Her breath was awful.
The royal family have links that date as far back as biblical times
She sits on a throne which has the stone of Jacob under it
I’m 61 I’m an Aussie
I sang god save the queen in kindergarten to 6 th class
Every scout hall or hall has a photo of her in a frame
She served well,considering she was a young girl who had to learn so much.
As we get older we get reminiscent
Bull. Shit.
Or for that matter, the other shit the US was doing around the world (especially in Latin American) at the same time the Queen was supposedly committing all these horrible attrocities.
If you’re gonna go after the queen LHOD – well, we weren’t any better than Britain. Nor France, or Germany, or a lot of other so-called “democracies” around the world. So are you going to argue we should over through the US government too? 
So…hereditary monarchy is okay, because the US manages to actually elect its bad leaders?
Here’s a thought: social hierarchies are bad. Social hierarchies based on inherited wealth and privilege are worse. Social hierarchies based on inherited wealth, privilege, and legally distinct status in the form of a hereditary monarchy are batshit.
The US has many faults, but that last one isn’t one of them. Yet.
Did I say that? No, I did not.
Stay ignorant 
From Wikipedia:
Some Scottish legends surrounding the Stone of Scone, traditionally used for coronations of Scottish kings in the High Middle Ages, have identified this stone with the Stone of Jacob. Supposedly the Stone of Jacob was brought to Ireland by the prophet Jeremiah and thence to Scotland.[1][2] The 17th-century writer John Speed, describing the coronation of James I, calls the stone at Westminster Abbey by the Latin name, saxum Jacobi.[3]
These legends also feature prominently in British Israelism a belief system that holds the British royal family is descended from King David.
So, yeah, pure bullshit, and as you will see if you click on that “British Israelite” link, disturbingly Nazi-adjacent bullshit.
It’s her job, I’m not sure why you find it so hard to understand. The whole point is that she’s not allowed a public opinion on the intentions of the elected government. They govern in her name, so she reads the speech, whether she likes it or not.
I think the far simpler explantion is that she either didn’t know about everything done in her name (very likely) and anything that did come to her attention she made her feelings known to those in power, in private.
- I’m not arguing she should overthrow the British government. I’m saying she should’ve spoken up. Others are making the astonishing (and so far unsupported) claim that her speaking up would’ve overthrown the government, and I’m suggesting that if the well-functioning democracy is perpetrating war crimes, maybe it’s not a disaster for that well-functioning democracy to experience a crisis.
- Fuck yes I’m saying similar things about the US government. You won’t find me engaging in hagiography about any US president, either (and yes, the roles are different, but you’re the one asking for an analogy). When a well-functioning democracy is locking children up in concentration camps at the border, people in power should stop business as usual.
- I never said “the Queen was supposedly committing all these horrible atrocities.” Be better.
No. How about fucking off with your cultural appropriation.
-“People have carved their initials on it! It’s held in place with a large rock!”
-“Th-that’s the S-Stone of Scone!!”
Loved that scene
It’s about power, and where it lies, and who gets to exercise it. I know it appears to you like tedious protocol and silly hats, and superficially it is. But that’s only superficial. Fundamentally it remains about who gets to run the country: a democratically elected Parliament answerable to the people, or a hereditary monarch answerable to no-one.
Unlike the French or the Americans, we never had a successful revolution. The two we tried ended up with a) the restoration of the monarchy following descent into military rule and b) the importation of an alternative monarch from Holland. In both cases sovereign power remained in the hands of the monarch. Parliament had some levers it could apply, notably the raising of taxes, but ultimate power lay de jure and in many ways de facto with the Crown.
In the 18th century, we came up with new solution. We invited in a new set of monarchs and laid down different rules. Power is now held by the Crown in Parliament. The representative body of the people is Sovereign but rather than just abolishing the monarchy and starting with a clean slate we have maintained it and its historic legitimised power and merely transferred it to Parliament. The monarch still has a notional veto on legislation, and more importantly still has the power to call or dismiss Parliament. They also, more importantly, have the status of embodying and representing the State in their person. These powers are only ever exercised on the “advice” (not instructions) of the actual government. The upshot is that a role which once had the power to order executions, seize property and declare war has been reduced to an almost purely ceremonial one.
For a king to push against this by effectively lobbying his own government is start blurring the boundaries of where power lies. I can lobby the government - I’m a citizen. The King isn’t. He doesn’t get to tell the government what to do, not even under the guise of just asking. In American terms, it’s a clear separation of powers issue. A democratically elected government shouldn’t be pushed around by a guy with unearned, unaccountable authority, even - especially - if that authority is merely due to their happening to be in a symbolic role.
What if the King were lobbying not for better environmental standards, but the return of the death penalty? Or for homeopathy to have a place in the NHS? Or for severe punitive measures for colonial rebels? Should we have some system to decide on which topics the King is allowed an opinion, and on which he is not? Who would be making that decision and how would they get this power? “Kings don’t get to interfere in a democracy” has the benefit of clarity. “I really hope this king uses his authority for causes I agree with” does not.
Is this whole system a crazy fudge? Yes, it absolutely is. Would we better to cut through it and establish a republic of some description with power clearly and only vested in Parliament, or the People? Probably. But while we refrain from doing that, that is the system we have to work with.
And under that system, a “loudmouth” King puts the government acting with his authority in the position of directly contradicting his express wishes while passing laws in his name. In doing so, he is asserting his authority over that of the democratic government. It should hopefully not be too surprising that this is an assault on the basic settlement of power.
As an analogy: Obama planned to close Guantanamo. He was prevented from doing so because Congress wouldn’t vote it through. Guantanamo was a horror, I think it’s fair to say, on par with the Kenyan concentration camps. But without Congress, there was nothing Obama could do within the Constitution to shut it down. He did have the option of shutting it down by fiat and causing a major constitutional crisis, but he didn’t. Some would say that was a moral failure on his part. Others would say that in fact the Presidential moral obligation to uphold the Constitution of the United States outweighed the moral imperative to close down the torture centre. But not many would say that the US Constitution was some “twee fucked up protocol”.
What would support look like? You have linked to an editorial which not only backs up the claim that the monarch speaking up would be a constitutional crisis, but also quotes the actual king stating that it is a “separate exercise being sovereign” and that it would be “stupid” for him to keep speaking up in the way he did as prince. I mean, what are you looking for exactly here?
(Also, we’re not talking about “overthrow the government”. We’re talking about the “overthrow the system in which the immoral government and a putative more moral government would have a legitimate claim to power” which is, let’s face it, a considerably bigger deal.)
Has anyone added up the net positive benefits to the U.K. economy of all the hoopla surrounding the Queen’s passing and the coronation of Charles? Must add up to quite a few pounds.
Under what penalty? Upthread, somebody (I forget who) said she would be removed as Queen and just ‘another rich old lady in a silly hat’? I’m sure we all know plenty of folks who do jobs they hate because the alternative is homelessness. Based on the above response, that isn’t the case here. So, what exactly would the penalty be if she had refused?
So then this was just a bad faith jab at LHOD?
You weren’t really saying anything, huh?
Your post is well written and thoughtful, but I’m still not really buying it. When I imagine Charles vocally opposing his own Government’s environmental policy, I can think of a few realistic outcomes:
-
He is politely ignored (most likely). Neutral outcome.
-
His moral authority succeeds in changing policy, either by persuading the Government to change policies or by persuading the voters to change Governments. (Fairly unlikely IMO, but a good outcome).
-
He annoys Parliament to the point that they either replace him or abolish the monarchy entirely (a bad outcome for him personally, but not a threat to British democracy).
The one I can’t see as plausible is
- The British people, seeing that they share one particular opinion with this particular King, decide on that basis to abandon democracy and rally to the banner of absolutist monarchism.
So it seems that from the King’s point of view, speaking up would be risky, since the Constitutional crisis that might result wouldn’t end well for him. But from the point of view of the national interest, it would be much more likely to lead to a good outcome than a bad one. And since putting the interests of the nation ahead of his personal interests is kind of supposed to be the whole point of his job, it follows that he should speak out.
Of course, that argument fails if you think that constitutional monarchy is inherently superior to other forms of democracy, so that shifting to a republican government would count as a bad outcome rather than a neutral one. And although I find that argument wholly unconvincing, I’m pretty sure Charles has convinced himself of it!
It has nothing to do with hating her job. Neither she nor anyone else who knows how the system works in the UK think of her announcing the policies of the next government as an endorsement so she likely didn’t love or hate doing that based on what she thought of the policies.