Happy Birthday Magna Carta!

For the history enthusiasts, this date marks 800 years since the inception of the Magna Carta, Latin for "The Great Charter" - a Peace Treaty between King John Lackland of England and rebel barons (or nobility). The Magna Carta was conceptualized to protect the people from wrongful imprisonment, swift justice, and so forth at a time when King John was an extremely unpopular monarch.

Indeed, the Magna Carta laid out the framework for current day public policy and government in England, especially that of civil rights. Many also assume that it laid the groundwork for the Constitution for the People of the United States ("U.S. Constitution"). While this is accurate, what was primarily used as a reference guide for the U.S. Constitution is that of the Law of Nations, a "masterpiece" internationally adopted decades before any founding documents were conceptualized. French political philosopher, Emmerich de Vattel, authored the entire volume.

Today, neither a majority of lawyers nor constitutional law experts are very familiar with the Law of nations. What is even more sad is that it is not even discussed in the Ivy Leagues. Therefore, few of us truly understand our actual political status and how it might relate to government bodies. Most everyone is a citizen or national. This status makes them entitled to civil rights, not Constitutional Rights. The difference? Civil rights are guaranteed to citizens by the Supreme Court for the People of the United States via the Incorporation Doctrine and not directly granted by the U.S. Constitution, thus the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Constitutional Rights are granted directly to those who signed the compact and their posterity. One way to find out if you are posterity is if you attempt to file suit directly against the United States Federal government - no citizen has that Right to redress and must petition their state to take up their cause against the United States.

In the HBO film series, John Adams, King George III expresses his concern that the citizens of the United States "...do not suffer from want of a monarchy." What this means is that United States has always maintained a ruling elite, a monarchy or oligarchy, since the days well before King George III consented to the United States in becoming an independent nation from England.