[cid]

(Original post by Benamisimo)

What have they done so that they can sit there and supposedly represent us? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. We live under this barbaric relic of a system, and for some reason, we love it. For the jubilee armada thing down the Thames, one businessman spent £5 million on a yacht for her majesty. The Queen has enough yachts. That money could have gone towards education or a hospital. Again, this is an example of the kind of culture we have, passing the wealth around at the top. Go into any private school or opera house and you will see plaques thanking various wealthy people for their contributions, in order to pay for a third minibus or plasma screen TV. This is what is wrong with our culture, and the monarchy is a pivotal aspect of that. And the worst thing is that we love them for it.

Well this is sort of going off topic but what you say about the upper classes sharing the wealth amongst themselves and having contacts and such, happens in all walks of life and all classes.

Big Dave owns a garage, his nephew has just finished school but doesn't quite know what to do with himself, gets a little job with his uncle, busy work mostly, cash in hand, before you know it he's in mechanics, might even go and get himself an NVQ in it so he can move on to other garages one day.

Sally works at Argos, her daughter .... Sarah? yea Sarah is in 6th form, just finished her first year, its summer holidays, Sally asks her manager if there are any job vacancies in the store or local stores, Sarah goes for her interview, maybe the interviewer knows her mother, maybe the manager at her mothers store put in a quick phone call saying the mum was a good egg and the daughter should get a chance.


Sure its not on the scale of the upper classes, but then nothing really is, everything the upper classes do is on a bigger scale really.

However the inconvenient truth is, the majority of us would act EXACTLY the same if we were in their position.

[gladders]

(Original post by Piprod01)
[Changed font colour to make it easier to follow]

Well mostly put that in there because it was done here, it got a fair number of respondents, it was conducted very recently, and it appears fairly high up on google.

Here's one conducted a couple months before the wedding, on 2400 individuals:
http://yougov.co.uk/news/2011/03/25/...vely-princely/

The results were actually pretty favourable for the monarchy:

That's pretty low, depending on the question and time that number is as high as 22%. I can chose any of these statistics because my general point is about republicanism being pretty common.

Again: so what? There is a small part of the population that espouses republicanism; I never denied that. But the vast majority of people are either completely in favour or don't care enough either way to be bothered to call for its removal.

I care about the bias I see here. If I lived in France I would care about bias in France.

But you're begging the question: you are saying that republicanism is undersold in Britain; I disagree - I think it's sold exactly as it is, and it is found wanting.

I think it does matter because it kinda suggests that the Royal Family priorities self preservation at the expense of democracy. Which undermines one of the main arguments for the maintenance of Monarchy; that they are independent arbiter.

No, not at all. ANY institution, even Parliament, will fight for its survival if under threat. ANY institution. The key matter, however, is their response to the final decision. If it ignores the democratic will and seeks to, for example, start a civil war over the issue, then it is against democracy. If it however accepts and withdraws, which I imagine the monarchy would do, then it is respectful.

It doesn't need to be direct, we vote for people who best represent us in the understanding that they vote in our interests. Which is fair enough.

We don't need it to be anything. Why do you insist democracy is only about elections? It's evident that the majority of people are content for the monarchy to remain. You don't need an election to determine that.

Bills have to go though a final step of Royal Assent before they are approved. The Monarch is also free to not to approve it. I don't think this is a likely scenario, but it's one more reason to support republicanism.

When was the last time such a veto took place? I find its use extremely unlikely - nay, if they used it, then we'd have a republic. If I were you, I'd be BEGGING for the Queen to use it.

And hey, if there such a thing as "royal blood", who's to say there's not enough madness to running though their veins to actually do it?

The last three centuries argues differently.

[gladders]

(Original post by Benamisimo)
The problem is however that the Monarchy represents everything wrong with "Britishness." Our social mobility has been decaying for decades. It is now harder than ever to move upwards in class, and it is virtually impossible to enter the top proffesions without existing contacts. Rich people get far better education, healthcare and freedom, and often, this isn't even private; the richer areas tend to have better state run facilities. All this means that jobs are passed down, if not exactly father to son, then at least within the same social levels. Yes, of course there are exceptions. But trumpeting these things in the face of reality is misleading.

Now, I'm not saying this problem is the fault of the Queen. It is the fault of a more general aspect of our culture; it doesn't matter about your natural ability, only whose vagina you fell out of.

You make fair criticisms, but they're, as you say, nothing to do with monarchy at all.

Our head of state is there to set an example, to typify the rest of the nation and show its best virtues. What virtues do the royal family have? Despite having the best education in the world, there is not a single one of them who has contributed anything significant to the worlds of art, science or culture. Any achievement they have inevitably boils down to the fact that they have a lot of money rather than anything particularly useful.

I think that Prince Charles at the very least has pioneered green technology a great deal. As for other endeavours...the royal family are constitutionally forbidden from participating beyond being patrons.

Their achievement and their example is selfless duty. They could quite easily decline to do any public activities, retire to their homes, and just not get involved in anything until we tire of them - and then they would continue to do the same thing as private citizens of the British republic. Instead, however, they dedicate themselves to extremely hard work as ambassadors and patrons.

What have they done so that they can sit there and supposedly represent us? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. We live under this barbaric relic of a system, and for some reason, we love it.

The reason the monarchy is sustained is because the people recognise the contribution they make to society. You may not see it, but to the rest of us, it is perfectly clear. They devote their lives to promoting Britain at home and abroad, and serving as a human symbol of the British nation-state.

Why is it barbaric? It's old, sure. But democracy is older, arguably.

For the jubilee armada thing down the Thames, one businessman spent £5 million on a yacht for her majesty. The Queen has enough yachts. That money could have gone towards education or a hospital.

What a private person does with their money is none of your business. In any case, the Queen gets far less lavished on her by the State than any President in G8.

Again, this is an example of the kind of culture we have, passing the wealth around at the top. Go into any private school or opera house and you will see plaques thanking various wealthy people for their contributions, in order to pay for a third minibus or plasma screen TV. This is what is wrong with our culture, and the monarchy is a pivotal aspect of that. And the worst thing is that we love them for it.

The problem is, you make a lot of a fair criticisms about the social inequalities in the UK, but as you say, they are little to do with the monarchy. How would removing the monarchy make any improvement? You can't say it will set an example: there are plenty of monarchies more socially mobile than us, and countless republics less socially mobile.

Republicanism is displacement activity - focussing on a totem to avoid tackling with the real problem.