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British public support for monarchy at historic low, poll reveals

theguardian.com

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Re: British public support for monarchy at historic low, poll reveals

#81

Post by AlecSchueler »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #41
raverbashing wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Erm no. The way to abolish it is to pick a new head of state (elections, draws, pulling a sword out of a stone, etc)

Erm, the regent has the right to be told, and the right to hear. I think I have covered all of them. A 'head of state' only because * people pretend they are *

Any position only exists because people pretend it is so. We make up the rules of our make believe and write them down as laws. Currently just ignoring those laws doesn't have a great power in changing them.

Re: British public support for monarchy at historic low, poll reveals

#82

Post by kentrado »

AlecSchueler wrote: post #80
kentrado wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide examples of how it curbs extremism? The Tories have been doing extreme stuff and I don't see any intervention from the monarch.

What are examples of the extremism you refer to?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_British_prorogation_contr...

Re: British public support for monarchy at historic low, poll reveals

#83

Post by BerislavLopac »

skissane wrote: post #48
BerislavLopac wrote: post #21

It's been said, quite correctly, that the UK is a republic with a hereditary president, while the US is a monarchy with an elected king. I see plenty of misconceptions about the UK royal family in the comments, from them depending on taxes (they don't) to the importance of the monarch in the government. I don't really care whether the UK has a king of a president (except that the name change would be annoying) - but…

> I don't really care whether the UK has a king of a president (except that the name change would be annoying) - but the country currently has much bigger issues, including the fact that it's slowly moving towards a single-party authoritarianism. While there is currently a Tory government, Labour remain the favourites to win the next general election. That doesn't sound like a recipe for "single-party authoritarianis…

That assumes fair and lawful elections, which is far from given.

First, the election system itself, known and first-past-the-post, allows a party to win a seat with having a minimal majority in the ward. We don't have to look beyond the most recent election, in 2019, where the Tories won 365 out of 650 seats (56%) while only winning 43.6% of the voters. [0] A proportional voting system would make the ratio much more realistic [1], but I don't see that happening any time soon. (Ultimately, any government with the power to change the system would have been elected using that old system, so what change it?)

Second, the Tories are doing everyithing they can to improve the chances to win as many seats as possible. For example, the recently introduced photo ID requirement - in the country that traditionally eschews any mandatory photo IDs - is heavily skewed towards Tory voters: many poor people can't pay the fees to get a passport and don't have a driving license; and while senior public transport passes are accepted, student IDs and transport passes are not; and so on.

[0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2019/results

[1] https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/how-the-2019-election-re...

Re: British public support for monarchy at historic low, poll reveals

#84

Post by pfannkuchen »

krapp wrote: post #72
hotpotamus wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you read Terry Pratchett? I suppose you could call him Sir Terry Pratchett in fact, but one of his characters would say that one of the design flaws of humanity is the bend in the knee. It's like someone left a coding error in their brains that says, "Kings, what a good idea". I'm paraphrasing, but barely. Your comment just reminded me of that.

I've seen people argue for dispensing with democracy entirely in favor of returning to true monarchies - recently, on HN. It's baffling.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens at some point. Every revolution targets the problems of the day. Over time, people forget the problems of the past and start to focus on current day problems. Current day problems relate to the current day government system, and problems are blamed on the current system (right or wrong).

If we completely ignore what we’ve learned about monarchy historically, and just think about whether it could address some problems of today (e.g. lack of leadership accountability, manipulation of public opinion to steer voting, the divisiveness of every person having to think about politics, etc), I can see some appealing elements.

Re: British public support for monarchy at historic low, poll reveals

#85

Post by pfannkuchen »

SPBesui wrote: post #68
hotpotamus wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you read Terry Pratchett? I suppose you could call him Sir Terry Pratchett in fact, but one of his characters would say that one of the design flaws of humanity is the bend in the knee. It's like someone left a coding error in their brains that says, "Kings, what a good idea". I'm paraphrasing, but barely. Your comment just reminded me of that.

I’ve been thinking about that on my own lately. It’s like the whole human race has imposter syndrome and thinks there needs to be an “adult” in the room. I don’t know how many parents feel this way when bringing their first-born home from the hospital, but my spouse and I felt like the doctors were crazy to trust us, a couple of twenty-somethings, to take home a child and actually keep it alive and do all the things…

On taking custody of small humans, I like to say that if we weren’t able to make them at home ourselves we would definitely need a license to get one. It is illegal to own most other types of ape.

Re: British public support for monarchy at historic low, poll reveals

#86

Post by JoeAltmaier »

AlecSchueler wrote: post #81
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Erm, the regent has the right to be told, and the right to hear. I think I have covered all of them. A 'head of state' only because * people pretend they are *

Any position only exists because people pretend it is so. We make up the rules of our make believe and write them down as laws. Currently just ignoring those laws doesn't have a great power in changing them.

Sure. And this one is entirely ceremonial. Thus it can be obsoleted by, quitting the ceremonies. Just don't attend.

Re: British public support for monarchy at historic low, poll reveals

#87

Post by krapp »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #84
krapp wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen people argue for dispensing with democracy entirely in favor of returning to true monarchies - recently, on HN. It's baffling.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens at some point. Every revolution targets the problems of the day. Over time, people forget the problems of the past and start to focus on current day problems. Current day problems relate to the current day government system, and problems are blamed on the current system (right or wrong). If we completely ignore what we’ve learned about monarchy historically, and just think about…

Benevolent dictatorship works for software, why not government?

Re: British public support for monarchy at historic low, poll reveals

#88

Post by AlecSchueler »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #86
AlecSchueler wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any position only exists because people pretend it is so. We make up the rules of our make believe and write them down as laws. Currently just ignoring those laws doesn't have a great power in changing them.

Sure. And this one is entirely ceremonial. Thus it can be obsoleted by, quitting the ceremonies. Just don't attend.

That's magical thinking. Ignoring it won't change the legal position of the monarchy in the UK.

Re: British public support for monarchy at historic low, poll reveals

#89

Post by neilwilson »

kentrado wrote: post #82
AlecSchueler wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are examples of the extremism you refer to?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_British_prorogation_contr...

That's not extremism. That's the way the constitution works.

What was intended to happen happened anyway.

The constitutional outrage was failing to implement the 2016 referendum that the people voted for. MPs acted with impunity and were rewarded by ejection at the following election.

The Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act then set the matter on a statutory basis so the courts cannot interfere in the political process again.

Re: British public support for monarchy at historic low, poll reveals

#90

Post by kentrado »

neilwilson wrote: post #89
kentrado wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_British_prorogation_contr...

That's not extremism. That's the way the constitution works. What was intended to happen happened anyway. The constitutional outrage was failing to implement the 2016 referendum that the people voted for. MPs acted with impunity and were rewarded by ejection at the following election. The Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act then set the matter on a statutory basis so the courts cannot interfere in the political…

I disagree and I think there's enough information available that explains why Boris Johnson, proroguing parliament in the way that he did was unconstitutional and extremist.

However, even if you are right and it is not extremism. That doesn't support the idea that monarchies prevent extremism. If the argument is, there has never been extremism in the UK because of the monarchy and therefore I cannot give examples of extremism then that's a specious argument.

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