Let me step away from the strictly personal and move into
the realm of the universal for Gratitude Monday today. Because this month marks
the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, a document that first put
words to parchment delineating the notion that people should be governed by
something more reasonable and responsive than the vis et voluntas (“force and will”) of any crackbrained individual
who happened to bear the title “monarch”.
Magna Carta did not bring democracy to the people of
England (although that’s pretty much the way it’s explained to us in grade
school). None of the signatories gave a toss about “the people”, and they all would have been horrified by the
idea of “democracy”. But what it did was to limit the powers of the monarch,
which (when you think of it) kind of put paid to the notion of the divine right
of kings. It was essentially the thin edge of the wedge that cracked open the
door leading to government by the consent of the governed.
I mean—once you’ve said “the king has donkey’s ears, and
his brain’s no improvement on that”, it’s not so many steps to get to “We hold
these truths to be self-evident.”
Yes, King John signed Magna Carta under duress, and
weaseled out of it as soon as he could. And the barons who exerted the duress
weren’t a massive improvement on John, as far as the rest of the country was
concerned. But that divine right horse could never be put securely back into
the barn after that.
Yes—representative government has its flaws. I personally
believe that if we examined the $250 haircuts on all 535 members of Congress
(and most of the Executive Branch) we’d find a fair plurality of donkeys’ ears.
But I’m a lot happier knowing that the asses are corralled by laws than I would
be if it was just them running free-range.
So I’m heartily grateful for the power struggle between
King John and his barons (which would make a pretty good name for a garage band)
that resulted in Magna Carta.
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