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Antigua and Barbuda may vote to remove King Charles III as its head of state

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Re: Antigua and Barbuda may vote to remove King Charles III as its head of state

#131

Post by giarc »

cfcf14 wrote: post #105
giarc wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a fellow Canadian, I genuinely ask 'why'? I'm neither in favour or opposed to removing the monarchy but I'm wondering why we would? Is our country being held back in some way from having the monarchy? Is it just because of the cost, the pomp and circumstance? I suspect there are benefits to having the monarchy as head of state, what happens when we lose them? I'd love to see Jann Arden on the one dollar coin, but…

Couple reasons come to mind: 1) The institutional apparatus required to maintain the monarch as head of state is reasonably complex and expensive, both from a legal point of view and in a financial sense. The governor general is an unelected official whose power technically exceeds any democratically selected person in our government, and they make almost $300k/yr to do essentially nothing but administrative ceremony…

To be fair, no Canadians pay an inheritance tax, royal or not.

Re: Antigua and Barbuda may vote to remove King Charles III as its head of state

#132

Post by simonh »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #97
boomboomsubban wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering they recently publicly decided to be British, they're about as British as you can be.

Technically, Scots as in those born in Scotland and still living there voted to not be British. The vote was open to all living in Scotland (above the age of 16), which includes many people from the other nations such as England who may (or may not) consider themselves Scots, and conversely some people may consider themselves Scots but not live in Scotland.

> The vote was open to all living in Scotland

In other words, people with an unambiguous stake in the outcome.

Re: Antigua and Barbuda may vote to remove King Charles III as its head of state

#134

Post by [deleted] »

kergonath wrote: post #66
bombcar wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the moment Canada loses protection of the King is the moment the US invades. Some say we already have ...

> I suspect the moment Canada loses protection of the King is the moment the US invades. Lol. No offense to the memory of Queen Liz, but she could not have done a thing had the US decided to do something stupid like that. That said, just the notion is preposterous. The US would have lost much more than the Queen’s approbation, in the grand scheme of things.

[deleted]

Re: Antigua and Barbuda may vote to remove King Charles III as its head of state

#135

Post by CrendKing »

felipellrocha wrote: post #112
giarc wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a fellow Canadian, I genuinely ask 'why'? I'm neither in favour or opposed to removing the monarchy but I'm wondering why we would? Is our country being held back in some way from having the monarchy? Is it just because of the cost, the pomp and circumstance? I suspect there are benefits to having the monarchy as head of state, what happens when we lose them? I'd love to see Jann Arden on the one dollar coin, but…

I think the main benefit of a constitutional monarchy is that you split the job of appearance of propriety away from the job of actual governance. Look at the US for example, the selection of a president is both trying to figure out who can do the best job for the country but also who can look the best at it. Presumably, with a monarchy, the monarchy takes care of looking good, and the PM takes care of governing. Thi…

How would delegating any important job of a state (e.g. takes care of looking good) to a group of people you can't replace any good? Sure, there's always good kings and queens scattered in the history to be good or even great persons, but it's not guaranteed. When it's no longer the case, what's the plan then? I thought our civilization came this long way to realize the importance of being republic.

Re: Antigua and Barbuda may vote to remove King Charles III as its head of state

#136

Post by visiblink »

kergonath wrote: post #57
visiblink wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not having a President is reason #1 to keep a constitutional monarch. The constitutional monarch is a figurehead without much of a day to day role, but who ensures that the demagogue we elect is not at the pinnacle of the political hierarchy. That's more important than most people understand. A prime minister is always aware of the limits of the role.

> Not having a President is reason #1 to keep a constitutional monarch. There are lots of republics in which the president has only a ceremonial role. Germany and Italy, for example. There are absolute monarchs as well. The title does not indicate the effective power of the role. > A prime minister is always aware of the limits of the role. So is the president, if you have an appropriate constitution. This is the key…

> A monarchy has the downside that who gets to be the monarch is fundamentally undemocratic.

So I get 1/20 millionth of the decision in which of 3 or 4 members of an exclusive elite get a patronage position, and it's all good?

I'd just as soon eliminate the risk of handing that role to a political climber and leave the position to someone whose power we all clearly understand is only formal.

That being said, I understand and appreciate your arguments around a properly framed constitutional role for a president. If we ever do make the change, I'd like a non-imperial presidency...

Re: Antigua and Barbuda may vote to remove King Charles III as its head of state

#137

Post by visiblink »

kibwen wrote: post #60
visiblink wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not having a President is reason #1 to keep a constitutional monarch. The constitutional monarch is a figurehead without much of a day to day role, but who ensures that the demagogue we elect is not at the pinnacle of the political hierarchy. That's more important than most people understand. A prime minister is always aware of the limits of the role.

You don't need a monarch for that. If you're going to have an unaccountable position filled by someone without any demonstrable merit, then have a lottery once per year that draws a random citizen to fill the role.

Let's pilot this project in the Senate...

Re: Antigua and Barbuda may vote to remove King Charles III as its head of state

#138

Post by TMWNN »

shortsightedsid wrote: post #43
wikfwikf wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many republics have a president who is formally appointed, does not have any direct political power, and who often no one has heard of. France and the United States are the notable exceptions where the president is more important than the prime minister.

Interestingly, the PM in a Westminster model is actually more powerful than the President in the US mode. That’s because the PM is part of legislative and executive branch and in theory can get more of their agenda done. In practice, it can vary.

>Interestingly, the PM in a Westminster model is actually more powerful than the President in the US mode. That’s because the PM is part of legislative and executive branch and in theory can get more of their agenda done. In practice, it can vary.

I don't know of any cases among the developed English-speaking countries with Westminster-style governments where your latter sentence is meaningful. The Canadian Prime Minister, especially, is said to be the most powerful single government leader in the world, but really is merely the (to coin a phrase) first among equals among his peers in other countries.

For others' benefit, a Canadian Prime Minister can

* Appoint anyone he wants to cabinet positions

* Appoint anyone he wants to the Supreme Court[1]

* Appoint anyone he wants to ambassadorships and other high positions

* Sign any treaty he wants

* Call an election whenever he thinks he has the best chance of winning more seats than his party possesses in Parliament at the moment

* Get any law passed he wants (assuming that his party has a majority or equivalent thereof), with no meaningful need to deal with an upper house

* Run for reelection as Prime Minister as often as he wants

Most of the above apply to the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland. The Irish and British upper houses have little power, and New Zealand no longer has an upper house; only Australia has an upper house in the legislature with significant power.

[1] Yes, yes, I know about the convention that the PM names someone from a list of suggestions. That's all that is; a convention. The only actual requirement is that three of the nine justices have to be from Quebec.

Re: Antigua and Barbuda may vote to remove King Charles III as its head of state

#139

Post by simonh »

sanitycheck wrote: post #61
simonh wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think you have the right to speak for the British people. Neither do I. Let’s see.

I'm British, I want them gone. I'm not under any illusions that we have a meritocratic society but while we have a hereditary bloody monarchy I honestly feel somewhat gaslit whenever anyone claims we do (and they do claim that).

No system of government or society is pure, adhering to an unblemished ideal system. No communist government has been purely communist, no democratic system is perfectly democratic, no meritocratic system excludes all possible factors contrary to meritocracy. I don’t believe anyone has ever said our system is perfectly and ideally meritocratic in every way. That’s not what any reasonable person would take the statement “our system is meritocratic” as meaning.

It’s mostly meritocratic. Compared to many other systems, along with other comparable liberal democracies I’d argue it’s one of the most meritocratic systems developed so far. It’s also one of the most free, and the fact is free human beings don’t always make every decision based on merit. I think it’s clear if we chose to get rid of the monarchy we could do so through democratic mechanisms. So far we have chosen not to do so.

Re: Antigua and Barbuda may vote to remove King Charles III as its head of state

#140

Post by sanitycheck »

simonh wrote: post #139
sanitycheck wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm British, I want them gone. I'm not under any illusions that we have a meritocratic society but while we have a hereditary bloody monarchy I honestly feel somewhat gaslit whenever anyone claims we do (and they do claim that).

No system of government or society is pure, adhering to an unblemished ideal system. No communist government has been purely communist, no democratic system is perfectly democratic, no meritocratic system excludes all possible factors contrary to meritocracy. I don’t believe anyone has ever said our system is perfectly and ideally meritocratic in every way. That’s not what any reasonable person would take the stateme…

It's mostly meritocratic for the little people. 94% of UK children go to state schools, but only 50% of MPs went - and that's considered good.

A little bit of strawmanning there, implying I'm insisting on an unblemished ideal system. I simply think there's plenty of room for improvement on what we have, and stripping one family of a birthright to rule would count towards it.

I don't think it's at all clear we could get rid of the monarchy through democratic mechanisms! But that's rather besides the point - we wouldn't try, because the amount of state & media propaganda shovelled at us will prevent most people from wanting that. Unless some troubling events fast-track Harry & Meghan to the top of the succession order, of course.

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