# The Queen vs the church **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 14, 2016, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queen-vs-the-church/743093 "2016-01-14T00:44:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Henga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Henga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Henga)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2016, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queen-vs-the-church/743093/41 "2016-01-23T22:32:55Z")
> [@](#): > > This has no basis in fact, precedent or sanity. Charles has already been known to communicate his views to the government. In another 10 years Britain will have another generation that is too young to remember Diana and with corporations gaining more and more power, a pro-Charles environmentalist backlash could easily be in the making. ---
**Author:** ![Henga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Henga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Henga)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2016, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queen-vs-the-church/743093/42 "2016-01-23T22:44:20Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > Colonial governors appointed by the King (on the advice of his ministers) refused assent to bills passed by colonial legislatures. And of course the Prime Minister will allowed to “ramrod” appointees down King Charles III’s throat; if he tries to exercise the royal veto the most likely result is that his role in appointments would be abolished and/or he’d be compelled to abdicate. That’s what I figured, but I’ve never seen any documentation for any specific law that the Americans wanted only to be vetoed by colonial governors. And don’t forget that near the end of the Revolutionary War George III was personally appointing his prime minister because he had a hard time finding someone to accept the job once the Brits realized that they had little choice but negotiate a peace. George III appointed Rockingham, and when he died after just a few months in office George III appointed Shelburne. But Shelburne was so unpopular that members of his own party resigned from Parliament in protest, thus demonstrating that George III exercised some degree of independence from Parliament. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2016, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queen-vs-the-church/743093/43 "2016-01-23T22:47:19Z")
> [@Henga](#): > > Charles has already been known to communicate his views to the government. In another 10 years Britain will have another generation that is too young to remember Diana and with corporations gaining more and more power, a pro-Charles environmentalist backlash could easily be in the making. Well, I guess that’s possible. I look forward to the Kernow Popular Front rising up and, err, supporting the Monarchy. ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2016, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queen-vs-the-church/743093/44 "2016-01-23T23:10:04Z")
I think if Charles decided he was going to exercise his veto he’d be smart enough to tell the PM before it got to him so that he would just fail to pass whatever to avoid a constitutional crisis. ---
**Author:** ![Henga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Henga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Henga)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2016, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queen-vs-the-church/743093/45 "2016-01-24T00:32:45Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > I think if Charles decided he was going to exercise his veto he’d be smart enough to tell the PM before it got to him so that he would just fail to pass whatever to avoid a constitutional crisis. I wonder what percentage of Brits even know that the royal veto is still legal? I don’t see how it could be done away with without a James II-type crisis. Should the Commons and Lords OK the veto’s repeal, the crown would have to give its ascent for the repeal to be legal, and I don’t see any reigning monarch giving their ascent. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2016, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queen-vs-the-church/743093/46 "2016-01-24T09:19:20Z")
> [@Henga](#): > > I wonder what percentage of Brits even know that the royal veto is still legal? I don’t see how it could be done away with without a James II-type crisis. Should the Commons and Lords OK the veto’s repeal, the crown would have to give its ascent for the repeal to be legal, and I don’t see any reigning monarch giving their ascent. “Legal” is neither here nor there. Custom and practice mean there is no veto. Royal assent is, essentially, symbolic. If parliament wants to raise the question of what the symbolic functions of the monarchy should be, then the monarch has to go along with that. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2016, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queen-vs-the-church/743093/47 "2016-01-24T10:15:34Z")
> [@Henga](#): > > As far as I have been able to document the Crown hasn’t refused its approval of an act of Parliament since Queen Anne. But, one of the charges leveled against George III in the U.S. Declaration of Independence is that he had refused to give his OK to laws that the Americans wanted. So I don’t know what to believe. Had the Americans been able to get those laws moved and passed through Parliament? One of the complaints of the Spanish colonies was that getting the government in Madrid to remember their existance for anything other than raising taxes was near impossible; we still get bouts of that nowadays, when the most distant territory is the Canary Islands and there’s all these phones and email and so forth. “Metropoli vs colonies” is an extreme case of the usual “capital vs regions” tension. ETA: sorry, now I see it’s been answered. ---
**Author:** ![Henga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Henga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Henga)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2016, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queen-vs-the-church/743093/48 "2016-01-24T12:05:46Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Had the Americans been able to get those laws moved and passed through Parliament? One of the complaints of the Spanish colonies was that getting the government in Madrid to remember their existance for anything other than raising taxes was near impossible; we still get bouts of that nowadays, when the most distant territory is the Canary Islands and there’s all these phones and email and so forth. “Metropoli vs colonies” is an extreme case of the usual “capital vs regions” tension. > > ETA: sorry, now I see it’s been answered. In the U.S. our non-state possessions such as Puerto Rico don’t pay federal income taxes because they don’t have voting members in Congress, but they still get massive amounts of federal military and welfare spending. A lot of our states would like to have that deal. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2016, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queen-vs-the-church/743093/49 "2016-01-24T13:49:36Z")
> [@Henga](#): > > In the U.S. our non-state possessions such as Puerto Rico don’t pay federal income taxes because they don’t have voting members in Congress, but they still get massive amounts of federal military and welfare spending. A lot of our states would like to have that deal. The District of Columbia is a non-state possession without voting members of Congress that is not exempt from federal income taxes. I believe Puerto Rico’s exemption from federal income taxes is statutory and does not follow automatically from its status. I’d have to look that up to be sure though. ---
**Author:** ![Henga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Henga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Henga)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2016, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queen-vs-the-church/743093/50 "2016-01-24T15:23:24Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > The District of Columbia is a non-state possession without voting members of Congress that is not exempt from federal income taxes. > > I believe Puerto Rico’s exemption from federal income taxes is statutory and does not follow automatically from its status. I’d have to look that up to be sure though. DC is governed by Congress as part of the constitutional powers expressly granted to Congress. Territories are the same way, but PR isn’t legally a territory. DC does have presidential electors. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2016, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queen-vs-the-church/743093/51 "2016-01-24T15:32:26Z")
> [@Henga](#): > > DC is governed by Congress as part of the constitutional powers expressly granted to Congress. Territories are the same way, but PR isn’t legally a territory. DC does have presidential electors. None of that speaks to the income tax question. I’m pretty sure that if Congress wanted to impose the income tax in Puerto Rico, it could just go ahead and do it. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2016, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queen-vs-the-church/743093/52 "2016-01-24T16:06:21Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Had the Americans been able to get those laws moved and passed through Parliament? Colonial laws didn’t have to go through Parliament by hey had to be passed by the colonial legislature. The Governor, appointed by the Crown, then could grant or refuse royal assent on behalf of the Crown. I had always assumed that refusal of Royal assent in the name of the King by colonial governors was what the DofI was referring to, since George III never refused Royal assent to a bill of the British Parliament. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2016, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queen-vs-the-church/743093/53 "2016-01-24T16:10:20Z")
Let’s not get hijacked, people. ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2016, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queen-vs-the-church/743093/54 "2016-01-24T23:30:11Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > The District of Columbia is a non-state possession without voting members of Congress that is not exempt from federal income taxes. The district of Colombia gets so much more from the federal government than it pays in taxes that it’s insane. They get $73,920 per capita. [Federal taxation and spending by state - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_taxation_and_spending_by_state) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queen-vs-the-church/743093.md?page=2)