Update: A new article has ideas which substantially modify the ideas presented herein.
I added a definition to my dictionary related to Zippy’s guide to Authority. The word I added was ‘Legitimacy’. I defined it as follows:
LEGITIMACY – Acceptance of any authority higher than your own, and acceptance of responsibility for anyone subject to your authority.
Legitimacy works in both directions. Consider a Governor. A Governor could not govern if he did not recognize responsibility to his citizens under his direct authority. He also could not govern if he did not recognize the President of the United States as a higher authority whose pronouncements he must accept.
God, properly contextualized as the source of all Authority and the King of all creation, is thus the pinnacle of authority. A Legitimate ruler must recognize God as the highest authority and furthermore must recognize the responsibility to all those under his immediate control.
God’s pronouncements, as a result, must be accepted by the highest temporal authority in any given area. Anyone who does not accept the authority of God is not a legitimate leader. Anyone who does not accept the responsibility to the people is not a legitimate leader.
This is why ‘Government by consent of the governed’ is rationally incoherent. It is an inversion of the logically reasonable definition of legitimacy, and thus breaks the chain of authority.
The ‘Government by consent of the governed’ definition is as follows:
LEGITIMACY – Acceptance of authority of anyone subject to you, and acceptance of responsibility for any authority higher than your own.
In other words, ‘you must accept the will of the people; and if someone above you does something we don’t like, we will hold you accountable.’ This is no way of governing, but it is the hallmark of the rationally incoherent tropes of Classical Liberalism. Citizens must consent to be governed rather than provide consent for those governing.
Our First Trip Away
Edenites accept the proper chain of Authority. If an Edenite gets power, he first accepts that he is under the authority of the next person up the chain, and that he is responsible for everyone below. If that chain of command is broken, an Edenite need not despair: The chain is restored at the point of the Edenite and virtuous judgement has a restorative effect. It is analagous to a wartime scenario cut off from the immediate commander. A company of soldiers doesn’t stop and wait; they proceed with the mission. They may have radio contact with the command-and-control base, but not their battalion commander. So an Edenite, faced with illegitimate authority above them, still subjects themselves to the authority of Christ, and thereby can function effectively in a broken machine. This function is conditional on their responsibility for all parties subject to their own authority. If an Edenite cannot be sure their authority is producing the desired outcomes down the chain, outcomes which they are personally responsible for, they have a responsibility to act to correct it or to prevent scandal by removing themselves from association with the illegitimate authority. By analogy, imagine a Pharisee who believed Christ was Lord but refused to leave the company of Caiaphas et al.
Anakites, in contrast, believe they are the only proper source of legitimacy. Government by consent of the governed, and the right to self determination. They are their own arbiters of Truth. Therefore an Anakites is not bound to accept any authority higher than them, if they deem it to be illegitimate; and further are not obliged to accept responsibility for those subject to their authority if there are intervening steps between. If the chain of command is broken by real or perceived illegitimacy above them, they may act unilaterally to restore whatever order they feel appropriate; as they are not bound by any authority higher than themselves. Consider again the wartime scenario, where a company of soldiers are cut off from immediate command. Anakites discard previous orders and create new ones for themselves. They treat the absence of rule as freedom to create rules; rather than an opportunity to seek higher rules.
Edenites, in pursuing virtue and subordinating themselves to Christ, bring order to any system of which they are part. Anakites may bring the appearance of order, but it is prone to break down when stressed or challenged. The absence of subordination to Christ sows disorder into any structure of authority.
AMDG
Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth 