primitives discuss monarchy

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025557554

Oh my.

MohRokTah (4,242 posts)    Fri Sep 19, 2014, 12:17 AM

BBC calls it. Scotland votes NO, 55-45

That's pretty much the nail in the coffin for Scotland Independence.

After which some primitive rumble-mumble, and then the subject changes:

Nye Bevan (17,011 posts)    Fri Sep 19, 2014, 12:32 AM

7. Congrats to the UK on still being the UK!

Ken Burch (34,190 posts)    Fri Sep 19, 2014, 12:48 AM

10. The actual Nye Bevan would NEVER say anything like that.

(Hopefully, they'll at least get rid of the "K"...monarchy is ridiculous in this day and age).

^^^one of the biggest rectal apertures on Skins's island.

Nye Bevan (17,011 posts)    Fri Sep 19, 2014, 12:56 AM

13. Well.... Canada and Australia haven't got that message yet,

and show no signs of getting it anytime soon.

Ken Burch (34,190 posts)    Fri Sep 19, 2014, 01:06 AM

14. A few more embarrassments from the Battenbergs and it'll sink in.

Basically, at this point the royals are the world's most overpaid theme-park employees.

^^^one of the biggest.....well, I repeat myself.

Spider Jerusalem (18,257 posts)    Fri Sep 19, 2014, 01:08 AM

15. Tell the Swedes, the Belgians, the Norwegians, the Dutch, the Danes, the Spanish, the Japanese...

it's not like the UK is the only constitutional monarchy in the world.

Ken Burch (34,190 posts)    Fri Sep 19, 2014, 01:13 AM

16. And those are all silly, too.

Heriditary rule should be a thing of the past, especially when(and this isn't the case in Scandinavia or Holland, to be fair)it's accompanied by a obscenely luxurious lifestyle.
 
And the actual Nye Bevan, a left-wing socialist, Labour cabinet minister(back when the Labour Party actually stood for something) and miner's son, would not have had much of any sympathy with the royals.

<<<thinks the primitive idolatry of the dynastic Kennedys in America's the same thing, or worse.

Spider Jerusalem (18,257 posts)   Fri Sep 19, 2014, 01:21 AM

17. Not really that silly.

There's something to be said for stability and continuity. The American system of making the president essentially an elected king has its own problems. Look at the Republicans equating support for Bush with patriotism post 9/11. In a constitutional monarchy support for the head of state in the person of the monarch is separate and distinct from support for the government of the day.

^^^a rare phenomenon; a primitive who knows something of what he's talking about.

treestar (51,951 posts)    Fri Sep 19, 2014, 08:22 AM

23. It is a thing of the past

They have no real ruling powers at this point. The luxury is due to wealth built up over centuries in the family. Other families will have that, too. They are merely descendants of the rulers who are rich just like the descendants of any rich people will be.

Donald Ian Rankin (11,362 posts)    Fri Sep 19, 2014, 03:31 AM

21. I disagree - I think that purely ceremonial monarchy is quite a good idea.

"Tories saying it ought to be preserved because it was clever, and Radicals saying it ought to be destroyed because it was stupid, and all the time no one saw that it was right because it was stupid," -G.K.Chesterton, "The Napoleon of Notting Hill" (actually talking about something slightly different, but the quote is apposite here).
 
I think that purely ceremonial monarchy is quite a good system.

How often have you heard people saying about e.g. George Bush "You may not respect the individual, but you have a duty to respect the office he holds, so moderate your criticism"?
 
The great virtue of a hereditary monarchy is that one can say "You may respect the individual (conversely, you may think he is a fatuous big-eared fool who talks to plants), but you have a duty not to respect the office he holds".
 
I think that it is healthy to separate the individual who serves as a ceremonial focus from patriotism from the individual who actually runs the country. If you're doing that, you want to make sure that the ceremonial individual does not hold any power, and that it is universally obvious that their views carry no weight. And the great virtue of hereditary - better even than lottery - is that it makes it absolutely clear that the holder has no kind of mandate for any kind of power whatsoever.
 
The big scandal in British politics is not the monarchy, it's the House of Lords, which does actually wield power. (Also, the civil list should be smaller, but that doesn't matter so much).

<<<thinks the House of Lords needs to be empowered more.

[DumbAss Tanker]

...thinks the House of Lords needs to be empowered more.

They're actually even goofier than Labour in Commons, being entirely composed of children of wealth who didn't earn any of it themselves, products of the educational system of the elites with all the social indoctrination that entails, and possessing all the common sense and grip on reality that those things normally entail. 

[BlueStateSaint]

They're actually even goofier than Labour in Commons, being entirely composed of children of wealth who didn't earn any of it themselves, products of the educational system of the elites with all the social indoctrination that entails, and possessing all the common sense and grip on reality that those things normally entail.

Take a look at the makeup:

http://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/lords/composition-of-the-lords/

[DumbAss Tanker]

Take a look at the makeup:

http://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/lords/composition-of-the-lords/

"Bishops," of course, means CofE bishops, an organization that is generally somewhere roughly around the Labour Party on the political spectrum.

[BlueStateSaint]

"Bishops," of course, means CofE bishops, an organization that is generally somewhere roughly around the Labour Party on the political spectrum.

I knew that the 'bishops' weren't Roman Catholic . . .

[Aristotelian]

Ken Burch (34,190 posts)    Fri Sep 19, 2014, 12:48 AM

10. The actual Nye Bevan would NEVER say anything like that.

(Hopefully, they'll at least get rid of the "K"...monarchy is ridiculous in this day and age).

I do love their belief in democracy - support for removing the monarchy is consistently below 20%, a figure referred to as the most stable trend there is by a number of opinion pollsters...and that's even with anti-monarchy leftist propaganda spewed out by the B.B.C. et al.

On the issue of cost, the Queen surrenders the revenues of the Crown Estate and in return is paid the sovereign's grant - this means that she pays an effective tax rate of about 90%.

[thundley4]

I do love their belief in democracy - support for removing the monarchy is consistently below 20%, a figure referred to as the most stable trend there is by a number of opinion pollsters...and that's even with anti-monarchy leftist propaganda spewed out by the B.B.C. et al.

On the issue of cost, the Queen surrenders the revenues of the Crown Estate and in return is paid the sovereign's grant - this means that she pays an effective tax rate of about 90%.

I've also read that the Royal Family's budget is less than what the Obama's have been spending each year.

[GOBUCKS]

I've also read that the Royal Family's budget is less than what the Obama's have been spending each year.

The Queen doesn't fire up a 747 a couple of times a week for golf trips.

[67 Rover]

The Queen doesn't fire up a 747 a couple of times a week for golf trips.

She also avoids flying the Corgies around on the taxpayers dime as well.

[franksolich]

I've also read that the Royal Family's budget is less than what the Obama's have been spending each year.

Oh God yes.

I read once that maintaining and staffing the American embassy in London costs us more than maintaining the Royal Family costs the British.

As our colleague from there said, H.M. the Queen pays nearly all of her income over to the government.