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The Coronation of Christian King Charles III

Zwing

Active Member
Humm... Take a look at the article I linked in #12, only 9% of us "care a great deal" about the coronation while 64% of us "don’t care very much or care at all".
Yes, the monarchy was founded when vestiges of tribalism still endured, and amidst that milieu. The value of the monarchy for people has waned as the tribe has been forgotten, and the nation-state has consolidated its position and sranglehold on internal security. In many ways, the British monarchy has become a mere appendage and tool of the state. This is one reason why I love the Jews. Their nation-state has not supplanted the tribe, it is the utter servant of the tribe (which explains everything about Israel and its policies), and that fills me with hope that “the state”, that fearsome monster, might not achieve total victory in this world. Paradoxically, it’s why I love the Arabs, too. I imagine that a resurgence of tribalism might be realized as a necessary ingredient in an hypothetical ultimate defeat of nationalism.
 
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As for the protesters, I did find it rather amusing that the government clampdown on protests with new laws and the subsequent low tolerance (read: massive overreaction) of the Met, gave them a vast amount of publicity they wouldn't have had otherwise.

Having been assaulted more than once by the police, they nearly always overreact at protests and no doubt did again.

The protesters were a bunch of miserable ****s though, "Hmm here is something very rare that means a lot to some people and they've not had much to smile about recently, I know I'll try and spoil it for them".
 

Zwing

Active Member
The protesters were a bunch of miserable ****s though, "Hmm here is something very rare that means a lot to some people and they've not had much to smile about recently, I know I'll try and spoil it for them".
What were they protesting? The continued existence of the monarchy?
 

ratiocinator

Lightly seared on the reality grill.
The protesters were a bunch of miserable ****s though, "Hmm here is something very rare that means a lot to some people and they've not had much to smile about recently, I know I'll try and spoil it for them".
I don't think that was the point, there were hardly the numbers to do that anyway. Even if it was, freedom of speech and the freedom to peacefully protest is a basic right. Basic rights seem to be something the current UK government doesn't seem care much about.

What were they protesting? The continued existence of the monarchy?
Basically yes, they want an elected head of state. I believe the organisation also wants a proper, written constitution.
 

Zwing

Active Member
Basically yes, they want an elected head of state. I believe the organisation also wants a proper, written constitution.
Ah, the vulgus cries for its perceived prerogative. I suppose these are the same people who would trade away their liberty for security without blinking.
 

ratiocinator

Lightly seared on the reality grill.
Ah, the vulgus cries for its perceived prerogative. I suppose these are the same people who would trade away their liberty for security without blinking.
No idea where you're coming from. The monarchy is an absurd anachronism and the epitome of undeserved power and privilege. Your second sentence appears to be a baseless assumption.
 

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
Basically yes, they want an elected head of state. I believe the organisation also wants a proper, written constitution.
We don't remind people often enough, but here it is --- "Be careful what you wish for. You might get it."

Constitutions can be notoriously difficult to amend, and can sometimes result in unelected judges making (or unmaking) laws. For example, the U.S. is ranked Number 1 in the world in mass shootings per capita, because of a sentence in their constitution. Great Britain is ranked Number 20 in the world. (Canada's near proximity to the US, and our largely shared cultures, has infected us, and made us Number 5.) Unelected judges just dealt a very serious blow to women in the United States, where control over the own reproductive health is suddenly much more difficult, after they struck down a 50-year old law which they assured (when they were confirmed) was "settled law."
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
No idea where you're coming from. The monarchy is an absurd anachronism and the epitome of undeserved power and privilege. Your second sentence appears to be a baseless assumption.
Yes and in Denmark we can remove it if we want to. So there is that. Now in then I guess the same could be done in the UK.
 
We don't remind people often enough, but here it is --- "Be careful what you wish for. You might get it."

Constitutions can be notoriously difficult to amend, and can sometimes result in unelected judges making (or unmaking) laws. For example, the U.S. is ranked Number 1 in the world in mass shootings per capita, because of a sentence in their constitution. Great Britain is ranked Number 20 in the world. (Canada's near proximity to the US, and our largely shared cultures, has infected us, and made us Number 5.) Unelected judges just dealt a very serious blow to women in the United States, where control over the own reproductive health is suddenly much more difficult, after they struck down a 50-year old law which they assured (when they were confirmed) was "settled law."

Not to mention the people in charge of making the constitution will be the exact same politicians that the people demanding the constitution think are corrupt, venal, moronic, untrustworthy, etc.

Would they want a Boris Johnson constitution? A Liz Truss one?
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
Sure, there were a few anti-monarchical protesters, but how many compared to the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of supporters lining the Mall in the rain for days for just a glimpse? And in every pub in every Commonwealth nation, people watching and cheering (and spending money). Or for the military, who playing their part in the ceremonies got to see nothing of those ceremonies except each other -- did you hear the cheer in the garden of Buckingham Palace? They were more than enthusiastic.

I always find it funny when monarchists appeal to the popularity of the monarchy as support for keeping the monarchy.

Whether their specific claims about the level of popularity are accurate or not, it seems to me that they're conceding the republicans' point: that popular support and not hereditary aristocratic titles is the thing that determines the legitimacy of a head of state.
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
I don't know or care - the royal family is free entertainment for this American! And they are pretty entertaining. As for whether or not Charles is a Christian, that's between him and God. I don't bother myself about him or really anyone else.
I find the preservation of a long dead monarchy to be rather pointless but people do like their traditions and the real life drama associated with it.

I have the feeling it satiates people's desire for a real life soap opera, which the royal family certainly delivers well.

As the crown turns.
 

exchemist

Veteran Member
Having been assaulted more than once by the police, they nearly always overreact at protests and no doubt did again.

The protesters were a bunch of miserable ****s though, "Hmm here is something very rare that means a lot to some people and they've not had much to smile about recently, I know I'll try and spoil it for them".
Quite. Making a protest about the monarchy is something you can do in a variety of ways without setting out to annoy several thousand people who have come a long way to see the the spectacle. Behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace? I have little sympathy.
 
Quite. Making a protest about the monarchy is something you can do in a variety of ways without setting out to annoy several thousand people who have come a long way to see the the spectacle. Behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace? I have little sympathy.

People do often confuse freedom of speech/right to protest with having a right to disrupt.

Someone dumping powder on the table at the snooker a couple of weeks ago obviously exceeded the right to protest.

In this case I’ve not paid enough attention to know and perhaps they were within reasonable boundaries, but there should be a boundary somewhere, especially when you are intentionally trying to wind others up.

And even if it’s not illegal, doesn’t mean it’s not ****ish.
 

muhammad_isa

Well-Known Member
Whether their specific claims about the level of popularity are accurate or not, it seems to me that they're conceding the republicans' point: that popular support and not hereditary aristocratic titles is the thing that determines the legitimacy of a head of state.
That's interesting..
Margret Thatcher thought that everybody should pay for local services,
and advocated a "poll tax"..
It became unworkable, and she had to step down.

Sometimes, the "ideal" solution is not always the best.
The same could be said about the argument about abolishing the house of Lords.
One disadvantage of a "popular" vote for a head of state, is that he/she could be relatively uneducated..
Ummm .. no thanks.
 

PruePhillip

Well-Known Member
That was the third and last Kaiser, Wilhelm II.

Under the 3 Kaisers, Prussia, and then what was effectively Germany during the process of its coalescence, fought a number of wars: the Austro-Prussian war, the Franco-Prussian war and finally WW1. So I'm not clear how you can argue these monarchs were a force for peace.

The wars were not of course started by them, but by politicians. One can more plausibly argue that the nature of the head of state made absolutely no difference.

The bottom line is though, having grandsons of Victoria on various thrones of Europe made it so much harder for those nations to go to war. And had Russia kept its monarchy we would have had a vastly different outcome since 1917. There's more tied up with monarchy than just rule - as was evident in the Coronation last week.
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
That's interesting..
Margret Thatcher thought that everybody should pay for local services,
and advocated a "poll tax"..
It became unworkable, and she had to step down.

Sometimes, the "ideal" solution is not always the best.
The same could be said about the argument about abolishing the house of Lords.
One disadvantage of a "popular" vote for a head of state, is that he/she could be relatively uneducated..
Ummm .. no thanks.
Out of Britain's last 10 monarchs:

- one was so mentally ill they had to appoint a regent.
- one ended up being a literal Nazi collaborator.
- one, when women's suffrage was the issue of the day, opposed it.
- more than one, when Catholic suffrage was the issue of the day, opposed it.
- all used their office to enrich themselves personally.

Seems to me that the track record of British Prime Ministers has been a fair bit better than the track record of British monarchs.
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
The bottom line is though, having grandsons of Victoria on various thrones of Europe made it so much harder for those nations to go to war.

The opposite, actually.

Heads of state that were selected for diplomatic skill would havd had a chance at averting war. Inbred playboys with no diplomatic expertise did not.

And had Russia kept its monarchy we would have had a vastly different outcome since 1917. There's more tied up with monarchy than just rule - as was evident in the Coronation last week.

Had Russia had a competent monarchy, it would have kept its monarchy beyond 1917... but like most monarchies, competence was not considered in the selection of the Russian monarch.
 

Zwing

Active Member
The monarchy is an absurd anachronism…
This is nothing more than a statement of opinion. The monarchy is, as I say, “an empty shell”, as it has no real power. That, however, does not mean that it serves no purpose; it serves a a powerful symbol of the idea of Britain. It also serves a purpose as a buffer of sorts in British society. How so?

I will have to digress a bit now. Without the monarchy, all you have in Britain is, essentially, the U.S., because the U.K., along with the rest of the western world, has been profoundly influenced by the thinking of the so-called “Enlightenment” of which the U.S. is the exemplar. The thing about America, and you can take it from me as an American man (a combat veteran who was once very patriotic) who lives this **** daily, is that the soul-crushing (and, I don’t use that term lightly or offhandedly) nature of the modern state and its control over society has become increasingly apparent. The ideals and values of a relentlessly “progressive” ideology are crammed down our throats continually, and all the values which I took for granted during my upbringing are being declaimed as being “undemocratic”. Traditional values such as patriarchy, ethnicity, community, and the concept of social dominance have been subjugated to certain values, which are nothing but unnatural ideals, which have arisen from the Enlightenment and are expressed in the code of law. Compounding this, the informational capacities afforded by the rise of the internet have aided and facilitated this effort. (Believe you me, these statements are being noted and recorded in a data base. The only reason I don’t give a **** is that I don’t use my real name on these fora, and don’t post from a device which can be tied to me; I should not appear on a “watch list” of any description.) Believe me, you don’t want Britain to make the full leap into this state of affairs… or, maybe you do; people differ. In the ongoing battle between the traditional values which originated with the tribe, and the values of the Enlightenment, I am a traditionalist. I personally understand the monarchy, even though it has accede to becoming a part of the bureaucratic state, and the Lords to represent the only buffer which exists in Britain between the common man and the governmental bureaucracy which would (and largely does) dictate what values he may act upon. Digression ended.
…and the epitome of undeserved power and privilege.
Undeserved? Well, William of Normandy, the founder of the current monarchy seems to have deserved it, as he gained it by mannish conquest. Whether or not his progeny deserve similarly by inheritance is a question of political philosophy which would take us down a rabbit hole, so let’s avoid that. For my part, I am a tribal man, and I love my tribal chiefs.
Your second sentence appears to be a baseless assumption.
I admit to a bit of presumption there, but living in 21st century America, I know the “lefty-libby” type and its shared characteristics.
No idea where you're coming from.
As I say, from a traditionalist perspective which looks somewhat askance at the modern nation state, not understanding it to reflect my personal values.
 
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muhammad_isa

Well-Known Member
Seems to me that the track record of British Prime Ministers has been a fair bit better than the track record of British monarchs.
There is always change .. the trick is learning from the past, and going forward.
It would be a mistake to think that abolishing the monarchy would solve all our ills.

Any extreme view is normally destructive. :(
 
Heads of state that were selected for diplomatic skill would havd had a chance at averting war. Inbred playboys with no diplomatic expertise did not.

Ignoring the fact that almost no one selects heads of state for diplomatic skill today so it's inane to pretend elections = masterful statecraft, and that modern democratic constitutional monarchies have nothing to do with historical monarchies who actual had power...

WW1 was basically caused by attempts to breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire by anti-monarchists.

The Armenian Genocide was caused by the breakup of the Ottoman Empire by modernising progressives.

The Napoleonic Wars from the breakup of the Bourbon monarchy by Enlightenment men of reason.

Royal houses tended to have more diplomatic experience than their direct replacements or those who sought to replace them.

It's vapid to think that replacing monarch automatically leads to more competent and peaceful governance when history shows it's often the exact opposite.

Humans are just ****s who often resort to violence, and moving towards democracy has often been a significant precursor to bloodshed.

But that doesn't fit the bien-pensant narrative so some people have to bury their head in the sand to protect the integrity of their ideological worldview.
 
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