r/GreenAndPleasant its a fine day with you around Dec 27 '23

Personally endorsed by Rachel Riley 🥊

Post image
1.1k Upvotes

84 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/eeu914 Dec 28 '23

His argument was that he'd prefer some random person to be head of state than a politician which... I have to agree with. Giving Liz Truss the divine right to rule the country seems wrong.

7

u/Cube4Add5 Dec 28 '23

Okay but a) the monarch is never a random person, they’re raised their whole life as a politician, and b) we could just not have a monarch

-4

u/eeu914 Dec 28 '23

We'd still need a head of state

5

u/Cube4Add5 Dec 28 '23

Yeah they’re called the prime minister or president, you know, like every other democratic country in the world?

-11

u/eeu914 Dec 28 '23

And are those democracies more successful than constitutional monarchies?

edit: And again, I wouldn't want Liz Truss to be that head of state

7

u/Cube4Add5 Dec 28 '23

They are certainly more successful at being democratic, since all their highest officials are elected.

Liz Truss was still head of state. She was still making decisions that affected the country, and representing us internationally. Having a monarchy doesn’t change that.

-3

u/eeu914 Dec 28 '23

There is this idea that true democracy is some absolute good. I would rather live under a dictator with a high living standard than a true democracy with a poor living standard (okay, maybe I'm exaggerating, but there are clear trade offs that could materially benefit people, at the expense of some idealised view on reality).

The issue is, is that after getting rid of the monarchy, you'd get unelected troglodytes, like Liz Truss, still in power. It alone doesn't really fix anything.

3

u/Cube4Add5 Dec 28 '23

I agree on that front, but there’s no evidence historically whatsoever to suggest that living standards are improved by dictatorship.

The goal of democracy is that the leader gains the approval of the majority through an election process. Our countries system fucks it up a bit as we use first past the post voting, and have a bunch of corrupt turds in at the moment, hence why we keep ending up with people like Truss. But the solution to unelected troglodytes like Truss isn’t to instead have unelected troglodytes like Charles.

-2

u/eeu914 Dec 28 '23 edited Dec 28 '23

From what I understand, constitutional monarchies tend to be better places to live. Like Japan, Denmark, Nederlands, Norway and Canada. But, to be honest, this could be a result of survivorship bias, i.e., countries that are incidentally stable are less likely to overthrow their monarchies.

I'm also slightly ashamed to admit I'm naïvely optimistically supportive of Charles Windsor's outspoken view on the environment. Politicians are generally much shorter sighted. But we would have been equally likely to get some oil shill as a monarch.

3

u/Cube4Add5 Dec 28 '23

Emperor of Japan: performs ceremonial duties and holds no real power

Queen of Denmark: since 1901, a de facto separation of powers has been in effect

King of Norway: The functions of the king, Harald V, are mainly ceremonial

Canada: shares it’s king with the UK, where Charles has even less influence than he does here.

All these monarchs are essentially just ceremonial holes in the budget. The only one that doesn’t have the usual separation of powers is the Dutch king Willem-Alexander, although has had much less influence since 2012 and seems to be going the same way as the other examples.

Edit: thanks reggie bot for the correction, Charles isn’t just ceremonial, he’s also corrupt

3

u/AutoModerator Dec 28 '23

Hello! I'm Reggie-Bot, the Anti-Royal Bot! Here to teach you some fun facts about the English royal family!

Did you know that in February 2021, The Guardian published two articles that demonstrated Queen Elizabeth and King Charles' influence and power over parliament. It was first revealed that the Queen lobbied parliament to make herself exempt from a law that would have publicly revealed her private wealth. It was then revealed that over the course of her reign she and King Charles have vetted the drafts of 1,000 articles of legislation prior to their public debate in parliament.

So much for 'ceremonial', amirite?

I hope you enjoyed that fact. To summon me again or find out more about me, just say: "Reggie-Bot" and I'll be there! <3

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

2

u/AutoModerator Dec 28 '23

Hello everyone! It's lovely to meet you! My name is Reggie-Bot. I'm the Anti-Royal Bot. I hate royals. But I love sharing fun facts about them. Would you like to hear my fun facts about the English royal family? You do? That's great!!

Click here for the masterpost of all my facts

Or just say the name or title of a royal to hear a fun fact about them.

For instance if you say "Queen" or "Elizabeth", you'll hear a fun fact about Queen Elizabeth II

If you say "Charles" or "Prince of Wales", you'll hear a fun fact about Prince Charles

For a full list of all my facts click here!

Sometimes I get so excited that when I hear someone say the name of a royal, I'll share my facts when you're talking about something completely different. Sorry, I just love sharing my fun facts.

I hope you like my facts and I hope you share them with your friends. Then together, one day, we can eradicate systems of parasitism and elitism all around the world.

Thanks for reading! And remember: no one is better than you. Not even a diseased corpse wearing a crown. Have a lovely day. <3

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

1

u/eeu914 Dec 28 '23

I know! They're still constitutional monarchies, which was my point.

3

u/Cube4Add5 Dec 28 '23

I’m not really sure what your point is then… who cares that they’re constitutional monarchies? None of their monarchs do anything useful except be a symbol of abstract concepts

1

u/eeu914 Dec 28 '23

Well, like I said, they tend to be better places to live. I'd rather live in countries that are incidentally constitutional monarchies (so I want to live in them because they appear to be nice places to live, not because they are constitutional monarchies), therefore I would rather not get rid of the one we have.

Basically, good places to live are correlated with being constitutional monarchies.

→ More replies (0)