you can easily get off either focusing too much or too little.
> People focusing on different things would naturally come up with
> different definitions.
You're right that you and I look at these issues from very different
angles.
I've looked at some aspects of this, though I try to relate social
progress to technology. For example, I would think that the invention
of the printing press would have had a big impact on social progress.
Going from the Agricultural age to the Industrial revolution would
seem to be technology based.
When I was writing my book on Iran, I had to dive deeply into the
development of constitutions, since Iran's Constitutional Revolution
in the 1900s decade was a generational crisis war.
Constitutional law is mainly concerned with human rights. You have
Roman Law and Sharia Law that have been around for millennia, but
those bodies of law have to do with things like marriage, children,
commerce, or tax collection. But constitutional law is different
because it's objective is to limit the power of the monarchs (i.e.,
human rights). In Europe, the first law of that type was the Magna
Carta in June 1215, when King John's barons forced it on him.
The U.S. Constitution is thought to be the oldest written constitution
still in use today. After it was successfully adopted in America, it
started to spread across Europe. Napoleon announced a constitution in
1800 which was greatly admired. In 1804, this became the Napoleonic
Code which you've mentioned several times.
In my book, I quoted Jean-Antoine Chaptal, one of Napoleon's
ministers, who was pleased that it limited some of Napoleon's powers:
"Truly it is difficult to conceive of a constitution which offers more
guarantees for the rights of the people. It is difficult to leave less
to the fiat of the head of the government. The limits of power are
clear and unambiguous."
Norway and Belgium followed suit, adopting their own constitutions.
They didn't just copy the US constitution, but they were inspired by
it.
It took until the early 1900s for Iran to finally develop a
constitution. The reason it took so long was because Iran was pretty
isolated from Europe.
Your view and my view are not contradictory, and ideally they can be
merged in some way.
