Paradox of Self-Amendment by Peter Suber rule of desuetude (see Section 19), and allow laws to fade away with their waning acceptance and usage, slowly disentrenched by the elanguescence of memory, relevancy, and desire. D. Entrenchment and time Entrenchment has an ineliminable temporal element. Entrenchment protects rules against future amendment. Therefore the paradox of omnipotence, as it arises in theology, has been said to fail to "get a grip" if the deity is conceived as eternal, or literally outside of time.[Note 28] Even if this works for deities, it cannot work for ACs or sovereigns. The temporal element of entrenchment suggests another way to conceive entrenchment itself. "Protecting" and "insulating" a rule from amendment are metaphorical. The reality underlying the metaphor is that entrenchment makes the protected rule logically prior to certain temporally posterior rules of change. When an amendment is adopted that conflicts with an entrenched rule, other than an amendment designed to repeal the entrenching language, then the conflict is resolved in favor of the entrenchment clause, which takes the field to itself or amends the newer rule pro tanto. The ordinary rule of priority favors the recent rule in cases of conflicts, unless the older rule is of a legally or logically prior type. In these cases the rule favoring recency is reversed by the explicit terms of the entrenching language. This makes entrenchment clauses into rules of recognition that determine the priority of rules in conflict. They may be thought to attain that status by virtue of their own self-referential assertions or by virtue of a more traditional rule of priority, the lex specialis principle, which favors specific over general language. Entrenched clauses are reflexive or tacitly self-referential in their attempt to insure their own priority in future conflicts between themselves and attempts to amend or repeal them. They strive to become what is ordinarily forbidden —judges in their own case. They are not alone in this adjudicative hubris. The supremacy clause of the federal constitution, for example, not only declares the supremacy of the constitution of which it is a part, thus declaring its own supremacy, but it goes further and specifically adds that all state judges are bound by the federal constitution and this clause, "anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding" (Article VI, §2). We are not suspicious of the supremacy clause, perhaps because it restates the obvious, or more subtly, the obviously necessary, in a federal system; in short, because it is good policy. But we are suspicious of entrenchment and self-entrenchment clauses that share the logic of self-elevation. We might suspect entrenchment clauses because they presumptuously attempt to settle in their own favor all disputes in which they figure as parties. We recall that John Locke located the tyranny of absolute monarchs precisely in their capacity to be judges in their own cases,[Note 29] and that Madison advocated a republic with a system of checks and balances over a pure democracy to avoid the same evil.[Note 30] But the fact is that the supremacy clause is equally presumptuous in settling its conflicts with state law, in advance, by its own terms. I submit that the reason we suspect one and not the other is entirely a difference of the wisdom of the policy that is attempting to prevail by its own terms. Bound up with this reflexive view of entrenchment is a temporal view, for entrenchment and self-entrenchment clauses, at their humblest and at their most presumptuous, only feign to prevail in future disputes in which they might be implicated. This allows us to see that ordinary implied repeal and implied amendment (see Section 16) are the temporally symmetrical correlates of entrenchment. In conflicts they tell us to prefer the recent rule and to amend all earlier rules in conflict with it pro tanto. Entrenchment and implied repeal are symmetrical temporally, but are not equally weighted legally. Implied repeals or preference for the recent rule is the norm, and entrenchment or preference for the earlier rule is the exception (when the rules are on the same level). Indeed, preference for the new rule is presumed, and is only rebutted (when rebutted) by the affirmative specific act of adopting the entrenching language. In the language of presumptions we may say that, historically, presumptions against entrenchment are rarely rebutted by implication and require explicit language; and on the other side, when there is explicit entrenching language, the presumption in favor of its plain meaning has always been rebuttable, sometimes by explicit language in a repeal amendment, sometimes by inattention or winks, but most often by appeal to public policy. The temporal perspective on entrenchment allows us to define a new type. Ordinary entrenching language protects a rule from amendment for an indefinite period of time. Most entrenchment clauses do not have "sunset clauses" in them that provide for automatic expiration after a certain date; but they could (see Section 14). Still, an entrenchment clause silent on the duration of its own effectiveness does not impliedly make itself valid forever. Nor on the other hand does it impliedly defer to a rule of desuetude. If the entrenched rule is a constitutional rule, then the entrenching language expires with the constitution or underlying rule. That may wisely be presumed for ordinary entrenchment clauses, just as in terrorem clauses lose their validity if the will in which they appear is successfully overturned. (In part, that is what "successfully overturning" the will means.) But suppose an entrenchment clause said, "this section shall not ever be amended or repealed, and shall not ever lose its validity, not even by or after the replacement of this constitution, by revolution, by complete change of the form of government, or by the extinction of the human race". Recall that the Arkansas, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee constitutions said that their Bills of Rights shall "forever remain inviolate". That is close, but Rhode Island came closer in its constitution of 1842. After announcing the right to alter or abolish government, the Bill of Rights added that "the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all". This sentence has three remarkable features. First, it is the only language in any American constitution that says of the whole instrument, in effect, "valid and supreme until amended", which suggests self-embracing, not continuing omnipotence. Second, it provides something of a test for the legality of rebellion —"an explicit and authentic act of the whole people" (see Section 18). Third, it imposes a duty, or sacred obligation, upon "all" (which for the present may be restricted to Rhode Islanders) to obey "the Constitution which at any time exists". It not only says that we should obey the rules (see the first rule of Nomic in Appendix 3), but that we should obey whatever rules will be in effect after any number of changes. It anticipates its own eventual obliteration, but tries to imposes a duty that will outlast its own validity. The duty to obey is entrenched beyond the 67