Live data from Hacker News

Queen Elizabeth II has died

bbc.com

851–860 of 1001 posts

Re: Queen Elizabeth II has died

#851
post #836

I WILL NOT MOURN THE QUEEN. I have never liked the queen or the British monarchy. To me they are the biggest symbol of oppression in history and set my people and continent several centuries back while they enriched themselves. Never an apology, never any reparations. So while i will not jump around and rejoice, I would be lying if I said I did not feel some happiness and relief at the news. And i think always will a…

Quoted post unavailable.

[deleted]

Re: Queen Elizabeth II has died

#853
post #697

Imagine being groomed to do this job from birth, with no real way to opt out[1]. You wanted to breed horses, become a blacksmith or start a business? Get that nonsense out of your head, you're a princess! Then, when you're 25, your daddy dies aged only 56 and after a rather brief period of mourning you get pushed into taking his job in a pompous ceremony. Now you're going to be doing this until you die. No retirement…

Quoted post unavailable.

It is part of the human condition to feel positive emotions for a well-known person even if their role throughout history is based on an antiquated belief such as the divine right of kings.

Re: Queen Elizabeth II has died

#854

This is probably the only death of a public figure that has really hit me hard. The Queen was a constant all of my life, all of my parents' lives and, indeed, a good deal of my grandparents' lives. The comfort she could bring to many is not to be underestimated in my view. When Covid-19 was kicking off in the UK, and our lives were changing in ways we couldn't predict, I remember being immensely comforted by her spee…

Thank you for giving this perspective. I admit my aversion towards monarchy has inclined me to ignore news of the royal family. I also perceive a correlation between tabloid coverage and triviality. I admit neither of these are good reasons to discount the Queen's impact on people, much of which was in spite of a general preference for democratic rule.

Re: Queen Elizabeth II has died

#855

Not 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.

I am just going to leave this here. Enjoy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1937_tour_of_Germany_by_the_Du...

Re: Queen Elizabeth II has died

#856
post #333

As a Brit I'm not a huge fan of the royal family on principle, but Queen Elizabeth has been such an excellent head of state for us you really can't fault her. People like to make out her life was easy and that it's not fair that she inherited such a privileged position, but I think the exact opposite. Her life seemed like living hell to me. Every day for the last 70 years she's had to serve this largely ungrateful co…

> ...I'm not a huge fan of the royal family on principle, but Queen Elizabeth has been such an excellent head of state for us... This is a vastly underappreciated aspect of government, and of human social institutions in general. The principles-on-paper version of something can be mediocre, or just plain horrid. But if the actual people running things are sufficiently capable and caring, the on-paper failings doesn't…

I would frame the above comment as this question: If the form of government is chosen first and the people that fill the roles are chosen later, which government(s) are statistically more likely to serve their people and to what degree?

Re: Queen Elizabeth II has died

#860
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's understandable, she's been a constant vague presence for a lot of British people. It feels like a minor part of our personal history died. I definitely feel saddened, even if I don't have a connection with royalty.

She's also been a moral authority. She avoided the soap opera situations that have dogged the rest of the moral family and frequently she's shown leadership. In WWII she trained as a mechanic so she could do something tangible to support the war effort.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN