Monarchism vs Republicanism

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Power should be justified and accountable and a monarchy is neither. A hereditary monarch does not earn the privelege of wielding power over others, and is not accountable to those over whom power is exercised. Its a recipe for incompetence and abuse. Would you really want a buffoon like Charles to have any political power, for Christ sake!

Reply 21

L i b

Kolya

Huh? I don't think anything prevents a monarch from being stupid or narrow-minded! They are monarch because of the family they were born into, not because they were intelligent or made thoughtful decisions based on a wide range of ideas, and so it is only natural that monarchs who are stupid and narrow-minded monarchs will appear. Isn't that just common sense?

The same, of course, applies to elected politicians - but in the main, they're mostly competent.

Reply 22

L i b

sam_sanchez

Power should be justified and accountable and a monarchy is neither.

How do you explain judges then?

The monarch's power is certainly justified: we are a monarchical state, and she is our rightful Queen by virtue of law.

Its a recipe for incompetence and abuse.

Funny how that recipe doesn't seem to have resulted in an end-product for centuries then, eh?

I'd buy a new recipe book if I was you.

Would you really want a buffoon like Charles to have any political power, for Christ sake!

Charles is by no means a 'buffoon'.

Reply 23

Kolya

L i b

The same, of course, applies to elected politicians - but in the main, they're mostly competent.

The important difference is that if a politician is horrendous then they can be replaced, either by the party or the electorate, with (hopefully) someone slightly better; a monarch cannot be culled in the same way.

However, this stale topic comes up again and again with the same debaters and the same arguments, and with no progress being made. I don't think there is any point going through it another time.

Reply 24

L i b

Kolya

The important difference is that if a politician is horrendous then they can be replaced, either by the party or the electorate, with (hopefully) someone slightly better; a monarch cannot be culled in the same way.

Well, a Minister within a government is basically there at the behest of the PM: he is accountable to one person alone. Yes, indirect pressure can be put by the electorate - but in reality, will it? Is a government going to be voted out because of one bad egg? Will anybody even notice or care? Few ministers have ever been 'decapitated', that is losing their seat, because generally they have very safe ones indeed.

But this assumes that democracy is somehow more meritocratic than choosing someone by birth and training them for life and instilling them with a lifetime's worth of experience. That is a massive assumption to make, and doesn't really bare out in reality. The electorate have many reasons for casting their votes the way they do, and actual competence at the job is - to my mind - quite far down the list.

Reply 25

crazygirl4521

Monarchs brings in room for corruption and exploitation of the mass public, at this current moment I don't see the reason for the British monarchy apart from bringing in revenue for British tourism.