You are a little behind the times. That stopped happening some time ago, although Westerners still keep saying it. One red-shirt lady who went by the name of Da Torpedo was sentenced to 18 years for lese majeste and spent almost a year and a half in prison with no hope in sight for a royal pardon. She was only released last month by a court, which ruled there had been some procedural issues wrong with her trial. Whether that means a new trial or not, I’m not sure, but there was no royal intervention at all, as, like I said, that seems to have ended since the king fell into such ill health.
More recently, a poster on a local message board was given 15 years for what he posted. The thing is no one could find what he posted after the message board deleted it. The authorities burst into his house and took his computer away, but apparently could not find any evidence on there. Still sentenced to 15 years even though there is no physical evidence still existing.
Funny, but you seem to have a similar writing style to a ceertain communist poster. Coincidence, I’m sure.
I have a hard time understanding why anyone thinks they owe anything to the Queen specifically. As a citizen of a nation, I understand that my citizenship comes with certain entitlements and certain duties. But the Queen is essentially just some woman who inherited a fancy house from ancestors who were more or less military and theocratic dictators. Most constitutional monarchies that work well are the ones where the monarch has very little practical power to affect how the nation is run. That’s why I wrote that monarchs are at their best benign.
Now a monarch can do other nice stuff, like raise money for charity or say stuff like “Pip, pip, cheerio, let’s not let the Nazis get us down chaps.” (Because that’s how British people talk, right?) Of course, any prominent figure could do things like that. And monarchs can also say and do things that are detrimental to the image of the nation. Prince Philip is apparently quite fond of saying racist and offensive things.
I think we should make Rodney King the first king of America. Or Billy Jean King, but she would have to be queen.
But on the reals, the British Monarch is such a drag on the country’s economy and the biggest waste of time and valuable resources on one family who, as far as I can tell, hasn’t done anything in 300 years that justifies all the pomp & circumstance they get. It would never work in America, thank God. This is the 21st century. Kings and queens???Are you kidding?
That’s a misconception. The monarchy actually pays for itself. From George III forward, the royals’ income has derived from the Civil List, and the income from the Crown Estates goes to the Treasury.
Originally, this was just to make it easier for Parliament to keep an eye on how much the royals were spending. However, land values in Britain have risen dramatically over the last 250 years, and the Civil List now costs a tiny fraction of the revenue generated by the Crown Estates.
Plus, HM and her spawn all pay income taxes like everyone else now.
I don’t think what you’ve said here is in fact an adequate rebuttal, as the Crown Estate is owned by the state anyway. If the UK were a republic, the state would still receive the same income.
The British monarchy costs the UK around £40 million a year. Details of the royal finances can be found via the following page: http://www.royal.gov.uk/TheRoyalHousehold/Royalfinances/HeadofStateexpenditure.aspx
At a quick glance, it seems to me that the biggest cost areas by far are (a) the salaries of some 300 staff, and (b) the maintenance costs of the various palaces.
Not included in the accounts are of course the indirect benefit to the British economy that the monarchy brings via tourism, etc. This is sometimes advanced as a reason for maintaining the monarchy. In my view, though, this is something of a moot point: plenty of people go to visit Versailles, for example, and a republican UK would presumably find it fairly easy to fully open up Windsor Castle (and perhaps Buckingham Palace) to the public, resulting in much greater direct revenue.
But of course a non-monarchical system would have its own costs instead; this seems to be a point that’s often forgotten. And staffing and maintaining historic palaces is never going to come cheap, regardless of whether there’s a monarchy.
I’m responding to this two years late, but the Crown Estate consists not only of property held by the monarch in trust but also personal property of the Windsors.
I’m an American monarchist who believes in the divine right of kings, but I think it would be rather pointless for the United States as a country to become a monarchy. I’d rather see Alaska go to the Romanovs, Hawaii to the native Hawaiian dynasty, the Southwest to Juan Carlos I of Spain, Louisiana to whoever the French heir is these days, and the rest to Elizabeth II. Except maybe give I’ll give New Amsterdam back to the Dutch.
Governor General Michaëlle Jean of Canada prorogued the parliament in 2008, on the advice of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Theoretically, at least, she did so in the name of the Queen.
The phenomena of the Kennedys, the Clintons and the Bushes (not to mention the Roosevelts and the Adamses), go to show how much Americans actually yearn for a monarchy (not that I think it is a healthy yearning, myself, but it seems to have some sort of deep psychological appeal).
Oh it’s a very healthy yearning, but elected politicians are an unhealthy way of satisfying it. As C. S. Lewis said: “Where men are forbidden to honour a king, they honor millionaires, athletes, or film stars instead; even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison.”
