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Queen Elizabeth II has died
421–430 of 1001 posts
Re: Queen Elizabeth II has died
#422It's weird, I've never considered myself a "royalist" but this news has affected me quite strongly. I just burst into tears unexpectedly on hearing this news and I don't quite understand why I feel so very sad. I guess I have grown up and lived my whole life (as a Brit) seeing and hearing the Queen, singing "God save the Queen" etc, and this news made me suddenly feel very old, very nostalgic, with the sense that all…
IMO this is a normal way to feel about it. I'm american and while I'm not shedding tears, I do feel the significance. I'd have immense respect for her even if it were only for fulfilling one large role, honorably and consistently, for an entire human lifespan. How many politicians have? And I think she had a hard, hard job. Imagine having to live up to the expectations of a great Queen of England for that long without a meltdown or scandal.
It's quite a different context, however I felt sort of similar about John McCain, mostly for what he endured as a POW, and what he nevertheless went on to accomplish in politics.
Re: Queen Elizabeth II has died
#423All: please don't post flamebait, including ranting against monarchy or railing against "the nobility" like it's 1770. Such reflexive comments are not on topic here. We want curious conversation. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html . This story is on topic because it's a major historical event and history has always been on topic here. If it doesn't produce an intellectually curious respons…
is it a malignant comment to point out that the royalty is a malignant influence on the United Kingdom?
Why is it malignant? Monarchy is the foundation of the whole system. It goes from the top all the way from the bottom. That's like saying blood is a malignant influence on the body.
Re: Queen Elizabeth II has died
#424I realise she has just died and it's unbecoming to do anything but laud the person, but this is just moral obsequiousness. She claims fealty by right of blood, reigned as the crown of an extraordinarily cruel empire, and frequently interceded in the democratic government of Britain to protect her private interests.
Given that most empires in history were pretty darn cruel, you might have to justify the idea that the British Empire was extraordinarily cruel, especially given that the Queen only reigned in its last years and that many of the former members of the Empire chose to stay on as part of the Commonwealth. Also the British Empire is unique (AFAIK?) in having wound itself up more or less peacefully at the end, rather than…
> former members of the Empire chose to stay on as part of the Commonwealth
Being in the Commonwealth doesn't mean "staying on" the British Empire - it just means belonging to a very, very loose trade block on which Britain temporarily exercised an outsized influence. Recent developments (like the inability of subsequent UK governments to replace Commonwealth leadership) have shown that even that influence has now gone. At this point the Commonwealth is little more than an administrative construct for trade-related issues.
Re: Queen Elizabeth II has died
#425Born in April, 1926, it's crazy how much the world has changed in her lifetime. May she rest in peace.
Arguably the largest change in humanity in a ~100 year span? Especially if we go back to 1922. Mass communication, mass travel, etc. were all non existent. Like the first radio stations had just started broadcasting when she was born, now we're all discussing her passing on a communications network that connects the entire globe. Possibly some of us while on flights from one side of the world to the other.
> Arguably the largest change in humanity in a ~100 year span?
1870-1970 (or about that range) probably would be bigger change. That would cover time from before commercial light bulbs to commercial computers[1] and man on the moon. Societally it would include WW1 and the series of Russian revolutions leading to wave of other revolutions in Europe[2], and major advances in Womens' suffrage[3] among other things.
[1] e.g. PDP-8 and S/360
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1917%E2%80%9319...
[3] "The Representation of the People Act 1918 saw British women over 30 gain the vote. Dutch women won the vote in 1919, and American women on August 26, 1920, with the passage of the 19th Amendment" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage
Re: Queen Elizabeth II has died
#426Winston Churchill (1951–55) Anthony Eden (1955–57) Harold Macmillan (1957–63) Alec Douglas-Home (1963–64) Harold Wilson (1964–70) Edward Heath (1970–74) Harold Wilson (1974–76) James Callaghan (1976–79) Margaret Thatcher (1979–90) John Major (1990–97) Tony Blair (1997–07) Gordon Brown (2007–10) David Cameron (2010–16) Theresa May (2016–19) Boris Johnson (2019–22) Liz Truss (2022 (two days ago) - current) Quite the re…
Can't believe Brexit was voted 6 years ago, time flies so fast.
Yea, it seems like yesterday it got announced. I was working in Berlin with an English guy, he took it super hard. We went out for drinks after work and at the end of the night he was telling one of the Germans they were lucky - because they were still in the EU.
Re: Queen Elizabeth II has died
#427Fun facts: - She ruled for 30% of the time since the American Revolution - She oversaw the largest reduction of landholdings of any empire in the history of the world. Notable because it was also one of the most peaceful transitions in history -- Australia, Canada, South Africa, Israel, Egypt, etc. - She oversaw the loss of Sterling the world reserve currency and the rise of another (the USD, EU).
She has been Queen of Canada for 45% of Canada's existence as an independent nation. Wild.
I'm curious if they'll be splitting the monarchy between the children or keeping it consistent. Government could actually change quite a bit at this point across much of the west.
Re: Queen Elizabeth II has died
#428Not to mention that she was the last monarch to have any memory of WWII and served as an ambulance mechanic. Now that generation that remembered the horrors of fascism has mostly passed and we find ourselves in a period that seems to have many echos of the 1930s with a new rise of authoritarianism and fascism around the world.
No post body was provided.
Re: Queen Elizabeth II has died
#429I realise she has just died and it's unbecoming to do anything but laud the person, but this is just moral obsequiousness. She claims fealty by right of blood, reigned as the crown of an extraordinarily cruel empire, and frequently interceded in the democratic government of Britain to protect her private interests.
> reigned as the crown of an extraordinarily cruel empire What are the empires you're comparing it against? To call it "extraordinary" makes the claim that its level of cruelty is substantially greater than the "ordinary" cruelty of other examples. Were the Russian, Japanese, Ottoman, and other 19th and early 20th century empires substantially less cruel than the British empire? Not to mention, as other commenters po…
In the last 200 years, definitely for sure.
Re: Queen Elizabeth II has died
#430RIP. Perhaps the last reigning Queen of England the world will ever see.
Are you expecting end of monarchy? There was recent rule change for succession to not depend on gender that makes it more likely there will be a queen in future. For example, Prince Charlotte is now third in line instead of fourth after her younger brother with the old rules.
> Prince Charlotte is now third in line instead of fourth
Yes, but I don't think the gender-neutral titles are official quite yet!