Can authority itself be morally legitimate?

What a difficult question for most people. And based upon my judgement of the majority of the people your short answer to that will be completely different from my own. But nonetheless I will prove to you through logic, reason and common sense that should be common.

My short answer is NO.

Not if authority is defined as the legitimate right to rule over others. Which obviously no one has. Not even the blue bloods or even those who were born first, nor has any corporation or any amount of individuals for that matter, possesses that right. You can't give another a right you don't have either.

And the reason you're probably in disagreement with this idear, is because you still believe that authority is legitimate. Yet no matter how far back we go and dig deep into that logic, not one shred of evidence exists in all of history that can prove their legitimacy other than pointing at the faith based rituals and legal parchments.

In other words, if no individual possesses an inherent moral right to rule another person, then a collection of individuals cannot magically generate that right through voting, uniforms, institutions, legal documents, rituals or even majority agreement.

And yes I know, that is a lot to take in. The idea of legitimate rule is so deeply normalized that questioning it often feels irrational and feels like an attack against the life of the believers of authority themselves, even when its foundation is never truly examined.

We can't all be free if the majority are mentally enslaved to fictional legitimate rule. We're in this boat together whether we like it or not.

If legitimacy cannot exist at the individual level, then by what mechanism does it suddenly become legitimate collectively?