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The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

theguardian.com

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Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#591

Post by michaelmrose »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #583
michaelmrose wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rest of what I filled in on my own is reality. The motivations you propose constitute a limited theory on how leaders of nations behave. Comparing your theory to thousands of years of actuality ought to cause a rational actor to conclude your theory is at best so incomplete as to be useless and at worst completely wrong.

You appear to have imagined that I suggested there is one and only one narrow motivation for Presidents/monarchists regarding their own personal wealth and that single narrow motivation would be the only thing impacting their behavior. I made no such suggestion. Therefore all of your extrapolations are invalid.

> Monarchy is superior to democracy in a very important way. When a monarch sends you off to die in war, the monarch is spending their own resources: you. And therefore the monarch's own wealth and power is at stake. In a democracy the president sends you off to die at no cost to themselves and only really strands to gain from the kickbacks.

This understanding is completely outside of actual reality. The statement "Monarchy is superior to democracy in a very important way" goes on to explain why you believe the monarch has a greater incentive to avoid wasting the lives of his citizens. This isn't even close to true. A monarch who loses 1% of his "wealth" in the form of dead people still has the other 99%. A President can lose his job, his wealth, and his personal power for less.

A president is incentivized not to put upon the people more than they can bear with the understanding that all they have to do to be rid of him is check a different box next go round. A monarch faces the same risk but only if the anguish of the people is enough for them to spend copious amounts of their own blood in violent revolution.

This difference in resistance is the dominant difference in motivation NOT a proprietary feeling towards a kings subjects. This is well born out by an ocean of blood spilled foolishly by monarchies through history. I don't misunderstand you. I don't think you have properly understood history.

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#592

Post by skissane »

skissane wrote: post #589
salawat wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beg you pardon, but note page 7, question 2, and I quote: >The United States, under its Constitution, is a federal, represent- ative, democratic republic, an indivisible union of 50 sovereign States. With the exception of town meetings, a form of pure democ- racy, we have at the local, state, and national levels a government which is: ‘‘federal’’ because power is shared among these three lev- els; ‘‘democratic’’ beca…

> Nowhere does it say it is a representative democracy I quoted page 8 saying exactly that! (Question 5, "The Constitution") "The original charter, which replaced the Articles of Confederation and which became operative in 1789, established the United States as a federal union of States, a representative democracy within a republic" It says the US Constitution established the United States as " a representative democ…

> You claimed I was redefining words

And now I have to apologise for that, because I realise you are not the person I was originally talking to, but someone else. I should have been paying more attention before I spoke so strongly

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#593

Post by solidsnack9000 »

crumbshot wrote: post #295
solidsnack9000 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stripping them of their wealth and exiling them would be debasing the rule of law in your country.

As I understand it, it is quite possible to do this within the rule of law. To avoid the monarch refusing to enact this, it would need to be done in two stages: 1. A new Royal Assent Act, that makes assent automatic upon a bill passing both Houses. Assuming this in itself receives assent, it would remove the monarch's power to veto or refuse a bill (a power that hasn't been used for over 300 years anyway). 2. A Repub…

Sometimes, what you're describing is called "rule by law" to distinguish it from "rule of law", because one practical aspect of rule of law is that everyone is subject to the law, even lawmakers.

This is not an intuitive concept by any means, but it helps to think about it in terms of the origins of the common law: the underlying idea is that the long acceptance of something or practice of something by regular people is a sound basis for its legitimacy. This still finds expression in the theory (in the US, anyways) that the speed limit should be the speed at which 85% of people drive. On this footing, the legitimacy of law is more about observation than about the decision of a particular person or administrative body.

Some things to contrast with the common law are "positive law" and "statute law". Legislation passed by Parliament is indeed statute law; it's not common law. Yet, to a significant degree, common law ideas and ways of judging remain prevalent in the United States, the United Kingdom and the other English speaking countries. It's the common law that defines most crimes with which you'd be familiar. It's more relevant than you think.

Although Parliament is indeed sovereign and Parliamentary sovereignty is said to mean that Parliament can not be bound even by Parliament, there are contemporary limits recognized to Parliament's law making authority. Sometimes they are even called "constitutional", referencing the unwritten English constitution; and sometimes they are clearly linked to the Convention on Human Rights. Either way, what we see here is an assertion of the old idea of "transcendent law" that binds everyone, even the law makers -- and that is what rule of law is really about.

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#594

Post by solidsnack9000 »

Number157 wrote: post #396
javagram wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The underlying assumption of the parent commenter is that “rule of law” means something other than 50%+1 of the House of Commons voting something into effect. For instance, if parliament passed a law allowing “The Purge” to happen yearly, would murders committed on that day be “rule of law”? If you don’t think so, perhaps you agree there are some inherent principles to rule of law that aren’t simply a majority vote o…

This is the major question that liberalism tries to solve. This is why in a liberal democracy, minority protection all the way to the individual is a top priority -- the 51% are not allowed to do anything they want.

Yeah. We don't need a government if all we want is majority rule.

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#595

Post by solidsnack9000 »

crumbshot wrote: post #548
7steps2much wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what the other commenter was trying to say was not that it would be impossible to do so, but that it would not be "right", so to speak. While you could of course exile them like other countries have done in the past, why would you do that? What reasoning would you use to justify exiling them, striping them of their personal property etc. ? Abolishing the monarchy is one thing, it can be justified pretty easil…

It wouldn't have to be deemed a punishment, merely a procedural item as part of establishing the Republic of Britain and eradicating any trace of royal privilege. > Technically just abolishing the monarchy / taking away their powers would suffice. It wouldn't suffice, because they still derive a great deal of power from their inherited wealth. What's the point of abolishing the monarchy if we permit them to remain as…

I hope you'll excuse me for phrasing it this way, but it would not be a punishment only because a punishment is a lawful injury, and your "Republic Act" is decidedly unlawful: by interfering with the royals' persons, property, privacy, &c, without any clear finding of wrong-doing on their part, the act is offensive to the common law, the ECHR law, and other fancy international law. (Good legal scholarship has shown us in recent years that most of the ideas in the ECHR and other international conventions are derived from the English common law, a rich tradition of which you should be proud.)

I am no fan of the royals and other nobles and look forward to the day when they all work for a living and wear seat belts like regular people. Yet, we must acknowledge that rule of law means law for the bad, the useless, and the rich. The ends don't justify the means.

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#596

Post by oilbagz »

dragonwriter wrote: post #510
oilbagz wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The Crown by the action of the Governor-General did, there's no indication that the Queen had any direct involvement. .. yet. And, that is precisely the problem with her powers. She can keep anything secret that she desires, including war crimes.

> .. yet Well, I mean, it's possible that the detailed information that has come out about the GG trying to get assurances that, if the PM advices that he be removed to forestall a dismissal, the monarch would disregard that advice and receiving a communique from the Queen’s private secretary that, in that event, she would be obliged to follow the PM’s advice has managed to miss another layer of secret communication…

Oh, no doubt the Whitlam affair was directed by the CIA, but the idea that the Crown and the CIA are not in league is also pretty far-fetched. The UK is a significant lackey to a lot of the crime the CIA and other TLA's have been committing around the world, lately. The 5-eyes wars wouldn't be prosecuted with nearly as much enthusiasm if it weren't for the support provided by the crown, for the sake of British Petroleum ..

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#597

Post by Blikkentrekker »

MockObject wrote: post #513
Blikkentrekker wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When a person desires change, they either want it for their personal gain, or have seen the shortcomings of the current system and want change to get rid of them. The difference is that a man can rarely convince the others of a chance that is not in the interest of the many, but only in his own. If there be legitimately flaws in the system that he wishes to address, it will be far easier to convince the collective…

> The difference is that a man can rarely convince the others of a chance that is not in the interest of the many, but only in his own. So political propaganda rarely works? Every political action is sold as beneficial to the many, but how many of them actually are? I feel like political dynamics are rather a bit less straightforward than you're portraying.

I have never successfully seen, or even seen attempted, a sell that the republic be superseded by a monarch, and the orator be put on the throne with special privileges.

Have you ever seen a republic successfully transition to a monarchy by will of the people because someone sold it as an idea in the people's interests?

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#598

Post by dragonwriter »

Blikkentrekker wrote: post #597
MockObject wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The difference is that a man can rarely convince the others of a chance that is not in the interest of the many, but only in his own. So political propaganda rarely works? Every political action is sold as beneficial to the many, but how many of them actually are? I feel like political dynamics are rather a bit less straightforward than you're portraying.

I have never successfully seen, or even seen attempted, a sell that the republic be superseded by a monarch, and the orator be put on the throne with special privileges. Have you ever seen a republic successfully transition to a monarchy by will of the people because someone sold it as an idea in the people's interests?

> Have you ever seen a republic successfully transition to a monarchy by will of the people because someone sold it as an idea in the people's interests?

You can probably squint at the Cambodian restoration and describe it that way.

While not a democratic republic, my understanding of the restoration of the Spanish monarchy to replace Franco’s fascist republic is that it essentially meets that description anyway.

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#599

Post by bigtones »

dragonwriter wrote: post #450
bigtones wrote: post #297

The Queen of England is also the head of the Australian Government, and has the power to fire the Prime Minister of Australia. She actually did so in 1975.

> The Queen of England is also the head of the Australian Government, No, she's not, the Prime Minister is head of government. The monarch is generally held to be the head of state, though that's not entirely clear and the Governor-General is sometimes referred to that way. > She actually did so in 1975. The Crown by the action of the Governor-General did, there's no indication that the Queen had any direct involveme…

The governor-general of Australia is the representative of the monarch (the Queen) - not the Government.
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