The MOnarchy

I disdain the royal family's unearned wealth. I advocate removing their excess, leaving them with what they need to quietly disappear into the fabric of normal life – a palace or two, a few priceless works of art, a small grouse moor. It might actually do them some good. Otherwise I have no problem with wealth. Julian's greenhouse is okay by me. In fact, I wouldn't mind having a greenhouse of my own one day. QED what?

Yes, I want a different constitutional arrangement on principle. That's called having an opinion. The existing one may have evolved for over 1000 years, but that doesn't mean it can't be bettered. And it's not okay compared to most others, because it allows the PM to indulge his rather elastic notion of democracy. We need proper change, and we need it now.

And while I don't claim to be an expert on Marx, I know enought to know that you have a rather curious view of Marxism. His ideas had the plight of ordinary people at their heart. He envisaged a world that was equitable for all and not based on the principles of exploitation of the many by the few. Rather noble sentiments I feel. Don't confuse his humanistic view of the world with the actions of a rapacious psychotic such as Stalin, or glibly condemn as 'Marxist' any opinion that doesn't conform to the prevailing capitalist model.

 

ok, so ron and michael are admitting that they have some form of personal problem with the royal family being rich. and propose gestapo tactics in order to relieve them of it.

if that's an indication of what your new world orders are going to be like where property can be confiscated on a whim or because of some sort of undefined objection in principal then i for one am soooo glad they neither of you have any say in the way i live my life. perhaps you would both have been happier in 17th century salem, well as long as no one took a dislike to you that is. perhaps this is one of the lessons we should learn from the past instead as rejecting it wholesale as old and outdated.

cheers


julian

 

Jules, embellishments such as this only serve to create fear and confusion.


From my point of view, it would be nice if i had some property to confiscate in the first place.

 

so cookie, what would you call the confiscation of property based on some abitrary categorisation? isn;t that what hitler and the gestapo did to the jews, gypsies and various other abritary categories of people in the late 1930's?

like i said the difference is only one of magnitude not intent.
cheers


julian

 

Sad to report, we do. It's called the vote.

This is a puzzling remark. And comes across a bit like somebody pointing his finger and screaming 'witch'.

 

ron,
thank you for not adressing one of the points i made. it lends a certain weight to my argument. also the feeble attempt to accuse me of being some sort of intolerant bigot is laughable when you've proved that you are one in your previous posts.

cheers


julian

 

Come on Julian, lets debate this in an adult fashion

You clearly don't seem to (or are deliberately pretending not to) understand the position I and Ron are coming from. Snappy one liners which grotesquely distort and extrapolate what we've been saying without any concrete counter arguments aren't very helpful.

I don't have any personal problem whatsoever with the royal family, or with people being rich. Richard Branson probably owns a hell of a lot of land - I don't have any issue with his richness or the amount of land he owns as he almost certainly bought it all fair and square.

No one here is suggesting that property (specifically, land) be confiscated "on a whim" and neither is anyone suggesting "gestapo" tactics to redistribute it either. No one here is suggesting "rejecting the past wholesale" either allthough you seem keen to reject out of hand anything new that goes against the past Some of us call that progress.

There are many instances and examples of land re-distribution throughout history:
- Indian/Aborigine reservations in the US and Australia
- Redistribution of white owned farming land in South Africa
- Redistribution of vast tracts of plantation land in Brazil
- The creation of Israel

They all have at their root (except perhaps Israel) the acknowledgement that the status quo came about through grossly unfair accquisitions and that some form of recompense is in order.
One could well argue that a lot of royal land in the UK comes into the same category.

Michael.

 

Surely, you recognise the implications of such a verdict?

A joke is not always funny, despite the intent.

 

Oh Mike :cry:

'progress' - that's more ruinous than the 'gestapo'.

I think i should arbitrate this bitch slapping, since, to my detriment, i think pretty much everything is

 

So Ron, you've met my EX then
Obviously heated and feeling running deep here, howabout a compromise situation, in which the Royal family are 'encouged to work' as their subjects do for say 12 weeks a year, and paid the relevent amount pro-rata to the job thus done, no flunkies or phiscophants fawning about, just get on with it.
they should be self sustaining & generate income for the country, robbing them blind ala' cheers mate tuff titty don't wash either, just cause bucket loads of resentment & grief, however don't give any more. Wm

 

michael,
what you say has merit. i still think that it's a dangerous thing for anyone to have property confiscated as it creates a dangerous precedent. would it stop with the royal family? were they the only old family to seize property they still own in the middle ages? the answer is no, should these other families have their property siezed, and if not why not when another family has had their property taken? it's a complex issue that seems to be getting little thought, that's all i'm saying.
as for rejecting progress, perhaps my stance is a little extreme but i was countering the sentiment expressed earlier that everything learnt from the past should be rejected as out of date and forgotten (that was my point of making the salem reference as the monarchy seems to be the victim of a witch hunt in this thread).
any country is a product of it's past deeds, hopefully that country learns from them adds new thought to the problem and construes a better future - that's really progress.
cheers


julian

 

tony,
so doing duty tours of childrens homes, hospitals, 3rd world countries etc. so that uk companies can clinch big deals is not work for the good of the nation. as i said earlier try paying tom hanks or nicole kidman what a royal gets a year to do the same thing for the same amount of time and see how far you get with their agents...
cheers


julian

 

Agreed Julain, however they (MR pretty boy and ugly ozzie minger) haven't had a given birth right wedge,
I know Anne and a few of the others do some good work for sure, but they aint in touch with the REAL WORLD or what happens on the ground.
Perhaps they should be forced to lead a normal life til 30, then hopefully some lessons they've learned on the way up may have sunk in Tone

 

tone,
val kilmer and one of the monkees were born with silver spoons firmly wedged into an oriface.... there's probably more too.

i'm not saying they do charity work i'm saying that they are sent to places as goodwill in order to secure deals which will aide the people of the uk. some of that may look like charity work and some may even be charity work but underneath it all is the continual promotion of the uk.
cheers


julian

 

Would it be better to help members of the human race as opposed to just the minor community of individuals that constitutes the UK?

What if the Royals were to donate all their trappings to some poorer country in order to build a few wells or something?

Or would that create a dangerous precedent.....

 

you first then cookie....

sauce for the goose and all that.
cheers


julian

 

First of all, for the record, I am sitting here and typing this in the best of moods, with nothing but love, peace and understanding in my heart towards all (yes, even the royals). Sure, it's a heated debate, but that's what keeps it interesting.

Julian, I just don't concur with your view that they are a vital asset. In my opinion they are a millstone. Of course a nation's history is vital, but I don't think you've been paying attention to what I've been saying – namely, that there are aspects of it to which we have become slaves. Chief among these is that our identity is somehow bound up with that of the royals, and that they embody all that is good and true in the British character.

The bottom line, as Ian pointed out way back, is that the monarch's role in the process of government is indefensible. But I feel we need to make that mental break with them before our elected representatives grow the balls to face the issue (and the way events have been unfolding over the past months that might happen sooner rather than later).

Furthermore, their immense wealth will always guarantee them an influence they simply don't deserve (eg, Charles mouths off his ill-informed and antiquated views about architecture and scuppers yet another forward-looking development) and I believe they will need to be rationalised (to give it a more sanitary feel) so that any lingering power is excised and they become a quaint and harmless reminder of the nation's former glories. As for their so-called PR work, if it makes them happy let them do bits here and there, though I suspect somebody like Bobby Charlton could do as good a job.

So call me a republican if you will. I can take it. These are my views. I state them as clearly as I can, and have tried to apply a little thought to them. If my thinking is lacking, feel free to bring it to my attention. But while I could reasonably be accused of many things, I am confident that being a bigot (a heavy word word, so lightly thrown) is not among them. And, frankly, I'm confused as to how you have come to this conclusion when all I have done is disagree with your opinions. Perhaps you could enlighten me so that I might endeavour to become more open minded.

Cookie, I have never knowingly been involved in 'bitch slapping,' although the other day I did have to speak quite sternly to Ludo (a friend's dog; walking her for a favour) when she hared off after an innocent squirrel. Does this count?

WM, I have never met your ex, but she sounds like my kind a gal.

 

ron,
you were quite clear that you didn;t distain anyone who had unearned wealth just the royal family.

now websters definition of a bigot is...
a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices.

the two sure seem to have some congruence to me.

i don;t think i've ever said that they are a vital asset just that if you were to pay similarly famous people to do their jobs it would cost a whole lot more than it currently does.

also i don;t think i've ever said that the royals embody everything that is good and true about being brittish. even i'm not crass enough to suggest that.

as you say you consider yourself to be a republican through and through. i prefer to take a more balanced aproach and not throw the baby out with the bath water. that great paragon of republican thought, america, has been subconsciously yearning for a king for ages. consider the reverence they afford the kennedys, sports personalities, actors, bill gates. i prefer our real and innefectual royal family to someone who's influence is based on how tall they are or how well they can mumble a few lines in a film.
cheers


julian

 

To concentrate on the important question rather than the hyperbole coming from some contributors to this thread, here's one for those defending the monarchy.

The reigning monarch has a weekly private meeting with the PM at Buck House, a tradition that has been in place for many years. Nobody knows what's discussed, but presumably the content of the meeting is inocuous enough (I'm not a conspiracy theorist, and doubt very much that Brenda - as Private Eye call the Queen - uses it as an opportunity to try to influence government policy).

The question is this: in a democracy, why does an unelected head of state have this weekly private access to the PM? Is this good for democracy, or bad, and is the fact that nobody - apart from the Queen and the PM - knows what is discussed in these meetings a good or bad thing? Would democracy be better served by either ending these meetings, or by making the content of the discussions public and accountable, or by continuing as is?

-- Ian

 

i would say make the agenda and decisions made during these meetings public as long as disclosure doesn;t contravene national security or the privacy of individuals.

as for why? well i'd certainly like access to someone who presumably has a lot of inside knowledge of how the power structure works, has lived through numerous governments and who could if used properly provide a perspective that's not just focussing on the next general election.

cheers


julian