At the point at which due process was gone for almost everyone in France, they had what's known as "the French Revolution". Turns out the autocratic approach is not stable
Sounds like you’re suggesting that the Revolutionary government, the Directorate, and the Napoleonic state respected due process? And this carried over into the restored monarchy? Hell of a take, my brother.
I'm saying the lack of due process caused the French Revolution.
Doesn't mean the French Revolution actually restored due process. But it was put back into the law *on paper*, repeatedly. (Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen.)
People wanted it back. And there were revolutions over and over and over and over and over again until due process came back.
A system without due process will keep having revolutions. The replacement government may not have due process either... in which case it will be overthrown in another revolution. Rinse and repeat. This process can go on for decades before a government with due process arrives, which is *stable*.
Due process creates governmental stability. Lack of it creates instability. The instability can persist for decades or centuries though a rotating cast of different autocratic leaders.
(Due process isn't everything, either. You can have a government with due process where the laws are vicious and awful and abusive, but where they're enforced consistently, where they aren't arbitrary and capricious, where people know what to do to stay out of trouble. These have due process and can be stable.)
Important reading comprehension lesson: "Bad thing A causes revolution B" simply does not mean that "revolution B removes bad thing A". You can look at the causes of the English Civil War and it's pretty obvious none of them were actually fixed by the English Civil War -- they were still the causes of it
When you make a two-sentence post, and somebody comes along and asks, "Are you suggesting X?", that might be a sign that you haven't given a meaningful explanation of your thinking. In that case, the sensible response is not "Learn to read" - it's "No, let me expand". I appreciate that you did so below.
But it occurs to me that there might be a gap in your comprehension, because you have a fairly loose grasp of what "due process of law" means. Legal philosophers would tell you that it reflects a clear domain of authority with a rule of recognition, in which the sovereign is not competent to exercise discretionary authority because the nature of that domain is to limit sovereign authority. That's why they would tell you that authoritarian states do not have due process of law: administrative law codes allow the sovereign to bypass all constraints. By your logic, this should put Russia, China, and Iran on the verge of revolutions, much as the people of Nazi Germany rose to overthrow their totalitarian masters once the administrative law system that Hans Frank authored completely superseded the civil rights guarantees of the Weimar Constitution that was still in effect in 1944. Please do share your thoughts on how all of that will go.
I suspect that what you're trying to argue is that states that respect SOCIAL CONVENTIONS about the exercise of power are able to exorcise the specter of revolutionary movements quite effectively. That's a sensible argument - it explains why the Taliban is comfortable kicking down doors to check in the behavior of women in their homes, while Iran turns a blind eye to a lot of very Western social practices in the elite neighborhoods of Tehran, so long as they remain behind the walls of the private courtyards. But this is a very different thing from "due process of law". Ordinary people will superficially adapt fairly well to radical changes in the law, provided they think the adaptation will give them or their loved ones some safety from the arbitrary exercise of power.
That's close to what I'm saying but I really am talking about due process: specifically the idea that there are in fact rules that bind even the king, and the opportunity to prove that you're innocent rather than being framed or simply grabbed arbitrarily.
If the legal system says that criticizing the King is illegal (like, uh, Thailand right now), then it's pretty oppressive, but what due process of law means is only that you have an opportunity to say "No, I did not criticize his majesty" and have that evaluated fairly (like, uh, Thailand right now).
The Taliban are religious theocrats with nasty laws, but they don't typically punish people for, well, for *not* violating the laws, just because the leadership decided to take a dislike to someone. They punish people for violating the religious laws and they have a whole trial system where people can go to trial and argue that they are not in fact violating the laws.
Iran also actually has a legal code, and usually follows it. It's an oppressive legal code, but it usually follows it. Failure to follow it, when the regime is perceived as attacking people on *false* charges, creates particularly persistent and strong anger and resistance.
Russia is currently authoritarian in that its leadership is arbitrary, capricious, and routinely violates its own rules. It wasn't always: it was very legalistic for a long time. It is not long for this world. The sabotage and uprisings are constant now.
Nazi Germany was, of course, overthrown quite quickly. People were already rising up against it before it lost WWII; it just lost the war first.
It's the arbitrariness that infuriates people. People have rebelled against arbitrariness forever. The Middle Ages in Europe, when "rule by the king" was a typically-accepted mode of governance, contains repeated complaints about arbitrariness, and it's repeatedly used as the justification for overthrowing the king.
A king who follows a set of consistent rules, no matter how bad they are, tends to get a lot less resistance, precisely because people can adapt, they know where they stand, they think "if I follow the rules, I'll be fine".
Without due process, you can follow the rules and be abused anyway, and people hate that because there's no perceived way to be safe.
China is very legalistic and they follow their own rules almost all the time. The occasions when they don't, when they go after someone on a complete frame-up, drive mass unrest, and they're not actually very frequent. The more Xi does it, the more unrest he causes.
Stalin's arbitrariness was quite extreme and he was unusual for a highly arbitrary despot in making it to a natural death. By that time everyone hated him. Mao actually lost power because of reaction to his arbitrariness, despite everyone still paying lip service to him.
"Radical changes in the law" are consistent with due process, unfortunately: due process is a fairly minimal requirement. If the legal system consists primarily of edicts made by the king, as it did in medieval Europe, then the minimum due process in the medieval era required that people be allowed to argue before an impartial judge that they had not violated the king's edict, or that the edict had never been published their town and that they had no way to know that they were violating it.
Essentially, at its most basic, due process is a guard against being framed, and nothing more. People really REALLY hate that, once they realize it's happening. Even really nasty people who support really evil laws often hate that -- we are watching this right now.
Unfortunately, the overthrow of one dictator because of anger at their arbitrariness often leads to another equally arbitrary regime. If the next regime *does* set out a clear system of rules which it binds itself to, it can become more stable. Even if the rules are oppressive and evil.
Sorry, but in 21st century England due process for non-citizens is pretty limited. Not so long ago, the government summarily cancelled visas of tens of thousands of students because these were deemed to cheat at their pre-visa English tests, just because they took them at centers were cases of such cheating were found. No due process, nothing. And it's pretty much how non-citizens (from outside of the EU in particular) were dealt with during many years of Tory. Denials of visas for dads of children born to UK mothers, on the basis that Skype calls suffice to maintain a family bond, etc.
At the point at which due process was gone for almost everyone in France, they had what's known as "the French Revolution". Turns out the autocratic approach is not stable
Sounds like you’re suggesting that the Revolutionary government, the Directorate, and the Napoleonic state respected due process? And this carried over into the restored monarchy? Hell of a take, my brother.
Nope.
Learn to read.
I'm saying the lack of due process caused the French Revolution.
Doesn't mean the French Revolution actually restored due process. But it was put back into the law *on paper*, repeatedly. (Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen.)
People wanted it back. And there were revolutions over and over and over and over and over again until due process came back.
A system without due process will keep having revolutions. The replacement government may not have due process either... in which case it will be overthrown in another revolution. Rinse and repeat. This process can go on for decades before a government with due process arrives, which is *stable*.
Due process creates governmental stability. Lack of it creates instability. The instability can persist for decades or centuries though a rotating cast of different autocratic leaders.
(Due process isn't everything, either. You can have a government with due process where the laws are vicious and awful and abusive, but where they're enforced consistently, where they aren't arbitrary and capricious, where people know what to do to stay out of trouble. These have due process and can be stable.)
Important reading comprehension lesson: "Bad thing A causes revolution B" simply does not mean that "revolution B removes bad thing A". You can look at the causes of the English Civil War and it's pretty obvious none of them were actually fixed by the English Civil War -- they were still the causes of it
When you make a two-sentence post, and somebody comes along and asks, "Are you suggesting X?", that might be a sign that you haven't given a meaningful explanation of your thinking. In that case, the sensible response is not "Learn to read" - it's "No, let me expand". I appreciate that you did so below.
But it occurs to me that there might be a gap in your comprehension, because you have a fairly loose grasp of what "due process of law" means. Legal philosophers would tell you that it reflects a clear domain of authority with a rule of recognition, in which the sovereign is not competent to exercise discretionary authority because the nature of that domain is to limit sovereign authority. That's why they would tell you that authoritarian states do not have due process of law: administrative law codes allow the sovereign to bypass all constraints. By your logic, this should put Russia, China, and Iran on the verge of revolutions, much as the people of Nazi Germany rose to overthrow their totalitarian masters once the administrative law system that Hans Frank authored completely superseded the civil rights guarantees of the Weimar Constitution that was still in effect in 1944. Please do share your thoughts on how all of that will go.
I suspect that what you're trying to argue is that states that respect SOCIAL CONVENTIONS about the exercise of power are able to exorcise the specter of revolutionary movements quite effectively. That's a sensible argument - it explains why the Taliban is comfortable kicking down doors to check in the behavior of women in their homes, while Iran turns a blind eye to a lot of very Western social practices in the elite neighborhoods of Tehran, so long as they remain behind the walls of the private courtyards. But this is a very different thing from "due process of law". Ordinary people will superficially adapt fairly well to radical changes in the law, provided they think the adaptation will give them or their loved ones some safety from the arbitrary exercise of power.
That's close to what I'm saying but I really am talking about due process: specifically the idea that there are in fact rules that bind even the king, and the opportunity to prove that you're innocent rather than being framed or simply grabbed arbitrarily.
If the legal system says that criticizing the King is illegal (like, uh, Thailand right now), then it's pretty oppressive, but what due process of law means is only that you have an opportunity to say "No, I did not criticize his majesty" and have that evaluated fairly (like, uh, Thailand right now).
The Taliban are religious theocrats with nasty laws, but they don't typically punish people for, well, for *not* violating the laws, just because the leadership decided to take a dislike to someone. They punish people for violating the religious laws and they have a whole trial system where people can go to trial and argue that they are not in fact violating the laws.
Iran also actually has a legal code, and usually follows it. It's an oppressive legal code, but it usually follows it. Failure to follow it, when the regime is perceived as attacking people on *false* charges, creates particularly persistent and strong anger and resistance.
Russia is currently authoritarian in that its leadership is arbitrary, capricious, and routinely violates its own rules. It wasn't always: it was very legalistic for a long time. It is not long for this world. The sabotage and uprisings are constant now.
Nazi Germany was, of course, overthrown quite quickly. People were already rising up against it before it lost WWII; it just lost the war first.
It's the arbitrariness that infuriates people. People have rebelled against arbitrariness forever. The Middle Ages in Europe, when "rule by the king" was a typically-accepted mode of governance, contains repeated complaints about arbitrariness, and it's repeatedly used as the justification for overthrowing the king.
A king who follows a set of consistent rules, no matter how bad they are, tends to get a lot less resistance, precisely because people can adapt, they know where they stand, they think "if I follow the rules, I'll be fine".
Without due process, you can follow the rules and be abused anyway, and people hate that because there's no perceived way to be safe.
China is very legalistic and they follow their own rules almost all the time. The occasions when they don't, when they go after someone on a complete frame-up, drive mass unrest, and they're not actually very frequent. The more Xi does it, the more unrest he causes.
Stalin's arbitrariness was quite extreme and he was unusual for a highly arbitrary despot in making it to a natural death. By that time everyone hated him. Mao actually lost power because of reaction to his arbitrariness, despite everyone still paying lip service to him.
"Radical changes in the law" are consistent with due process, unfortunately: due process is a fairly minimal requirement. If the legal system consists primarily of edicts made by the king, as it did in medieval Europe, then the minimum due process in the medieval era required that people be allowed to argue before an impartial judge that they had not violated the king's edict, or that the edict had never been published their town and that they had no way to know that they were violating it.
Essentially, at its most basic, due process is a guard against being framed, and nothing more. People really REALLY hate that, once they realize it's happening. Even really nasty people who support really evil laws often hate that -- we are watching this right now.
Unfortunately, the overthrow of one dictator because of anger at their arbitrariness often leads to another equally arbitrary regime. If the next regime *does* set out a clear system of rules which it binds itself to, it can become more stable. Even if the rules are oppressive and evil.
Sorry, but in 21st century England due process for non-citizens is pretty limited. Not so long ago, the government summarily cancelled visas of tens of thousands of students because these were deemed to cheat at their pre-visa English tests, just because they took them at centers were cases of such cheating were found. No due process, nothing. And it's pretty much how non-citizens (from outside of the EU in particular) were dealt with during many years of Tory. Denials of visas for dads of children born to UK mothers, on the basis that Skype calls suffice to maintain a family bond, etc.