On April 19 2013 20:21 Maxie wrote: By the way, I wouldn't want to be the king of Sweden - he may be above the law in some ways, but he does not have religious freedom. I don't view him as above anyone else, he's just another human at a specific position.
Well, you do get to hang out in strip clubs with mob bosses and grope random women, which could be fun I guess.
It's kind of a funny limbo for the royal family, the live completely outside the law. They don't get to vote and their religion is decided for them from birth, yet they also have complete immunity from any criminal charges. I've lost count of how many times our cretinous wannabe-racer prince has been caught speeding or drunk driving, or both. And every time, the cops just have to let him go, they can't even stop him from continuing to drive even if he's inebriated.
Well that is actually pretty bad, why was this not changed in recent history ?
As I sort of suggested earlier, many countries have this idea of Sweden as a very progressive and egalitarian society. That is very flattering, but unfortunately not entirely true. Try to wrap your mind around the idea that our king was the de facto head of the state with very real political influence until 1975, and that the king's totalitarian rule was inviolable until 1809.
I really think people ignore or just don't realize just how much money from tourism for example a monarchy such as the UK's brings in. On a personal note I don't know why I am such a strong royalist but one only has to witness the spectacle that happens when a royal visits a Australian city. see
On April 19 2013 05:00 Arctic Daishi wrote: It's often said, and rightly so, that the United States is the first 'new' country. We're a country founded on the principles of freedom, republicanism, rule of law, gun ownership, and equality for all peoples.
I'm pretty sure that at the founding of Congress, the founding fathers did not want to leave the monarchy. It wasn't until later in the war when king George was being such a dick that that changed. In the beginning, the thirteen colonies wanted a diplomatic solution to their problems much like Canada got later on.
On April 19 2013 21:04 naastyOne wrote: I like the concept of the nominal head of the state not being elected.
It means there is a gathering figure, that doesn`t have to go thrugh all the political system of begging rich people for money, lyeing to voters, and then having to come up with some bullshit reason why s/he can not deliver on any of the promises.
Elected heades of state mean, that only a certain kind of person, can get elected, that can go thrugh the grinder of political system. With monarchy, it is pure random, you can get a crappy monarch, that can not do shit, and would probably just resign anyway, an okayinsh one, that can do all the official stuff, parades, celebrations and such, withot fear of actually communicating with people, like the currently, always victimised and living in a sterilised intraction enviroment politicans, and hence, without having half of country activly disliking that person, or you can get a very decent person, that can have enought moral autority to have certan amount of soft power thrugh advocacy.
IMO, monarchy is a pure win, and i`m perfectly fine with spending 10-20 dollars of my taxes yearly to have monarchy.
You can get that also without monarchy. A lot of European countries has basically purely symbolical presidents that are quite often not elected, at least not directly and are supposed to be apolitical.
On April 19 2013 21:04 naastyOne wrote: I like the concept of the nominal head of the state not being elected.
It means there is a gathering figure, that doesn`t have to go thrugh all the political system of begging rich people for money, lyeing to voters, and then having to come up with some bullshit reason why s/he can not deliver on any of the promises.
Elected heades of state mean, that only a certain kind of person, can get elected, that can go thrugh the grinder of political system. With monarchy, it is pure random, you can get a crappy monarch, that can not do shit, and would probably just resign anyway, an okayinsh one, that can do all the official stuff, parades, celebrations and such, withot fear of actually communicating with people, like the currently, always victimised and living in a sterilised intraction enviroment politicans, and hence, without having half of country activly disliking that person, or you can get a very decent person, that can have enought moral autority to have certan amount of soft power thrugh advocacy.
IMO, monarchy is a pure win, and i`m perfectly fine with spending 10-20 dollars of my taxes yearly to have monarchy.
You can get that also without monarchy. A lot of European countries has basically purely symbolical presidents that are quite often not elected, at least not directly and are supposed to be apolitical.
You actually missed the point about monarchs personality having much bigger varriance, did you not?
On April 19 2013 21:51 cozzE wrote: Royalism is the epitome of stupidity. Seriously.
Just because you say so?
On April 19 2013 21:51 cozzE wrote: It baffles the mind that people are pro-monarchy in the Western world.. guess the extreme religious right-wing or laziness does that.
And let me guess, despite your less than impressive demonstrated intelectual capacity, you still get to vote. That, is epitome of stupidity, to give power to influence society, to person that jumps to idiotic conclusions without even trying to figure out the reasoning of another side, by just dissmising it as stupid, since more often than not, calling something stupid just shows your lack of understanding, and desire to learn, prefering to stick to dogmatic prejudice.
On April 19 2013 11:59 Wombat_NI wrote: How is it communism?
Because the lack of personal property and inheritance has until now always lead to the state seizing it. The point is that the logic that monarchies should not have wealth and titles is extremely Marxist, a idealogy that the US has usually had major issues with.
They can hold onto their personal property, but not the state-subsidised ones. Titles, privilege are just the vestigal tails of an anachronistic class system, and are not exactly favoured by free-market capitalists either.
Do you really see such a big difference between gaining a plot of land because your forefathers bought it or attaining it because your forefathers gained it through medieval laws? Especially as these days, getting born into a powerful family controlling company's, hedgefunds, etc, can give you far more power then being born as the succesor of the Holy Roman Empire.
Inequality is inequality, whether you get it through exploiting ancient constructions of divine landownership or by exploiting people for the physical means to attain this land.
Capitalism is actually rather similar to the medieval mindset anyway, power trumps all unless the laws prohibit it, whether these laws are made by deranged prophets or greedy lawyers is relatively inconsequential for any kind of moralistic purpose.
And I gave you several reasons why holding on to a relatively powerless monarchy can have serious benefits earlier.
How high should the death tax be then?
Shouldn't need one. Rather than penalise those who have a wealthy background, with all the opportunities that opens up, concentrate on helping those who don't, have said opportunities.
Don't really care for specifics how, just a general principle.
On April 19 2013 23:11 sc2superfan101 wrote: At least in terms of survival, Republics have a long way to go before they can truly say to be more efficacious than monarchies.
That's not really a fair comparison though. Human beings have a long way to go before we can say we are more efficacious than dinosaurs in terms of survival, but I would contend that we've already exceeded them in many ways. The idea of the modern republic(post greek/roman republics) is fairly young and still in development.
On April 19 2013 23:11 sc2superfan101 wrote: At least in terms of survival, Republics have a long way to go before they can truly say to be more efficacious than monarchies.
That's not really a fair comparison though. Human beings have a long way to go before we can say we are more efficacious than dinosaurs in terms of survival, but I would contend that we've already exceeded them in many ways. The idea of the modern republic(post greek/roman republics) is fairly young and still in development.
That's a good point, but I still contend that there is some argument to be had over the long-term benefits of having a democratic Republic over a monarchy. Obviously I prefer the former, but that's more because in theory the democratic Republic can function better in the modern world. But I wonder if democratic Republics, in the long run, will turn out to actually be more beneficial to the well-being and safety of the average citizen.
The OP is incredibly dumb, just phenomenally stupid. You do realise than none of the European monarchies have any power at all right, like absolutely none whatsoever to do anything related to politics.
All they are is a hereditary rich family who bring in money to the country, an awful lot like the hereditary rich families America is full of, only ours actually give money back to the people.
On April 19 2013 20:11 Velr wrote: I find a "symbolic" Monarchy really, really terrible. From an ideological standpoint just as terrible as an actual Monarchy... You basically still accept that there is this "leader-class" and the "common-people" for no reason other than having an Ancestor which somehow made enough people believe that his blood was special (and slaughtering his way to power before that)...
Today's monarchs are more like presidents in countries where presidents are just symbolic head's of state. Those are also often just put there and citizens pay for their living expenses.
yeah. The point is to have someone who's not part of any parties, who doesn't have a clash of conflicts somewhere "in there" who's able to publicly call politicians dickheads if they're being dickheads (especially when on purpose), no matter of their party or standpoint. I like the german version better for it's symbolics but it's more likely to be flawed than the pseudo-monarchies in europe. Someone like a "king" or "queen" who has all his powers taken away from him or her, who isn't in any kind of party is more likely neutral when settleling disputes then an ex-politician.
On April 19 2013 23:11 sc2superfan101 wrote: At least in terms of survival, Republics have a long way to go before they can truly say to be more efficacious than monarchies.
That's not really a fair comparison though. Human beings have a long way to go before we can say we are more efficacious than dinosaurs in terms of survival, but I would contend that we've already exceeded them in many ways. The idea of the modern republic(post greek/roman republics) is fairly young and still in development.
That's a good point, but I still contend that there is some argument to be had over the long-term benefits of having a democratic Republic over a monarchy. Obviously I prefer the former, but that's more because in theory the democratic Republic can function better in the modern world. But I wonder if democratic Republics, in the long run, will turn out to actually be more beneficial to the well-being and safety of the average citizen.
On that, I have no idea, and I doubt any of us will live long enough to find out. Ultimately demoracy might be a more vulnerable system because it has more variables. One of the basic points required for a democracy to function is to have a population that is at least moderately politically literate. It takes more people who aren't dumb or ignorant, basically. Otherwise they will just end up voting for whoever is the best demagogue, or backed by the most powerful special interests. A corporate oligarchy, in effect.
The increased political apathy, especially among young people, could become a serious problem if in the long run it turns that you no longer have to convince voters with your policies and merits, but rather with flash and ingratiating rethoric. Maybe I'm naive, but I think innate human intelligence will allow us to have functioning democracies in the future.
Interesting topic. I live in the Netherlands and this might sound a bit strange. I don't support a monarchy as a concept, the concept of having a birthright like this sounds very backward to me. We also have a monarchy that does not just have a ceremonial role like in some countries, does not pay taxes, and the king and queen earn about 10 times what the prime-minister earns, don't need to pay for the upkeep of their castles, don't need to pay for their employees. So they live in incredible luxury.
That said...I think our monarchy does an incredible job and there are some factors that make the monarchy a very valuable part of the Netherlands. First, a monarch is trained from birth to become a leader. Of course, this is both a bad and a good thing, if it is a king or queen without much potential it can backfire incredibly. A person with a lot of capacities though can truly shine in this role. In general the Oranjes are intelligent, driven people.
Second, a king or queen is free of party politics. The monarch is there for all citizens. This means our monarchy has had a dampening effect on some of the more extremist movements and thoughts. They visit/give moral support in times of need.
Third, a king or queen can have a more long term vision than a republic has. Often republics have incredible short term vision. Only the next election matters, and not the long-term effects on the country or the world.
Fourth. A monarchy is incredibly good for international relationships and trade. Because they have such a neutral position, and hold a revered position, and they are well trained. They can make a big difference for PR and can generally visit any country and be warmly welcomed, with a big group of dutch companies following in their wake to benefit from their reputation.
On April 19 2013 23:47 Aeroplaneoverthesea wrote: The OP is incredibly dumb, just phenomenally stupid. You do realise than none of the European monarchies have any power at all right, like absolutely none whatsoever to do anything related to politics.
All they are is a hereditary rich family who bring in money to the country, an awful lot like the hereditary rich families America is full of, only ours actually give money back to the people.
So many people posting their opinions with little or no knowlege on the subject, including the OP.
Those saying 'the taxpayer picks up the bill for their party lifestyle,' are so far from the truth it's hard to comprehend.
(in the UK) The monarchy is profitable for the taxpayers. The royal family pay more in tax than they receive. Abolishing the monarchy would make no real difference to the average citizen, since they cost us nothing and have absolutely no power in politics.
Their 'party lifestyle,' consists of more dedicated hardwork than 99% of state employed diplomats. Prince Philip, who is 90 years old, in 2011 had over 450 royal appointments. They work almost every day until the day they die with the worlds eyes upon them. They might live in some fancy palaces and have some nice stuff, but I wouldn't personally trade places with them.
There are some great arguments against monarchy, most of them in this thread are irrelevant, wrong or downright stupid.
Its not about political apathy its more that the young generation cant pull up any relevant numbers in many countries. pensioners are voting leaders, young people just cant bring up the pure numbers to even compete. In some countries more true then in others. And older people generally want constancy and thats what they voting for.
Btw, monarchy is a luxury you want to afford or not. There is no power behind monarchy in Europe. Families born to rule...well thats what I see in USA much more then in EU. Even biggest retards with the right family Name can be President.
On April 19 2013 23:47 Aeroplaneoverthesea wrote: The OP is incredibly dumb, just phenomenally stupid. You do realise than none of the European monarchies have any power at all right, like absolutely none whatsoever to do anything related to politics.
All they are is a hereditary rich family who bring in money to the country, an awful lot like the hereditary rich families America is full of, only ours actually give money back to the people.
Lichtenstein!
it's not often that lichtenstein pops up in general conversation. well done guys!
On April 20 2013 00:14 tadL wrote: Its not about political apathy its more that the young generation cant pull up any relevant numbers in many countries. pensioners are voting leaders, young people just cant bring up the pure numbers to even compete. In some countries more true then in others. And older people generally want constancy and thats what they voting for.
Btw, monarchy is a luxury you want to afford or not. There is no power behind monarchy in Europe. Families born to rule...well thats what I see in USA much more then in EU. Even biggest retards with the right family Name can be President.
And the reason young people are outnumbered at the voting both is...?
This was very confusing, I'm not sure what the point was.
EPT
