Yeah, I’m confused. I kind of think it’s our right/duty as Americans to not care about these people and their silly hats. But many Americans, including some with otherwise sensibly left-wing views, seem fascinated by the drama of it all.
I will say that I am pleased that the new King, whatever other odd beliefs he may hold, at least seems to understand that global warming is a serious problem.
I like the pomp and circumstance; the marching soldiers, brass bands, officials in ridiculous costumes and silly hats.
Well, this could be awkward.
“That people, because of the family they’re born into, should be able to be the head of state of our country? I think that’s disgraceful.”
– Liz Truss, 1984
But all British people wear silly hats, talk silly and have silly walks. They’re silly people and that’s OK.
…well, Henry VIII chopped some of his wives’ heads off. That wasn’t silly.
There are some who disagree.
I almost never argue in favor of norms. Unless, what do you mean by norms? That usually means folkways and mores. I tend to be against those. I call MAGA types idiots for falling for obvious lies, lacking critical thinking skills, and not having a basic familiarity with the laws and Constitution of the country they live in.
Again, I tend to be against most norms.
Where is the double standard?
BTW, by silly hats, I’m thinking of things like what this guy is wearing.
I like the eyeballs on the queen’s hat.
Hey, that’s the hat I wear on a daily basis!
And, to the best of my knowledge, QEII didn’t chop any heads off, so she was silly, too.
It’s almost like I’m more concerned about concentration camps than I am about some fucked-up twee protocol. When you see it through the lens of, “Is this person’s choices making other people suffer?” it’s amazing how the double standard just fades away.
Obviously, if you care more about the fuzzy hats that the beefeaters wear (or what the fuck ever) than you do about concentration camps, we’re not gonna see eye to eye on this issue.
astonishing headline news coming up - 47 year old mother of two no longer holds view that she held as an 18 year old.
I bet she no longer fancies George Michael either, bloody turncoat.
She probably doesn’t even get a drunken shag up a dark alley after a night out with a kebab in one hand and her heels in another.
As for the Swedish king: no. But it’s kind of a moot point. For the European royal families, money is basically never an issue. They have tenure, they get their appanage, the housing is taken care of, they have private physicians and at least the heads of states can’t be prosecuted (I think, but am too lazy to check all monarchies).
Someone made a comparison to the Kardashians and someone else to mascots. They’re not perfect similes but close enough. From what I read about monarchies in other countries (very little, because my interest is minimal), they are regarded as mascots and/or reality tv characters by most, but not all.
As it is with all celebrities, they are complicit with the gossip sheets: the tv shows, websites, magazines sell with royalty on the cover, and the royals need to be in the limelight to stay relevant. When dismissed to mascots/figure heads, they can’t achieve relevance the way they did in the 19th century, when they wielded actual power.
Most Americans seem have vague notions about monarchies in Europe beyond the UK: They are: Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Spain, Luxembourg, Monaco.
Liechtenstein is a semi-democratic monarchy
The Prince may veto laws adopted by parliament. The Prince may call referendums, propose new legislation, and dissolve parliament, although dissolution of parliament may be subject to a referendum
And finally Andorra which might be even weirder:
The president of France and the Catholic bishop of Urgell (Catalonia, Spain) act as co-princes
But with populations of about 40K and 80K respectively, these two micro countries don’t affect much beyond their own borders.
as for influence and relevance: It differs from country to country. Danes seem to think their Queen is kinda cool. She’s quite irreverent of her own position. In Spain, Juan Carlos was almost a saint, since he saved the infant democracy in 1981. He was forced to abdicate though, since the latter part of his reign was… problematic.
There’s no doubt that the UK monarchy is the Monarchy and I wonder if the adulation from the US might play a part. From what I see, in almost all of the others, the royals have a lower profile. I’ve never seen our king with the crown, even for the coronation in '73.
If you don’t remember the 10,000 norms of American democracy Trump was accused of breaking, nothing I say can matter.
No, you’re engaging in wish-fulfillment fantasy, much like those people who fantasize about the Jews in Germany having guns and taking a Nazi out whenever they came around. But venting is fun.
The main thing I remember from whenever Trump broke an ‘unwritten gentlemans agreement’ that I actually considered important was rage that nobody had taken the time to codify it into an actual law.
More, IMO Trump could have followed most of the norms and still exposed himself as a greedy, narcisistic child.
So, the Queen of England speaking up against concentration camps is like Jews in Germany shooting up Nazis. Is Tibby giving lessons in analogies somewhere?
“that much closer” is doing a lot of lifting in that sentence.
What you really don’t want is any ambiguity about how a political system works. I disagree with the statement somewhere in this thread that it would be a threat to the British monarchy - it would be a threat to democracy in the UK.
I think it would be a good thing if the monarchy was abolished, but if it happened via a constitutional crisis and it delegitimized the actual elected government that would be a much worse outcome than either a straight up republic or a constitutional monarchy. And the kicker is that whatever issue was important enough to have a fight over might result in a huge backlash - a UK policy opposing Apartheid might just become a symbol for political meddling by the queen and become an issue that is too toxic for politicians to touch.
This is made worse by the fact that the UK doesn’t actually have a constitution and if it transitioned into a republic would have to make some kind of decision on that and likely actually codify one (and it wouldn’t just be a matter of codifying the existing system - some aspects would have to functionally change and roles that the monarch performs would have to be done by elected/appointed officials or by an objective rule system) - doing that in the midst of a crisis over a controversial policy would be a terrible idea. And the prime minister in charge while all of this is going on is the one supporting Apartheid.
That’s possible, but seems incredibly unlikely to me–and the idea that a person shouldn’t speak up against crimes against humanity perpetrated in their name because speaking up might make it worse is pretty gross.
It seems like we’re talking past one another. On the one hand, a lot of folks think I’m crazy for thinking she could’ve made any difference. They’re talking about protocol and tradition and constitutional monarchies. On the other hand, I kind of think y’all are crazy for thinking any issue is more important than crimes against humanity being done in your name, and my perspective is from folks who engaged in social activism by violating the roles that society expected them to fulfill, by causing the fabled “good trouble.”
Let’s focus on the concentration camps in Kenya, though. Sure, the prime minister is the one who supports those war crimes, absolutely. But I’m given to understand that they were kept pretty secret from the British public, perhaps because the British public liked to imagine themselves as the sort of folks who didn’t, y’know, commit crimes against humanity. Had the queen spoken up and publicized what the government was doing, it seems at least as likely that the prime minister would be looking for a new job as that the Queen would: the British electorate might have taken unkindly to being shown what their government was doing.
Exposing the system’s brutality is a pretty effective strategy for social change; it’s hardly ahistorical to suggest its use.
History is full of people saying, “keep quiet, don’t speak up or you’ll make it worse.” That’s generally a tool that oppressors use; and things don’t change as long as folks listen to them. The way change happens is that people speak up even when they’re not supposed to.
But I don’t think I’ve got anything else to add to it. I don’t think she’s a monster, but I think she died a moral failure. And no talk about constitutional monarchy will change that, because that’s not as important as the crimes against humanity done in her name.
Okay, not quite done, because I do have a question, based a bit on this editorial. Imagine the following exchange:
King Charles: I cannot remain silent! Climate change is an existential threat, and England must be on war footing to fight it!
PM Truss: Cool story, bro. Moving on with business…
If all the monarch does is speak out in public, without attempting to exercise their symbolic powers, why is a constitutional crisis inevitable? It would seem to me that the government could function perfectly well with loudmouth royalty. What necessitates the crisis?
Generally, I don’t think you’re sufficiently appreciating that democracies where power can peacefully change hands are the exception and not the rule and they always require a political consensus in the democratic institutions. The royal family are an integral part of that institution in the UK. There isn’t really an analogy in US politics but probably the closest is the chief justice of the SCOTUS swearing in the president. It isn’t supposed to be a commentary at all on the policies of the government - it’s solely an affirmation of the people’s right to choose their government and the fact that that process went fairly and according to the law.
The truth is that we really don’t know what would cause a constitutional crisis, what would just cause a decay in trust (in the US we already have a decay in trust in our system brought on by Trump and all the fallout from him), and what wouldn’t really affect anything. The risk with a lot of these borderline cases is basically that the perception (or reality) exists that the monarch is actually making the important decisions and parliament is a puppet government.
I don’t really know much about the concentration camps in Kenya, but on that it seems like she could’ve just publicized what she knew or at least orchestrated a leak that would have a very low chance of anything coming back to imperil the entire political system and a much higher chance of triggering a backlash against the war crimes themselves.
There’s no need to tie oneself into knots, the simplest explanation is that the Queen didn’t give a shit about it (at best) and supported it (at worst).