Plain old me
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GarzaUK said:I am not denying that our system of government needs to change and that we need a constitution.
I just can't understand how instead of someone who we voted for to fly over the world, shake hands, have dinners with other heads fo state and basically doing **** all is anymore enlightened than someone who is born into doing it. I mean the Irish President does exactly the same as the Queen. If I had to vote for someone to do **** all I wouldn't vote at all.
I don't think anyone anymore believes that a monarch is appointed by God. I think the monarchy for all its flaws makes us different to everyone else. And being different is not such a bad thing.
I admit a great deal of my opposition of the monarchy comes straight out of principle, but as you’ve pointed out that is basically what the position of British Head of State has now been reduced to; pure show and principle. All she may practically do is fly around shaking hands, but she is the head of state, at the apex of our political system – dissolving parliament and appointing the government. Real power she may hot have, but the monarchy does have tremendous symbolic power, and that fact it is a hereditary position is a terrible symbol to have.
It makes us different, but in a profoundly bad way. Different as an old man of a country, looking wistfully back to its past and trying desperately to cling on to it’s most archaic aspects whilst everyone else is moving on. I went on a trip around some former Eastern bloc countries a while back and a guide showing us round Prague pointed something out that resonated quite well; she explained the Czechoslovakian revolution and explained how now, just like the ancient democracy of Britain, the Czech Republic has a Parliamentary democracy. Ah, but there is a difference… Britain still has a hereditary head of state whilst the Czech Republic, this nation only free to democracy a matter of years ago, has an elected one, something she pointed out with noticeable pride.
Anecdotal as that may be, I think it makes my point. The monarchy sets us apart, true, but sets us apart almost as a has-been of a democracy, pathetically clinging to pointless traditions. Our constitution needs modernisation, and I’m afraid that means all levels of politics, right up to Her Majesty.