23 thoughts on “Royal Weddings”

  1. Personally I don’t give a damn about the royals and their weddings, but if other people want to get all excited about such things that’s their business and I don’t give a damn about their enthusiasm either. What confuses me is why the need to run other people down about such quaint idiosyncrasies, the article you quote seems excessively emotional, using some quite strong pejorative terms to describe other people and their interests in such things: “betrayal”, “fetid royals”, “decadent”, “shallow-chested”, “quislings”, “wickedness” goodness me, that all sounds a bit like war propaganda by tyrants prior to invading their neighbors.

    The greatest irony about Sonny Bunch’s tirade though is that while he targets the Monarchy, the Magna Carta was signed more than 500 years before the American Revolution, the revolution was not a result of policies imposed by the Monarchy but about policies imposed by the British Parliament and that the American colonials did not have representation in that Parliament. Likewise the war against the American Colonies gaining independence was waged under the control of the British Parliament, it was not orchestrated by the Monarchy.

    1. if other people want to get all excited about such things that’s their business and I don’t give a damn about their enthusiasm either. What confuses me is why the need to run other people down about such quaint idiosyncrasies

      Having figure head monarchies are a cute reminder of the past. I don’t get all the squee or the hate against their existence.

      They are nice to have around so that every time one of them endorses some stupid policy we can be reminded how poor a system of governance monarchies are.

      that all sounds a bit like war propaganda by tyrants prior to invading their neighbors.

      No one in the USA wants to invade the UK, Canada, Australia, or even New Zealand. Besides, it looks like the UK is already being invaded.

    2. “…the revolution was not a result of policies imposed by the Monarchy but about policies imposed by the British Parliament…”

      Mmm… no.

      The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

      He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

      He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

      He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

      He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

      He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

      He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

      He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

      He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

      He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

      He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

      He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

      He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

      He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

      For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

      For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

      For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

      For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

      For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

      For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

      For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

      For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

      For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

      He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

      He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

      He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

      He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

      He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

      In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

      1. Your naivety is amusing, all those acts of Parliament that antagonized the American colonists: The Sugar Act, The Currency Act, The Quartering Acts, The Stamp Act 1765, The Declaratory Act, The Townshend Acts, The Tea Act, and the acts collectively known as The Intolerable Acts were acts passed by the British Parliament. It was simply more politically useful to the colonists to focus their ire on King George III rather than on the British Parliament and people.

        But that’s standard practice when leaders are attempting to motivate a population against another country, the focus is placed on the individual in government with the highest profile, whether or not he’s the one who’s actually pulling the strings.

        1. Just like a teenager. You read something or were told something, and suddenly, you were an expert. George III was squarely behind the punitive measures taken against the American colonies, and maintained Lord North in office long after even he no longer believed the war winnable.

      2. Just to make it clear, I’m not saying that George III was not an arrogant prick or that he wasn’t on side with the policies of his Government at the time, just that in practice there were other men, notably the British PM Lord North who proposed much of the legislation designed to “punish” the colonists.

    3. There are individuals in the royal family who admire (The Queen, Prince Harry) and those I don’t (that wanker Charles and his gold-digging booty call).

      The concept of a monarchy though is anathema to Americans….

      1. Harry is suspect now. His future wife might be a SJW nutter and his older brother is falling for gullible warming nonsense.

    4. If only Andrew really believed this:

      if other people want to get all excited about such things that’s their business and I don’t give a damn about their enthusiasm either. What confuses me is why the need to run other people down about such quaint idiosyncrasies

      Alas, I assume Andrew’s statement is so virtue signaling and that he plans to behave as he normally does; completely opposite of the virtue he just claimed to have.

  2. Maybe not. The American Revolution, really, was no such thing – fortunately, unlike the French Revolution. It was not an abjuration of British political tradition, but rather a demand that it be upheld in its essentials; the sorts of arrangements later given to Canada and Australia may well have been sufficient to put an end to it, and it’s quite striking that there was no fundamental reform of the existing colonial/state administrations afterward.

    1. Well, except for the whole “not having any Royals” part, which is what Rand’s talkin’ about…

      (And “not having a Parliamentary system at all”, let alone Lords and Commons, or Ministers, or …

      So, that’s rather a bit of reform compared to the British way of doing it…)

  3. It is an over-simplification to say so, but the pernicious idea of “royalty” contributed strongly to WWI. Holy Roman Emperors and ArchDukes, Czars and Grafs and yes Kings — many of whom were related to one another — dividing territories like bickering heirs fighting over a recently-deceased rich uncle’s ambiguously worded last will and testament. Some of which territory the uncle never actually held to begin with.

    1. The Great War was really much more about something new – nationalism – than it was something old, i.e., dynastic conflict.

  4. I have really come to believe that the majority of people are hard-wired to accept the legitimacy of family dynasties ruling by birthright. That describes the vast majority of governments throughout human history. Even North Korea, which has the trappings and symbols of Communism, is just a hereditary monarchy straight out of the Middle Ages, only with nukes.

    Look at all of the political dynasties we have in America. I don’t just mean the big national ones like the Kennedys, Bushes, and Clintons. There are countless minor ones all over the country at the state and local level. Part of it is laziness and name recognition on the ballot, but a lot of it is just that many people feel comfortable with familial dynasties.

    There are some people who seriously want to see Chelsea Clinton, Michelle Obama, or George P. Bush as national political figures, and even President.

    Many people are also afraid of true liberty and expect their leaders to take care of them. I hate to say it, but the American form of government as founded is an historical aberration, and not a few people, both of the noble class and the peasant class, would just as soon see it consigned to the dustbin of history.

    Those of us who want to preserve and restore it have an uphill fight, and we may very well be in the minority.

    1. …the majority of people are hard-wired…

      Which is why this country wasn’t founded as a democracy. Those that would be willing serfs to a nanny state were never meant to be voters if you understand Franklin. We are no longer the country they founded.

      We didn’t keep it.

    2. This could provide a way out of nuclear war. Make Kim Jung Un a figure head monarch and install a republic. Clearly he likes the lifestyle but does his love of abusing power mean he wouldn’t settle for a pampered life for him and his offspring?

      I’ve thought of this as a solution to other places like Cuba but it looks like totalitarian dictators are motivated more by power than greed.

  5. Even North Korea, which has the trappings and symbols of Communism, is just a hereditary monarchy straight out of the Middle Ages, only with nukes.

    I think it goes a lot further back than that; North Korea has revived the god-emperor form of government, a la the Egyptian pharaohs.

  6. You guys need to lighten up. It’s just fluff. But there’s one thing that makes a distant monarch an attractive head of state (and not head of government): it’s cheap. Even with Governor General costs, head of state expenses are pretty low for Canada, NZ and Oz.

    We in the States should consider it as a cost saving measure. The cheapest option would be to recognize Queen Elizabeth as our sovereign, but that would have dire political consequences. No, I think that would be better to start a new dynasty, someone whose family you would like to remove forever from the sphere of politics (i.e., head of government). Kennedy? Clinton? Obama? I’m open to suggestions.

      1. Hillary said she wanted to be President on another planet. I’ve always thought the suggestions of sending X on a one way trip to the Moon or Mars as being stupid because the Moon and Mars are too cool to throw away like that. But what about an asteroid? There are plenty of those.

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