America, Britain, and Israel
What is it that ties us together? It's simple, really: a veneration of Law.
Let's start with the youngest and oldest: the youngest people, and the oldest republic.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
I'm hard pressed to find a more beautiful set of words on the planet. In fact, I found them so beautiful, that I have, on several occasions, uttered this oath:
I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.
What is about this document, this concept? In drafting this, our forefathers gave birth to a new nation, one which was greater than all of them (a hard feat!), and which could grow, and change, and survive trials and tribulations; a nation that no single man could encompass, and which each of us could contribute to, and know that our children would inherit. And one which, despite being a democracy, would have constant laws that would survive the trials of the mob.
That, my friends is America. Britain? Ahh, how we love our spiritual parent (on an aside, anyone who doesn't think that war can lead to normalized and pleasant relations has never studied the American Revolution or the War of 1812). Britain was the key to the rule of law:
TO ALL FREE MEN OF OUR KINGDOM we have also granted, for us and our heirs for ever, all the liberties written out below, to have and to keep for them and their heirs, of us and our heirs
Ah, the renunciation of power by a monarch, in perpetuity. From that day forward, every man knew, sort of, where he stood. It took a while for the monarchy to be stripped of the rest of its dictatorial power, but the Magna Carta was the key (and, oddly enough, provided for the rights of Jews, and non-Jews, identically as bankers).
And Israel? The oldest and the youngest. A mere 60 years old, or several millenia, depending on how you count it. Here, too, is Law enshrined in the people and the land, but I look to the Talmud for the true rule of Law:
Why did he say: "it is not in heaven"?Rabbi Jeremiah said: "The Torah was given to us from Mount Sinai. We do not pay attention to an echoing voice, because on Mount Sinai you wrote in the Torah: "You are to incline after the majority" (Exod 23:2).
Rabbi Nathan met Elijah (and) said to him: "What did the Holy One, blessed be He!, do in that hour?"
He said: "He laughed and said: 'My sons have outshone me! My sons have outshone me!'"
God renouncing the ability to change the law out from under man - does it get any more amazing than that?
And here we have it: the renunciation of the rule of God, King, and Mob. And that is why America, Britain, and Israel often look like inseparable allies: all three are founded in the rule of Law, and the expectation that today's rules will still exist tomorrow.
