So the fact monarchy is an inherently racist system doesn’t hurt it in your eyes? Because that really says something.
Yup, since the 1990s it has generally been seen as electorally disadvantageous for any party to nominate a “machine” politician for the post as a kind of transition-to-retirement perk. The people who have held the post since have generally had some party background, but they have not been conspicuously successful as party politicians and they are generally better known for other achievements.
The last presidential election which was contested between, basically, close-to-retirement figures from the party political establishment was in 1983.
The trouble with this argument is it still has no root. It remains turtles all the way down. If you unwind the logic you get the historical story, and eventually you end up with a divine monarch. The current monarch has no divine right, but the laws of succession are rooted in one that did.
I don’t agree. Divinity doesn’t come into it. The root is an (inertial) acceptance of the primacy of the decisions of a long-ago Parliament, that could be overturned at any time if there were sufficient will in the politicians and support among the public. Charles II probably understood that being invited back by Parliament wasn’t a matter of divine intervention (any more than Parliament’s victory in the Civil War had been, whatever Cromwell affected to believe), but James II presumed too much: so William and Mary and their successors can have been under no illusions. That Parliament decided the right was to continue to be transferred by heredity rather than election doesn’t remove the reality cloaked by inertia - that the right derives from Parliament, and therefore indirectly from the people.
I think we are slightly cross purposes. Way back at the start, I was talking about the manner in which dominion over the territory was assumed. Not dominion over the people. Sure, people can work out any way they like to be ruled. But what gives them the right to claim the land over which they rule? Of course the real answer is force of arms, in so far as it repels invaders, but from a legalistic point of view, from whence does the power to rule the land devolve? Why do nations have treaties with the previous landholders (well most nations do that displaced earlier residents.) If it were nothing but force of arms and force, there would be no need for a legal framework to describe the passing of rule. Australia is one of the few places where no notice was taken of the existing residents. The USA famously has treaties with the native nations.
There is still a very real sense where the land and the monarch are considered as one. Where the role of monarch represents the land over which dominion is claimed. That is what I refer to (no doubt incorrectly) as divine right. (Not the right of the monarch to rule absolutely - although the world still has a few of those.)
I wasn’t discussing the McGarvie model, but rather the “hard” republicans in Australia (and to some extent in Canada, although they are few) who have this strange idea that the only true republic is one with a popularly elected President.
If people want to get rid of the monarchy, that’s their right. But, that’s a different question from the type of republic that you want to have. There are at least three republican models to choose from:
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a parliamentary republic, with a strong PM responsible to the parliament, and a weak President (Ireland, India, Germany);
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a congressional/presidential republic, like the US, with a strong President independent of the congress;
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a mixed system, like France and Poland (and I think South Africa?), with a strong President and a prime Minister with defined powers.
The ardent republicans described by Giles and penultima thule seem to think that only option 2 is a true republic. My response is that you shouldn’t confuse the issue of getting rid of the monarchy with the issue of the type of republican government you wish to have.
The McGarvie model may be a workable option, if you want a parliamentary republic, but as previously noted, that wasn’t on the table in the Australian referendum, and in any event hard republicans appeared to vote against the proposed option because it didn’t have a popularly elected President, which is their only vision of a republic, as far as I can tell from this distance.
It is? That’s the first I’ve heard of it. Have you got any facts to back that up, or are you just assuming it’s true because you think it should be true?
Now, monarchy is an exclusive system, sure, but guttersnipes like me are just as excluded from the corridors of power in the USA as they are in the Commonwealth. For all the talk of Obama’s race, the side of the family that raised him is the same patrician class that all US presidents come from, and have done for at least a century. Elect a president that grew up poor and is the child of factory workers, like I was, and I’ll be impressed.
To me, it seems a lot more honest to just have a royal family and be done with it than pretend that anyone can grow up to be president. So much more honest that it’s made a monarchist out of me.
OK, when was the last non-White British monarch?
Obviously untrue. You’re excluded from the Royal Family completely, whereas it’s possible to rise to a political post without having been from a specific family.
When was the first woman head of state of the US? Or head of government? (I know it’s not directly comparable to the UK system, but still)
Since all of the British monarchs are related to each other (that’s kinda the point of a royal family), they’re not going to be switching races suddenly. For a vaguely related question, when was the last non-white British prime minister?
The argument, however, is that almost everyone who rises to the top political posts in the U.S. today comes from the same sorts of families (many but not all of whom are named Bush, Kennedy, Gore, etc.), even if they are not from one of those specific families. People from other families outside that narrow band DON’T have the same ability to rise to top political posts, and haven’t in many years.
My point is, women aren’t forbidden from being President. Non-Whites are forbidden from being a British Monarch.
Are non-Whites excluded from becoming PM? If they’re not, there’s no relationship between the questions.
Where is the law saying that they must come from those families?
Not really. Prince George could grow up and marry a nice black girl, as long as she isn’t Catholic*. Then you could eventually have a “mixed-race” king or queen on the throne.
*Or have they repealed that rule?
They have. He still can’t be a Catholic but he can marry one.
No, they’re not. There’s nothing to stop members of the British royal family from marrying non-white spouses and having non-white children. It hasn’t happened in practice so far, just like no woman has been elected US President in practice so far, but in neither case is there a formal ban.
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The argument, however, is that almost everyone who rises to the top political posts in the U.S. today comes from the same sorts of families (many but not all of whom are named Bush, Kennedy, Gore, etc.), even if they are not from one of those specific families. People from other families outside that narrow band DON’T have the same ability to rise to top political posts, and haven’t in many years.
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That’s right. The Obama family with its roots in the American Revolution, the Clintons and their fabulous inherited wealth … Typical of the American aristocracy which has a headlock on the presidency. :rolleyes:
No, because prior to the Glorious Revolution the last change in dynasty that didn’t depend on hereditary principles was Henry Tudor defeating Richard Plantagent. As Henry VII, he claimed the throne “by right of conquest”, not by any claim of a divine mandate.
The logic is that right of conquest takes the divine mandate from the person that had it - via the act of conquest.
It should be noted that not all invasions do so - may times an invasion will keep the ruler and make them a puppet.
One of the reasons is that Australia is a republic, except in stupid meanings like “OED says” or, more widely “Wikipedia says”, or even more important like Ireland.
It’s impossible to make a sensible technical argument for a “republic” in Australia because the underlying social/political position is England out of Ireland. (Also, no to the Italian monarchy and no to the Greek Monarchy, but that’s just the muscle to the Irish-Catholic backbone)
Which is why the failed “republican” referendum wasn’t a referendum about a “republic”: there really isn’t anything you can put up that would be different, so they nailed the word “republican” to other things instead.
Incidentally, I used to believe that “Irish-Catholic” was a misnomer for a group that is not Irish (I’m talking about Australians) and is not Catholic (although their grandparents were). But it’s the nature of labels to be partially false (I’m not actually “white” by any literal meaning), and Paul Keating changed my mind.
This was sorted out under Churchill as a sop to the Scots - QE II would remain QE II but in future any monarchal name with different numbering in England and Scotland will default to the higher number. So if there is a King James in future, he will be James VIII, not James III.
(Of course, Scottish devolution could make the whole thing moot anyway.)