Do you learn about the Magna Carta?

[Anonymous]

On June 15, 1215 King John of England in Runnymede, England, agreed to a royal Charter known as the Magna Carta Libertatum. An act creating the British parliament, and most notably an enforceable system of checks upon the power of a monarch by those he ruled.

Thou its terms may be quaint today in printable this establish the underlining principle by which all descendant English speaking states have operated since.

As eloquently explained by Daniel Hannan at Runnymede:

The question is an age when the world seems to be falling apart and we may be going back to the beginning again, how many of us know how our Constitutional system of democracy begin at Runnymede?

Yes

No

[jshm2]

The Magna Carta is actually invalid in this and age and is superseded by international law.

[Asker]

1: The achievement of the Magna Carta is first and foremost the enforceable underlining principle that the Governing are answerable to the laws made by the Governed. This is the cornerstone of English speaking democracy. That said other parts of it are still technically enforced but no aspect of it is so fundamental as that one.

2: No such thing as "international law" what they call "law" is a bunch of largely unenforceable treaties reflecting balances of power that are disregarded by states at will, and have no governing authority to even bind.

[Redhead999]

Wasn't it just rights for the barons and protection for the barons against the king?

[Asker]

For the most part, although not entirely and it is beside the point.

Although from a practical point of view it is very important observations that the Barons were the ones who pulled this off. As they represented leaders of regional populations able to challenge and keep in check the central State, and would generally remain inclined to do so out of a preservation of their own power interest.

Had it been a mob of people alone it would not have endured as it did as Kings could have prevented their organization into a serous threat via arresting leaders and terrorizing them into submission on a regular basis.

It was also from this regionally fragmented feudal system that western Europe rediscovered liberty via the competitive freedom of movement of the peasants between different estates driving each of them to become more attractive to the people and remain so, to draw labor and wealth.

The American system of Federalism is very much built to take advantage of this same natural tendency in forcing States who are very much our modern day equivalent to both compete for people and hold the central authority to its Constitutional contract via implicit threat of rebellion.(Hence why the States retain the only Constitutionally endorsed Standing army now called the National Guard), the regular army has a 2 year funding limit.

Out freedom and security is very much a product of systems that formed over time due to a combination of events and policies that started at Runnymede.

[WhitneySnow]

I knew that