allowing ourselves to be hoodwinked
The Queen stands for family, community and country, a passive patriotism that most of her subjects understand and appreciate. Her loyal service to her people is reciprocated by their loyalty to her, and to what she stands for. (The Telegraph)
What the Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and Head of the Commonwealth, stands for is something much more complex and sinister.
She stands for mindlessly clinging to traditions not based on equality, meritocracy or democracy.
She stands for the irrational human gravitation towards conservatism that flies in the face of universally agreed standards of good governance and fair representation.
She stands for the cult of celebrity in its oldest and most vicious form: she’s the product of generations of warring, privileged classes, those who were lucky enough to get the daggers in their fiercest opponents.
She stands for outdated, illogical patriotism in the form of tribal nationalism that doesn’t reflect our common humanity in this international society.
British media coverage of the Queen’s 90th birthday is a pig in the mud of all this nonsense. Where is the person brave enough to put their head above the parapet? When will someone in the media scream for all to hear: “The Emperor has no clothes on!”
No, instead we are treated to endless rounds of “Happy Birthday, Your Majesty” from people who must know better.
In the year 2016, to have an inherited monarchy, to celebrate one disgustingly rich and influential family and allow them to hold on to such power and wealth, is absurd, ridiculous, embarrassing!
Celebration of monarchy is worse than clinging to illogical religions. At least religion followers can claim to have truly believed that gods existed, that invisible forces were moving behind the scenes. What can we claim to have truly believed about an inherited monarchy? That it makes sense? That it is a sensible way to run a country? That tradition, however unfair, absurd and useless, must continue to be followed? There is no excuse. We are allowing ourselves to be hoodwinked.
Abolish the monarchy. Now.
I may be typically American, but I’ve never really understood the purpose in the monarchy. To me, they’re like the Kardashians… famous simply for being famous.
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But worse, because they inherit that right for centuries on end. The Kardashians would have to work at keeping their status in the public eye beyond this generation, they have no automatic right. And of course they get no funds via the government from your taxes, and they have no way to meddle in politics unless they wish to stand.
So, this is the problem. No-one understands the purpose but we appear to passively brainwashed into accepting them.
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almost 200 years ago, if not slightly more, in the Rights of Man, Thomas Paine argued against the monarchy.
I saw an article about a member of the Republican party in the UK[?] saying something like a national discussion should be had in the event of the queen’s passing. Maybe he is not saying it loudly.
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And hi and how are you?
good to see you back
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I’m fine, thanks. All well with you? I’ve lost all blogging enthusiasm. First time. Other blog breaks have been based on practicalities. But the Queen thing was annoying me so much I had to splat my views online. 🙂
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All is well with me.
What happened? You can post photos until such time you feel like writing again
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Oh dear, and now 200 years later we have the likes of John Zande and Tildeb arguing for it. Slow progress when people choose between perceived evils and don’t aim for logic.
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Because it works for us colonials. You have to admit, a Parliamentary system is far superior to the utter mess American’s, for example, have.
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I will have to read their reasons for thinking the monarchy is necessary
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Did you get a chance to read their reasons, expanded below? I’d be interested to know if you’re moved by them at all.
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I did read a number.
I guess each rational person has their blind spot and this is theirs.
I don’t see how having the Queen as the nominal head of our country would change anything
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The only argument I ever saw that might have held some sort of merit was the amount of money she and the rest of the Royal Nonsense brings in through Tourist Dollars etc.
And of course, if they went, Bob Geldoff, Paul McCartney,Mick Jagger and Richard Branson might have to relinquish their knighthoods.
Tough call.
😉
Otherwise …in the ( metaphorical) words of Lewis Carroll … ”Off with their heads!”
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Agreed, the tourist dollar argument used to sway me too, along with fear of following the US presidential model for head of state. But I think they are distractions to keep us hooked and keep THEM in power. And they do have real power, lots of money and waaaaay too much influence.
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In the words of the immortal Johnny Rotten:
God save the Queen
‘Cause tourists are money
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Lovely to see you here again. I am weakly Republican- I would abolish the Monarchy, but do not really care much about it- but one argument for the Monarchy is brought to mind by a book recently published, saying Meritocracy is a myth because there is so much luck involved. The people at the top in any profession are indeed talented and hard-working, but many other people are almost equally talented and hard-working and nowhere near the top. The Queen is a reminder how much luck plays a part. God bless her, and all who sail in her!
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I don’t think there’s much of a meritocracy either, not in a complete sense. We have no way to perform a 100% evaluation of every individual and their actions/ideas into the future. But we should be pushing for all governing frameworks to be based on that principle, and moving further away from the idea “it’s who you know” or sheer luck.
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What the Queen stands for is a founding legitimacy for all law and governance in these countries as well as a fall back government. Get rid of the Monarchy, have to replace everything with something else and then get everyone to agree. That usually involves a very bloody revolution and decades of civil unrest. No thanks.
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I agree. I like how the Queen fits into governance. Of course, we’ve been spoiled with QE2, but the separation of power actually works for us colonials.
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Indeed. And it’s a very handy stick for the public to have the military swear allegiance to the monarchy so that government and its leadership – unless accompanied by about 3/4 of the population’s stated approval – is still accountable to the head of state to submit to the Constitution (which is why it’s called a Constitutional monarchy for those who may be unclear) rather than the head of some political party or powerful business lobby. The checks and balances, although different in Republics, seem to allow for functional governance rather than gridlock.
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Choke. Quote worth a post, at least. You don’t fail to disappoint with your wonky, illogical views bouncing around on a façade of rational thought (and couched in linguistic frippery).
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What’s so showy about understanding the very real costs and very real and practical problems to altering a constitutional monarchy?
Well, I think you have no clue what it is you’re really proposing.
Remember, VW, we colonials already have an independent and functioning government and a fully volunteer military. What the monarchy does is allow all branches to function while providing a usable check in the event of over-reaching by any one branch. Of special note here in Canada is the relationship between the Crown and indigenous populations with which it (and not a Him or a Her) signed treaties. This is the legal road by which the indigenous populations have brought about very real legal recognition from the overbearing yet indifferent duly elected governments.
It is the Crown to which opposition parties can appeal for coalitions. It is the Crown that stamps any elected body with the right to form a government. Without this very real legal relationship – carried out by Her Majesty’s representatives federally and provincially – with the monarchy, constitutional monarchies really do have to change everything to become a Republic and then find some means to approve it. This is no small feat and so one has to consider the costs.
When you have a country like Canada with a very diverse population in every usual identity people find meaningful – like culture and language and religion and ethnicity – then what you are suggesting – getting rid of the monarchy and replacing it with something supposedly widely acceptable – becomes not just a herculean task but a means to reopen all of the very wounds out of which the modern and tolerant country has earned its graduation.
What you see as mostly a symbolic and parasitic position is for others a central feature – a foundation – upon which a highly successful country has been built. Proposing to remove this foundation is not some relatively trivial action nor is defending its maintenance for these very real concerns something you so easily dismiss as a facade of rational thought. Defending the Monarchy is Realpolitik in action, whether you recognize this brute fact or not.
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This is utterly absurd Tildeb. You could just as easily sell to me that the office of Pope is vital for world peace and therefore we should all quietly accept that invisible gods exist.
Roles in public life either make sense or they don’t. We can’t accept that a thoroughly corrupt system that defies our every understanding of equality for all human life is “good” because of incidents that *appear* to have turned out better because we were too scared to push for ethical change.
You are clearly a frightened conservative at core who imagines the worst when change in the name of logic, change in the name of human advancement is proposed. I’m amused, and mildly confused, that John and Victoria agree with you.
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Well, you state as if true that my explanation is ‘absurd’ without revealing how and then assume the analogy about maintaining the pope for world peace is somehow equivalent. It’s not.
Unlike you, I’ve lived through several national referendums from different locations in the country that deal ONLY with Quebec independence as well as several provincial referendums on changing the electoral system. I know perfectly well how organizing a fundamental change to our federation’s fundamental political system really does instigate and then let loose so much acrimony and violence. It’s quite ugly, VW. And for what? What’s the goal? If it’s political stability and fairness (peace, order, and good governance) then the evidence is here on the ground how it obtains that goal. That’s not ‘absurd’; it’s reality. Threatening this with some pie-in-the-sky ra-ra Republic to obtain the same result comes far closer to meeting the definition of ‘absurd’ when we look at how such changes really do occur… you know, in reality.
If peace, order, and good governance are the goals of any self-determining people, then it’s really quite important to understand how the legitimate complaints of disparate groups and regions require a means to evolve with resolutions without invoking revolutions. You dismiss my arguments that a constitutional monarchy does this out of hand But you’re wrong to do so.
The constitutional monarchy here in Canada provides this means. In other words, it’s not the political system’s fault that ongoing problems exist; the system has proven to be quite robust bringing about many such resolutions without revolution even if far too slow for some. But disbanding the old before having a better one ready to go is not a good idea. This is what we have learned with these referendums… and carry it forward into other highly evocative areas of debate like abortion and religious privilege: keep the system in place and functioning, devolve them to regional and even local concerns backdropped against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms for all, and then let these issues evolve on their own and in their own time.
The claim that I think this system works pretty well because I’m a frightened conservative will be highly amusing to some who know me. Because I have lived and worked in various parts of the world, I am very thankful for the system we have in Canada and think it’s a pretty good model to offer the rest of the world so often caught up in their myopic and often intolerant difficulties… all too willing to impose the tyranny of the majority or the best armed in the name of democracy and freedom while failing to recognize mob rule when they see it.
Peace, order, and good governance is not something to ever take for granted and one should not be too quick to presume a model that does work can be improved by tearing it down in the name of Republicanism.
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Tildeb is a pragmatist. His ability to analyze the realpolitik angle is quite exceptional. In that sense, what he’s saying is that it doesn’t matter if your arguments are true, but that the result of pushing them forward is not necessarily productive.
At this point I agree. I think a transition process should occur at QEII’s death. At that point referendums should be held to decide which countries want to stick with which system. I do like the idea of a third party (like the queen), though. One that’s above politics as the cultural representative of a country. It could be someone who’s voted for and can speak their mind. Like an elected royal head, with a limited 4/6 year mandate. I think that would put the fear of Jeebus into the politicians. An elected voice who can question their decisions. I nominate Dame Edna to be first in the role.
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Your argument against the Queen sounds positively American!
It supports my claim that inside every human being is an American just waiting to get out.
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Mine stays well buried.
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Ouch. We’re not that bad. We’re like slightly more civilized Australians.
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Your argument against the Queen sounds positively Greek!
It supports my claim that inside every human being is a Greek just waiting to get out.
Hold on, I meant, of course, that:
Your argument against the Queen sounds positively Roman!
It supports my claim that inside every human being is a Roman just waiting to get out. 😉
Oh, sorry I meant:
Your argument against the Queen sounds positively French!
It supports my claim that inside every human being is a Frenchman just waiting to get out.
Wait, wait! What I really meant was:
Your argument against the Queen sounds positively Soviet!
It supports my claim that inside every human being is a Soviet just waiting to get out. 🙂
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Being in the UK I can appreciate your position, but I like having the Queen as Australia’s head of state. In some odd and peculiar way, it makes our politics more sane. Humans need hierarchy. That’s just a fact. And having an almost invisible head (who does nothing and interferes not) is quite clever.
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Speechless. Join the religious dunce corner with Tildeb. I’m losing all faith in the rational thinking power of atheists. I used to passively accept the monarchy as a tradition that generate tourist income and an easy escape from presidential nonsense, but it’s a religious double think to accept it. Would we accept a new nation setting up a democracy making a heritable monarchy from old money and power families, receiving tax income and having the ear of elected leaders on a regular basis? No-one in their right mind would. Passive acceptance of Wrongness for fear of change, for fear of something worse happening is not how human society progresses or improves.
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Can’t you, however, see the benefits from a political perspective? Having an almost invisible head of state actually works wonders on the ground.
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John,
Free people aren’t even able to conceive of something like “monarchy” being good.
Even leftist drones who religiously worship state rule over the ignorant masses somehow find it in their hearts to detest the idea of monarchy, the rule of one person uber alles.
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Yes, and I can see the benefit of having popes too. Doesn’t mean I think it’s a sensible or ethical office that should continue, just in case civilisation collapses without it …
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Well, if you can suggest some viable alternative that maintains the (political) benefits presently enjoyed by countries like Australia then i’m all ears.
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God save the Queen!
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Indeed.
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Fact, really? Okay, let’s all lobby to keep the Pope then shall we? And the Archbishop of Canterbury.
And the House of Lords and … and ….
Ah … frak it, let the bastards eat cake.
😉
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Unbelievable. I used to halfheartedly think, ‘oh well some tourist income and something to look at, better than a president!’. But it’s a sales pitch to keep the wonky status quo. It makes no sense at all. If a country falls apart because a distant figurehead from an unethical archaic hereditary monarchy is abolished, then perhaps the country would do better in smaller units. Perhaps the whole world political map could be redrawn, with no blood drawn, and we could have sensible governments that can realistically represent inhabitants of certain geographical areas. Don’t get me started on the House of Lords … I can’t believe we have such reams of political nonsense in 2016!!
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Or you could have Jacob Zuma ….
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It would be fun to be a member of the royal family and have some title like Earl or Viceroy of Kent, then I could just throw parties and putter around–in better style than I do now.
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First you must learn the Royal Greeting.
Try this:
Air, Hair, Lair.
Repeat twenty times and see how you go.
Lesson Two: The Royal Wave.
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Here in Finland we have only the “Tango-royalties” and new ones are elected every year. 😉
Our last morarch was the Russian Tzar, and he ended up in a bad way, because his people (mainly Russians, but it was a multinational empire, that he ruled) got fed up with him and the system that made him and a bunch of cronies extremely rich while the rest of the people were starving.
Before the Tzars Finns were the subjects of the Swedish crown for centuries and Swedish princes used to get the dukedom of Finland as a training ground for their future rulership. Even today the Swedish royalty are very popular in Finland.
I can see the points John and Tildeb made about royalty, but personally I do not think a modern democratic society would collapse into violence if they decided by majority vote to renounce the political implications related to a royal family, or take taxmoney support off a single filthy rich family. Nor do I think a nation requires a symbolic hereditary overhead watching on politics. Such seems like a bit condescending.
Our president used to have much power in the politics, but today even though the president is a political representative voted to the position his job is more like to act as an overseer to what the government does, than to be the government. Perhaps it is just my cultural backround speaking, but to me this seems like a rather sane system. For example, our current president is a member of the conservative coalition party and as such I do not hold all the same values, or agree with him on many issues, but he has gained some of my respect by his actions most of wich as a president have been quite moderate and more like acting as a mediator where the partisan lines have been drawn.
When Finland got it’s indipendence our conservatives were planning to make our country a monarchy. They allready had asked Kaisar Wilhelm of Germany for one of his sons to become the Finnish monarch, when the “great” war went sauer(kraut) for the Germans. There was a bit of a civil unrest in Finland at the time too and a bloody civil war, wich the Germans as one of their final acts in the war, helped one side to win. However, the plans to make Finland a monarchy were not much of an issue in that war. The war was about starving people taking up arms against social injustice and for the winning side about stopping Finland becoming a communist country.
Having royalty for the sake of tourism is nonsense. Tourists of course are interrested in the culture of the country they visit, but it really does not make any difference wether or not the traditional ruler of a country has any more or less nominal influence in politics. People go to Rome just to see the ruins of the ancient imperial Roman culture, it is not at all like there needed to be an actual Roman emperor there supported, or funded by the Italian government and having some nominal political power to oversee Italian politics…
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Rautakyy, I think you – like many here – underestimate the scope and depth of some of the problems that would accompany the loss of the Monarchy. In comparison, Finland is rather homogeneous to a place like Canada where many different kinds of historical enemies live side by side in peace and prosperity and good governance. I think it’s a rather naive assumption to think a radical shift in the political structure would not be reflected in social unrest and a pipe dream to think it wouldn’t open up a Pandora’s box of unnecessary and highly negative effects to that peace and prosperity – especially when a means to air historical grievances is available.
As John says, this current system works for many of us colonials to an extraordinary degree with a benign and mostly symbolic royal head of state… an office that can be and has been called upon and to positive effect in times of need for dispute resolution. Peacefully. This is not a trivial consideration and to be assigned to the religious dunce corner for understanding why it’s real world removal contains unintended consequences reflects a scope if not arrogance then ignorance on the part of those who presume the Monarchy is mostly anachronistic and a pandering to a rich family.
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So what do you think about the scope and depth of problems the world would face if the we were to lose religious underpinning? Serious question. It would be a bloody mess. Nothing compared to replacing a defunct hereditary figure head with something that makes sense politically.
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It may be true, that I underrestimate the scope of the problems a loss of a monarchy could arouse. I have no personal experience. However, I also find it a bit patronizing to assume a royal monarch somehow can always stem the tide of social unrest, or even that people really need anything like that – essentially a parent figure, much like a god – to solve their problems, or even to calm them down. In the modern world a monarch is almost as likely to become the symbol of social injusticies, as they are to become the symbol of national, or social unity.
To me it seems, that the Queen Elizabeth II, for example, has done a brilliant job at her position, but relying on a monarchy to be some sort of heart and soul of a nation, or a commonwealth is ultimately relying on a mechanism, that one family keeps producing brilliant minds to weild that sort of authority among their eldest offspring. Now, I know a lot of the business world works the same way, but I oppose it there too, even in the face, that it could be argued a good business culture comes from continuity of the business from “father to son” in comparrison to – say quarter year economy of cashing out maximum wins by dealing out the assets, “renovating” out the employees and stopping product development for the benefit of some temporary shareholders. Societies are not businesses, and societies are quite capable of managing without very expensive monarchies. Are they not?
I get it, that to the old colonies of an empire the symbol of the imperial legacy, may serve as some sort of nourishment to the wounds of the people no longer being part of some greater might – like an empire – that they were taught existed to protect them. But it is a dangerous placebo, because it also serves as a continuation to a culture of valuing authoritarianism and imperialism.
On the other hand, I have some personal experience about Russia, and as a Finn, I like many of my countrymen, keep a close look at what happens there. Since the tzars rose to power in late medieval period, Russia has always been ruled by a strongman. Be that strongman benevolent, malevolent, powerhungry, mighty or weak, it seems to be the one thing that Russians are not going to give up anytime soon. They have experimented with all sorts of rather radical and opposite social and ideological models, but they always remain an empire led by one man, who serves as a monarch, father figure, sole ruler of their land, and we the neighbours, just like Russians themselves are very much affected what sort of dude sits on that particular throne…
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In an earlier comment, I reiterated John’s point that the monarchy is not a him or her but an office and vital symbolic office from which authority is justified in our laws. If one removes this foundation upon which everything governmental has been built, then it is not unreasonable to expect a certain amount of instability. This is the role the Monarchy plays in Canada and it is central to what Canada has become. One cannot remove it, substitute Republicanism, and think the change is therefore of some greater benefit regardless of the fundamental problems – political, legal, and social – such a radical move would entail.
Look, to all intent and purposes, Canada is already an independent country with its own Constitution and Charter, its own style of governance and electoral system, its own ability to raise taxes and borrow, raise an armed force, establish foreign policy and speak internationally as a recognized political entity. What i am saying versus VW’s portrayal of the Monarchy is that its continuance is not as simple as she makes it out to be because some of us live under systems that require its continuance as an institution and not as she seems to view it as merely a privileged family.
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@Tildeb, I may be a bit thick, but I just do not see your point. Could you try to explain this once more to me with some practical example? What do you think would really happen, if Canada renounced the monarchy and for example decided on a presidential election for a person who would then on have a short period to be in the same position as the persona of the monarch has in your society? I mean, if a monarchy is ended by a majority vote in a democratic situation, what could be a more reliable way of coming to the end of some monarch having this rather silly position as a head of government as a result of something as random as birthright?
Now, I know the French and Russian revolutions resulted in violence, or more like they were violent processes, because the priviledged classes were not ready to let go of their priviledges and when they fell a new crowd of people wanted to adopt their priviledges. However, that was hardly simply because the monarchies were somehow good systems and were not replaced by better social models of more democratic governance. On the contrary, those monarchies were exeptionally malfunctioning social systems and that is why they ended so violently. At least in Russia, the violent nature of the imperial system of the monarchs has influenced all later governments of the Soviet Union and Russia to be more or less equally based on violence and imperialism.
As the Russian revolution instituted an ideological atheist government, and the Soviet Union proved out not to be the utopia intended by socialists, it has been claimed by the Theists, that this somehow proved the immorality of atheists. Yet, you and I are atheists, yes? Does that make us immoral? No? To me at least it is on the same level to claim, that monarchy is necessary for people to remain civil within any particular society, as it is to claim, that people need to remain religious to remain civil. Patronizing.
I agree with you, that there needs to be a well thought alternative to the monarchic system before people need to rush to abolish it, but as there are functioning societies around the globe, that have no monarchs, it seems to me, it is not such a difficult leap to achieve one.
I guess, looking at the world from Canada, as there is a big dysfunctioning republic right over the border, the idea of such model of governance does not seem very ideal. The same could be said by looking the world from Finland as we have a large, strong and unpredictable republic behind our border (namely Russia) and a number of very functional and quite ethical societies symbolically led by monarchies on the opposite side (the Scandinavian countries). Yet, even so, as a Finn, I would say, that the very notion of people being subjects, rather than citizens is revolting in regard to human value I would like to give myself and others and the indipendence of the individual on a principal level.
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The OP suggested the monarchy was simply an anachronistic bit of nostalgic history kept alive only by inertia and those who failed to see it as such. So my comment was intended to point out that there are different viewpoints that are well founded on compelling evidence, namely, constitutional monarchies like Canada that depend on the Monarchy for their political and institutional structures. I thought I was being very clear that the role of the Monarchy for many of us colonials was as an office from which our countries have been built and continue to flourish. To eliminate the Monarchy was fare more disruptive than keeping it and even threatened – or should I say invited – violent responses.
We would need to replace the entire political structure the Monarchy provides as an office here in Canada… not by electing a symbolic leader but by replacing the office itself. Into this void we would have to find a legitimate source of authority – one generally respected by all. Republicanism as we know it today usually does this by awarding to the individual the right to grant individual consent. Authority comes from the individual. The will of the majority is then reflected and justified in election results as an expression of majority consent. So right here we have a HUGE problem in Canada. To start with, 25% of the population – francophones – will not tolerate anything less than equivalency in Constitutional authority to the Rest of Canada (ROC).
From the Quebec point of view, there is English Canada versus French Canada. From the aboriginal point of view, there is First Nations Canada versus the Rest of Canada. From the Western provinces we get a view of East versus West, from the North, North versus South, coastal versus interior, industrial versus agriculture and services, municipal versus rural, city versus province versus federal. With a third of the country’s population, Toronto is hated by the other two thirds! And so on. There are so many divisions between multicultural, multiethnic, multilingual, multireligious, multigeographical people here in Canada that would inevitably give voice, if given a chance to be on platform, to a dizzying array of these competing voices. When that happens, people inevitably take sides, form coalitions, spend time, effort, and money, advancing some interests against others.
What we have is a federal system that works, that has clearly defined political boundaries based on shared concentric rings. The authority for these boundaries rests with an historical connection to the Crown creating precedent law out of which our modern codes have evolved. To simply cast aside the Crown in favour of some other system like individual autonomy is not an improvement because we already have that facet of Republicanism built into the modern system. All we would be doing is eliminating the Crown portion of the justification and leaving a vacuum in its place that then removes the justification for all kinds of laws and policies. Such move politically would be equivalent to having a tsunami and major earthquake at the same time that would then cause all kinds of uncontrolled firestorms. The only way to avoid that would be to have an alternative ready to go and getting that would be cause for a lot of unrest as various interests competed to try to just get back to where we are, a country that has a ruling principle to attain and keep peace, order, and good government. That is exactly what we would no longer have if the Crown was abolished.
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@Tildeb, that is an interresting view. Perhaps you have a good point, yet I can not help, but to disagree with you on this matter for now. It sounds as though your system is not actually such a good method of governance after all. That is, if it is actually true, that all these factions you mentioned are only kept in line and in discussion on how to develope your country by the traditional, but also obviously artificial and random authority given to the “crown”, wich after all, is represented by a person who gets this office by being born to a particular family. It makes it sound to me like the position of the crown is not the solution, rather a part of the problem.
Finland is a divided country where the various different Finnish tribes with varying dialects have high suspicions about each other. We also have a good number of different religious, ethnic minorities. We are a bilingual nation, with two official languages Finnish and Swedish, wich means an official and a politician must be ready to serve the public in both of those languages. We have had for a century of indipendence a lot of people whose mothers tongue is Russian and equally long a small Muslim community. Our main religion is Lutheran protestantism, but it is more divided between it’s own moderate main line and a very small evangelical group of extremists, than the main number of Lutherans are from our moderate Orthodox minority. We have ever increasing number of Vietnamise, Arabic, Kurdish, Persian and Somali minorities. We have a prominent minority of Romani people and the Saami people in the north, who are the only group of people in Europe recognized as an indigineous people to Lapland. The city dwellers are suspicious of countrymen and vice versa. But in our politics these divisions are not the main issues by any measure. In a lot of ways a true success of a democracy may be recognized by people not gathering in political issues around their ethnic heritage.
In Iraq after the deposing of Saddam and the Baath party, democracy has not yet found a way to unite the many religious and ethnic groups living side by side in that country. During the time of Saddam the Sunnis held all the power, now the different ethnic and religous factions have gathered political strength according to those lines. It may take aeons before the voters learn, that they do not have to vote according to their family heritage, but according to their conscious and reason. I hope it does not take too long for them. I am hopefull, because the Finns learned their lesson on this issue rather quickly in just a couple of decades and though it also meant hardship, it seems like it was worth while lesson to be learned. I doubt Canada would fall into such turmoil as Iraq, if the role of the crown in your system was replaced by a democratic system. I even think the change might be easier to you, than you think, but you know better the situation in your country than I do. 🙂
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@Rautakyy
I’m not suggesting that modern constitutional democracies should have a monarchy or that this is the best way to go.I think there are much better systems to found a new nation. But I’m a pragmatists, too, and understand that such a change to a form of Republicanism is a huge and difficult undertaking fraught with the danger of violence and civil unrest.
At the time of Canada’s emergent founding (through a series of Acts by the British parliament), one has to remember that not just historical enemies constituted its population but also had a significant native component that had established treaties and had offered and carried out a significant military contribution keeping these colonies separate from the revolution to our south.
In addition, the Canadian colonies absorbed more than half a million loyalists – wealthy loyalists – from the colonies to the south who deeply wished to keep their ties to the Crown intact. A later invasion by the Americans was successfully repulsed by these united historical enemies… aided in no small part by the native population. The Royal Navy played a key role, too. This event solidified the system against revolutionary change (with some eruptions quickly and brutally suppressed) and, when the country was constitutionally born, French and English leaders ran for elected offices in opposite locations to demonstrate the maturity of the electorate.
The political model at that time allowed for the unification of these enemies into a cohesive and (relatively) peaceful unit. That’s why our Constitution lays out the fundamental purpose for political power: to provide peace, order, and good governance. This is what I mean when I say the country is founded upon the Crown and its roots are central to today’s country. One cannot cut out the root without deeply affecting and altering the entire system and that such a move is not trivial but profound.
Issues of personalities of different monarchs play no part in the Crown’s importance to the country. We appoint the Monarch’s representatives by parliamentary approval. The Governor-General’s office is the one to which our military undertakes its oath, the office to which our Prime Minister submits the writ to hold an election and the office to which is empowered to ask newly elected party leaders to form a majority, minority, or coalition government. Much of this is ceremonial as well as legal but on contentious political issues plays a key role in arbitrating terms acceptable to a majority represented by party leaders. It is the GG to whom issues of indigenous and infringed treaty rights are taken for the Crown to act as the party bringing forth these contentious issues with its backing to parliament. Unlike the US, we can’t ignore these treaties nor break them without regard.
I say all of this because I mean to offer some scope of change necessary – and why the change is not popular – to become a full Republic – a change made far more difficult and unlikely due to a long history of very intentional policies and guided law to make this kind of fundamental change far more difficult than it may appear to outsiders (and those who don’t know our history) in order to protect various minority concerns upon which they entered this Confederation! Changing that aspect of our political system breaks the very bonds out of which Canada itself was formed.
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@Tildeb, I see what you mean. Thank you for the short but thorough explanation. I admit I am very interrested in history. Do I get you right? That the change from democratic nation, that is nominally a monarchy to a democratic republic would be both unnecessary and even dangerous to your society at the moment, because of historical, political and judical reasons?
Yet, I cannot but help to think, that this might be the time for you to start to move as a nation towards that direction, just because now you happen to still have a rather restfull moment in history to take the leap. Even if the crown is legally a separate entity from the persona of the individual monarch, the person of the monarch, however, affects the public opinion on the monarchy and politics tied to it.
In addition, this change might come wether you Canadians so choose or not. The British nation might decide to move the royal family outside government alltogether. Would you then retain your system and position of the royalty? Would not such a situation to create the very same social unrest or worse, that you would rather choose to stem off by retaining to the present system? The topic post may not present the popular view in Britain at the moment, but the person representing the crown at the moment is very old and there might be a rapid succession and a change in the climate towards the traditional role of the monarch.
The system of legality built around a “crown”, that is to say a hereditary position of a monarch, and as such a monarchy is woulnerable to future social unrest, as it is based rather on tradition, than on any rational basic values.
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Do I get you right? That the change from democratic nation, that is nominally a monarchy to a democratic republic would be both unnecessary and even dangerous to your society at the moment, because of historical, political and judical reasons?
Yes, just so. It’s very pragmatic. We function very well under the banner of a constitutional monarchy even though that Monarchy is technically a foreign one. Support for the Monarchy here is not because the population is being hoodwinked as the OP suggests but a rather a mature and informed and intentional support for a system that works very well for us… one that does produce peace, order, and good governance.
In reality we have a slow but steady progression away an actual monarch and towards a symbolic representation of a Monarchy. If the Monarchy itself were to be eliminated in England (and I don’t see this happening any time soon), the traditions would – I think – be easier to continue in their symbolic form than the system itself exchanged for some new basis. I will even go so far as to say that Canadians won’t be voting to get rid of it unless they themselves are hoodwinked into thinking some other form not quite articulated might be preferable.
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Phew, I was beginning to wonder when the world tipped on its head.
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I assume you refer to Tango being originally from Argentina? We have a rather German version of Tango culture in Finland. Finnish Tango lacks the passion of the original stuff. It is more like “Shlager” -type easylistening sort of music and the words are moaning about lost love and chances. It became very popular in Finland just prior to WWII, and it came here through Germany, just like almost all cultural loans at the time. The generation who went to war adopted it soon after the war. I suppose there was just the chance to dance intimately, that attracts any healthy individual, but also the fact, that these people had missed out on a lot of their youth and as a result it remained a part of Finnish culture. Multiculturalism of sorts.
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While we’re (kind of) on the topic, can someone explain to me how the whole Emperor and the Sith/Knights of Ren thing fits in with the governing bodies in the Star Wars movies?
In the old ones, it seems that all the officers take orders from Darth (Lord) Vader even though he doesn’t have a rank. In the new one, Kylo Ren is ordering everyone around and yet he himself has no rank, either. Also, in the movies both address soldiers in the middle ranks as well.
As for the Queen, I say keep her and the whole Monarchy, but as Eddie Izzard says, let’s ditch the whole “God Save the Queen” thing because with all the Palace and the guards and everything, “that’s one saved f##king Queen!”
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Coming out from my exile to post this — off-topic, but important:
h/t Francois Trembley from The Prime Directive:
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P.S. Tremblay, that is. Apologies to Francois.
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I check your blog daily for new posts, Violet. Start blogging again this instant!
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