321–330 of 693 posts
I was mostly indifferent about the role of the royals until listening to this interview of Jordan Peterson [1]. It's an excellent argument for 4 branches of government. Specifically, where monarchs play a symbolic role within government, diverting celebrity worship out of the executive branch. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5os9bT9zuo
I was mostly indifferent about the role of the royals until listening to this interview of Jordan Peterson [1]. It's an excellent argument for 4 branches of government. Specifically, where monarchs play a symbolic role within government, diverting celebrity worship out of the executive branch. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5os9bT9zuo
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I would say both; you can oppose the procession itself for all of its pomp and archaic tradition at a time where the country is dealing with a cost of living crisis and also have that also be more broadly a protest against the monarchy in general. A large portion of the life of the royal family is public, even funded by the taxpayer, so to me it makes sense to allow for opposing viewpoints to be heard. Perhaps you ca…
> a cost of living crisis > funded by the taxpayer To respond only to your financial arguments: there are different ways of looking at the costs and benefits of the UK royals. Firstly, taxation: “the monarchy cost the taxpayer £102.4m”. Last tax year HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) “collected £716.0 billion in taxes”[0]. Let’s assume the “cost of living crisis” affects 10 million people. £100 million given to them woul…
But the reason I did so was to underline the point that the public have a right to attend, whatever their point of view, since its likely that a % of the cost for the proceedings will fall on the taxpayer
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Or indeed burning a model of the Grenfell Tower at a bonfire party https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/nov/06/grenfell-bon...
72 people died in the Grenfell Tower tragedy. Why would you do anything apart from express sympathy to the families of the lost? Why did you post that comment?
Funny how that works.
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I see this exact same comment did pretty well on Reddit too: https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/xckw5v/comme... 1. Not all of the arrests have been made at a "funeral" 2. It wasn't a funeral 3. If you're going to have a very public precession, parading a body through the streets with all the obedients lapping it up, surely you have to have a level of tolerance for dissenting voices? I imagine the disrupt…
I live in Edinburgh. Can confirm major disruption and likely costs based on the sheer number of police and event staff I've seen just walking through town.
To be fair, when you consider that the Queen lived for 96 years and there hasn't been an event like this since 1953, the cost spread out over that much time really isn't that much.
Long live the King!! (to keep costs down)
Im totally A-ok with arresting people disrupting a funeral. Like sessh. These are people too. Let them have a funeral, you can protest them afterwards.
I'll bet vanishingly few of the people with their hackles up over this spoke out in favor of the Westboro Baptist Church when it was in the news for their funeral protests.
Personally I've found it borderline sickening.
If there was a curtain that could have slipped, we all knew what would be behind it: a bunch of cherry-nosed coffin-dodgers with old-school-tie chums ensconced in the machinery of state, parliament, the military, whatever.
Sure. Fine. Yadda yadda, blah blah. The "deep state" dancing hand-in-hand with the old school elites. Yuck. Disgusting but hardly a clear and present danger.
But to see this machinery spring rustily, creakily into action has been truly eye-opening. Hitherto unknown people wearing ritualistic outfits have marched into public spaces in several cities, and declared that a member of the elite has been replaced, the continuum is unbroken. And this has been broadcast 24/7 by pretty much all media in the UK and in other countries. Elected representatives from all political parties have fallen into line.
It is not okay to ritualistically march a bunch of military-state personnel into multiple public spaces across the country, under the protection of the police and with the consent of multiple international media outlets, and expect public passivity and capitulation.
And yet, that's what has happened. And it keeps happening.
It's bizarre in the extreme, and we really should not be okay with this.
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> surely you have to have a level of tolerance for dissenting voices? To the procession or the monarchy? If you say the procession, sure. If you're talking about dissenting voices against the monarchy, I think that can be done without disrupting a memorial service.
> I think that can be done without disrupting a memorial service This point is being made all over the thread and seems disingenuous. The extremely public memorial service for the reigning monarch is a deeply political event. If this was some private service being protested, even if it was the royal family, the point would stand. But this is not that. Not only is the transfer of power to the heir at the moment of dea…
If they want to avoid making a change, they use this to put us off. The objections seem so plausible. But I’ve learned to use it to gauge when they have no intention of ever listening to us.
Very similar to your monarchy in many respects.
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Or indeed burning a model of the Grenfell Tower at a bonfire party https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/nov/06/grenfell-bon...
72 people died in the Grenfell Tower tragedy. Why would you do anything apart from express sympathy to the families of the lost? Why did you post that comment?
specifically, why would we bring to account those responsible for the actual fire anytime soon? https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/21/as-the-grenf...
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> It does not seem like having a "fuck imperialism" sign should ever get you arrested in a country that is supposedly one of the closest allies of the US. Hmmmm... /s?
> Hmmmm... /s? Okay, fair point – I missed the fact that SA is also currently a somewhat key US ally. But you know what I mean, hopefully. The UK has typically been close enough socially and politically that the term "Special Relationship" has its own Wikipedia page [1]. ---------------------------------------- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Relationship