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The Queen’s Coup

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Re: The Queen’s Coup

#91

Post by SllX »

telmo wrote: post #52
b800h wrote: post #50

In a British style constitutional monarchy, it is the job of the monarch to resolve these sorts of stalemates. The title is absurd.

Ok, but then it must be accepted that a "British style constitutional monarchy" is not a full democracy, given that in certain situations a non-elected head of state holds real power. I believe this sort of news appears in the context of it being commonly argued that in a "British style constitutional monarchy" the monarch holds no real power, and people who suggest otherwise are often dismissed as lunatics. It is go…

> I believe this sort of news appears in the context of it being commonly argued that in a "British style constitutional monarchy" the monarch holds no real power, and people who suggest otherwise are often dismissed as lunatics.

Almost every Brit I’ve ever spoken to about this will fastidiously argue that the Queen or King in power holds no real power. I simply don’t believe them. Given a constitutional crisis large enough for the House of Commons to want to strip the Royal family of its power and privileges, I wasn’t convinced they would be the guaranteed victors of that conflict with Queen Elizabeth II. King Charles hasn’t been King for very long, so a conflict with the Commons probably would favor the Commons at this point in time, but I’m not convinced the King could easily be run over either.

The reason this remained hypothetical under the Queen and will probably remain so under the King is they know how to effectively wield power without attracting spotlights and given a choice want the spotlights pointed in a different direction than at them. Compare and contrast with the President of the United States where every possible move he could make is scrutinized and gamed out within an inch of its life before he can make it, and when the Executive team leading the country does something, the President wants his credit so he can leverage that in forthcoming elections both for his own re-election and to bolster the campaigns of members of his party; but taking credit—even opportunistically—also means you suffer the blame as well.

Australia has good reasons to want to take a different approach though, and well, the King of Australia does live on the opposite end of the world, so picking up the Republican ball will probably be more straightforward for them should they choose to go down that route.

Re: The Queen’s Coup

#92

Post by telmo »

Defletter wrote: post #54
telmo wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, but then it must be accepted that a "British style constitutional monarchy" is not a full democracy, given that in certain situations a non-elected head of state holds real power. I believe this sort of news appears in the context of it being commonly argued that in a "British style constitutional monarchy" the monarch holds no real power, and people who suggest otherwise are often dismissed as lunatics. It is go…

Anything short of a direct democracy is not a full democracy

I disagree. Direct vs representative democracy is orthogonal to this issue. In a representative democracy, the mandate to exercise power still comes from popular vote. That is a qualitatively different situation from one where someone can exercise power by virtue of birth.

Re: The Queen’s Coup

#93

Post by sofixa »

DocTomoe wrote: post #89
znpy wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please help me remember exactly when the Italians voted in elections for Mario Monti as prime minister? I just can't recall that!

In most European countries - and so in Italy, you don't vote for a person, you vote for a party. This is usually a good idea, but can lead to unintended side-effects (See: United Kingdom). Monti was supported by both democratically-elected Houses of Parliament, otherwise Napolitano would not have given him the task of creating a government.

> This is usually a good idea, but can lead to unintended side-effects (See: United Kingdom).

In the UK you very much vote for a person, using the arcane first past the post system. People usually vote based on party allegiance, but at the circonscription level you cast a vote for the one winner, resulting in massive disenfranchisement.

Re: The Queen’s Coup

#94

Post by rfwhyte »

3pt14159 wrote: post #59
anonymous_sorry wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The monarchy means that prime ministers, who are generally only directly elected by people in a small geographic constituency, get to exercise the power of a head of state, via the monarch. Even weirder in this case, the prime minister (not directly elected by the general populace) appointed an Governor General (not elected at all) to a position with monarchic powers, and that power was used against him.

I know this seems weird to outsiders, but as a Canadian I quite like it. Having PMs elected by MPs means that it is harder for a single rabble rousing politician to sweep to power and distort the use of, say, the military. Having Governers General appointed by PMs, and confirmed by the monarch, means that someone outside of politics (usually a well respected figure like a university president or astronaut) holds the…

As a fellow Canadian I f*cking HATE it. Hereditary monarchies are pure unabashed evil. Monarchs only hold their positions because some ancestor of theirs was a better murderer than everyone else. They have massive wealth / land holdings, huge incomes and tremendous influence in politics and other spheres, despite not being elected nor actually earning any of their ill-gotten gains.

That being said, I agree with you wholeheartedly about the benefits our current system affords, though there's precisely ZERO reason those functions need to be performed by a monarch. There are other ways to achieve the same results without needing to prop up and pander to the spoilt, entitled children of some long dead yet highly effective murderer.

Re: The Queen’s Coup

#95

Post by skinnymuch »

csa wrote: post #67
orangepurple wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> the Democrat party... are consistently better organized, more presentable, better funded, more advanced psychological operations, better connected, and more coherent than their Republican counterparts In the US? Are you serious? - The Federalist Society is a decades long conservative/Republican effort to stack the courts. It worked. There is no liberal/Democrat parallel that comes even close in terms of scope and/o…

Yeah republicans and conservatives are amazing at organizing and keeping order in the ranks. Trump threw a wrench in some of that, but then they come out with things like the Lincoln Project that work really well (unfortunately).

Average Dems in power will do anything to keep Social Democrats out of power. Even if they are all still capitalists. The Democratic Party would rather lose to Republicans by a bit than cede power and in my opinion more freedom.

Re: The Queen’s Coup

#96

Post by tshaddox »

derefr wrote: post #88
3pt14159 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this seems weird to outsiders, but as a Canadian I quite like it. Having PMs elected by MPs means that it is harder for a single rabble rousing politician to sweep to power and distort the use of, say, the military. Having Governers General appointed by PMs, and confirmed by the monarch, means that someone outside of politics (usually a well respected figure like a university president or astronaut) holds the…

In est, you can think of the GG’s appointment as being done by the Sovereign — just with the nomination process delegated to the country’s current PM in order to minimize the Sovereign’s workload (especially for the Commonwealth, where they don’t live anywhere near the country themselves, and so don’t have an independently-legible candidate pool to choose a GG from. Back when Canada first became independent, appointi…

> you can think of the GG’s appointment as being done by the Sovereign — just with the nomination process delegated to the country’s current PM in order to minimize the Sovereign’s workload

Is there are practical difference between this description and just saying that the country's PM does the appointment? I guess one test would be what happens if the sovereign decides to override the PM. What happens then?

Re: The Queen’s Coup

#97

Post by nelgaard »

retrac wrote: post #87
urthor wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supply == The Australian Government's budget. Unlike the United States, By law, and by basic common sense, there MUST be a bill passed that contains the budget for the coming year. Otherwise no money is made available to public servants. Any government must be able to secure support for this bill once a year. Otherwise the entire civil service will not be paid. What the Queen established was the precedent that, inste…

Well, having a shutdown is just... inane. Should the government ever get wedged into a spot where there's no budget and no Parliament, the Crown has a duty to enact the most conservative (i.e. identical to the previous) budget as feasible and hold an election ASAP. The issue has never actually arisen in those terms here in Canada, but it's generally understood that is the constitutional procedure. If the government i…

Maybe not in those terms.

But the Queen and GC have dissolved (or prorogated) the Canadian Parliament as recent as 2008.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932009_Canadian_par...

Re: The Queen’s Coup

#98

Post by Defletter »

telmo wrote: post #92
Defletter wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything short of a direct democracy is not a full democracy

I disagree. Direct vs representative democracy is orthogonal to this issue. In a representative democracy, the mandate to exercise power still comes from popular vote. That is a qualitatively different situation from one where someone can exercise power by virtue of birth.

They're not orthogonal, direct democracy is the logical conclusion to your definition. Moving on from that though, I disagree that being a Constitutional Monarchy means we're not a full democracy; likewise, being a Republic doesn't gurauntee full democracy... look at America for the easiest example of this. I can give more specific examples if you'd like. Anyway, the King exercises power with the acquiescence of the public. We can abolish the Monarchy but we choose not to. Indeed, Australia can choose to emancipate themselves from the Crown, they just haven't. The fact that we can choose and there's no limitation on our ability to choose proves that their mere existence in our establishment doesn't inherently diminish our democracy.

Re: The Queen’s Coup

#99

Post by Eleison23 »

Defletter wrote: post #54
telmo wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, but then it must be accepted that a "British style constitutional monarchy" is not a full democracy, given that in certain situations a non-elected head of state holds real power. I believe this sort of news appears in the context of it being commonly argued that in a "British style constitutional monarchy" the monarch holds no real power, and people who suggest otherwise are often dismissed as lunatics. It is go…

Anything short of a direct democracy is not a full democracy

Well get into your TARDIS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy

Re: The Queen’s Coup

#100

Post by SQueeeeeL »

SllX wrote: post #85
bee_rider wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is sort of tangential, but it doesn’t match what I’ve seen at all. Democrat ic Party voters are notoriously flaky, turnout is a constant struggle. Every election starts with a struggle between the progressive and centrist branches. The Democratic Party generally represents a larger chunk of the populace than the Republican Party but turns that into middling electoral success (which doesn’t seem to indicate much…

Or: both parties constantly view themselves as the minority party even when they have the majority and complain about how the other party always wins and they never get to. It’s more nuanced: as results go in national elections, they have roughly equal success within the parameters of the electoral system that we have. Some localities are effectively single-party, and some are purple. Personally I think the people th…

Yeah, it's unfortunate that this whole abortion thing came up and all the Republicans had to choose between scaring all the women in their lives or flip flopping, but the party leadership have been trying to divide everyone on mortality issues for years. No idea who to vote for anymore :(
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