I hear that Camilla is very pleased with the wedding plans but has turned down the Queens offer of a weekend in Paris with a car and driver.

AisleSeat...Oh shame on you!!!!! LOL I am a real fan of English History so in that sense I like the Royals. I loved seeing the horseguards parade etc. but having said that..I'm a tourist and I'm not the one paying their bills, so I can certainly understand some UK citizens being less that crazy about them.

"When, in the course of human events..."

Liberte', Egalite', Fraternite'

To Hell with Burgundy!

Up the Revolution!

Live Free or Die.

Don't Tread on Me.

I just think it is amusing that the person who posed the question "What's your take on royalty?" has the screen name of Robespierre.

The real Robespierre was a demagogue who said to the French people we have to start with royalty and then guillotine our way down through the aristocrats, etc. The French people just kept going and eventually they got to him.

Each country should be able to choose its own form of government. The one thing monarchy has to say for itself, per H. L. Mencken, at least with monarchy you occasionally get a good one as compared to democracy and most politicians where you.....

Anthony

No, actually Robespierre was a reformer who tried to get the monarchy to change its ways. When it didn't, only then did he take to the barricades.

When the Revolution got out of hand and became the Terror, Robespierre spoke out against it. They chopped him for his trouble.

>... at least with monarchy you occasionally get a good one as compared to democracy and most politicians where you.....<

Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt 1, Roosevelt 2, Truman,

Pitt, Churchill, Thatcher

Gandhi

De Gaulle

Adenauer

etc, etc, etc

((I))

This forum supports any amount of drivel with only the most tenuous connection with travel. Generally it's only when the subject is political that the plaintive cry of "what's this got to do with ...?" emerges.

As the citizen of an increasingly reluctant monarchy inherited from our British forebears I have some sympathy for Robespierre, even though no modern monarchy (if that's not an oxymoron) believes that it has a divine right to rule. For one thing, as flanneruk points out, they don't rule anything. But as one who's been kept out of large parts of his own city (including Parliament House) by armed men during the royal progress of the US president, travelling in regal pomp surrounded by several 747-loads of fawning flunkeys, I don't have much sympathy for his minor traffic problems.

Here in this former colony we've just hosted a visit by a figure touted as our future king. Actually he might be still here - given the big yawn that greeted his presence, it would be hard to tell. To make matters worse, the hapless Charles timed his visit to coincide with that of the Crown Prince and Princess of Denmark, who received a warm welcome and nearly all the press coverage, largely due to the fact that Princess Mary, unlike Charles, is not only Australian but good-looking, smart and personable.

Displaying the male Windsors' characteristic foot-in-mouth disease, Charles asked a man of Asian appearance "Are you from China?" He replied in a broad Australian accent "No - from just up the road, actually." This exchange speaks volumes about how close Charles is to what he no doubts imagines to be his future dominion. He was last here in 1994.

We'd be a republic now if only we could agree on how to elect the president. The one thing that everyone agrees on is that the US model, in which the president functions as a sort of elected king, is outdated and inappropriate.

I'm sure this thread will be eliminated soon, but for those who say the monarch serves the people, then why do new citizens of the UK have to swear allegiance to Her Majesty? I just saw that tonight on a UK documentary. I can't cotton to the idea of swearing allegiance to any one person merely because of an accident of birth. The Q of E seems a decent sort, more or less, but I can think of plenty of people more deserving of lifelong loyalty.
Neil Oz, which "everyone" agrees that the U.S. presidency is outdated and inappropriate? Over 5 billion people decided that? When? I don't recall being asked that question anywhere. Given maximum term of office for a U.S. president is 8 years, that's hardly kingship. Too bad the Windsors don't have the same time limits.

BTilke, you need to read my remarks in context - I was talking about the projected form of an Australian republic, and in that context the US model is not and never has been under consideration. It offers no advantage over our Westminster system, and in fact to model the proposed republic along American lines would guarantee its being voted down. In our case, moving to a republic would involve very little change to existing mechanisms.

We do have a US-style federal structure, but many believe this is antiquated and inefficient, and that one of the two lower levels of government should be abolished.

Although I favour a republic here, it's the business of the British whether in due course they abolish the monarchy or simply downsize it. Likewise the American republic is Americans' business.

And you're taking the oath of allegiance too literally - allegiance to the Crown is a symbolic statement.

I know, this is the Europe forum - but the question was "What's your take on royalty?" Outside of Europe Canada, Australia and New Zealand are also constitutional monarchies - to say nothing of Japan and Thailand.

I say again, it appears from most researchable sources that European royalty descended from the Merovingien Dynasty...they did not rule, but appointed Mayors so to speak...they were known for many unusual things and people wanted to simply touch the hem of their robes to "be cured" of ailments so to speak...the blue bloods of today had to descend from a powerful source in order to retain their rule over the millenia...the intrigue that today sells the DaVinci Code and Holy Blood Holy Grail was always prevalent in the world...what if there was a mystical or divine origin to the original rulers? Same goes for the pharaohs of Egypt or the Mayan kings. Have we become so jaded that we cannot imagine other societies that may have existed prior to our civilization? Perhaps there were many...only a few years ago the books on astronomy were preaching untruths as we know it today...and scientists were laughing at those that said there was water on Mars...we become full of ourselves and believe that we know all things...when the truly intelligent person realizes that they are aware of only a smidgen of information that the universe possesses...

Neil Oz, I guess there's a fundamental difference between us--when I publicly swear allegiance to something, I mean it. I don't say, well, just kidding, it's only symbolic, don't take me seriously. The fact remains that new citizens of the UK must swear allegiance not to the UK as a country (which would make sense) but personal allegiance to her Majesty.
As for "context", that's a nice duck and dodge, but it doesn't wash. Check your dictionairy--"many" or even a "majority" is not "everyone." Does EVERYONE in Australia and New Zealand want their country to remain constitutional monarchies? NOBODY in Oz or Kiwi land thinks, however nominally or symbolically, having a Queen thousands of miles away is outdated or inappropriate?
I wouldn't want to be a subject of even a symbolic, constitutional monarchy. The idea that one class of people (the aristos and the monarchy), who by mere accident of birth, are entitled to lifelong privileges that pass from one generation to the next (no matter how useless) is what I find inappropriate and outdated.
At any rate, the aristocracy and the House of Windsor control vast tracts of land and property in the UK. Within those not inconsiderable areas, they do "rule."
And FlannerUK ought to check the history of the monarchy in Belgium. Their shenanigans in Africa outweighs anything committed by those long-dead slave owners (which, of course, is an exaggeration...many of the Founding Fathers did NOT own slaves and they were averse to taxation levied not by representation but by self-indulging, self-serving prats an ocean away).
Orval, there's no proof that the Merovingians or any other rulers for that matter had anything other than ordinary human DNA. They had no more divine spark than any other member of the human race. As for their ability to "cure", who knows, it could be placebo effect, it could be exaggeration by sycophantic scribes, and so on. The rarely washed, germ carrying garments of those rulers probably passed on more diseases than they cured!

Personally I rather like Liz, Phil and the rest of the Windsor clan. They make me laugh. A lot.

Yes, there's fundamental difference, BTilke, but I doubt that it will be resolved at this rate. The symbolism I referred to is that monarch is taken to be a representative of the nation. I appreciate that this is a subtle point.

As for the rest, you couldn't have misread my points more if you'd tried. Please re-read my posts with a little more care and a little less emotion. Hint: I made it plain that I'm not (that's n-o-t) a monarchist. Perhaps you could start from that point.

When you're in an argumentative hole, it's best to stop shovelling.

In the days when monarchs really did rule, with varying degrees of absoluteness, even 'divine right' was essentially a symbolic figleaf for the right of might - if X won the throne in battle, that showed God was on his side, and his descendants went on claiming this had passed to them (or, if you like, that they had inherited whatever it was that meant they would win in a battle, so you might as well not bother trying to launch one - until of course, someone else, be it a claimant for the throne or the Parliamentary forces in the English Civil War, did actually win a battle).

Nowadays we have elections as a proxy for civil war (or God) to decide who actually takes the decisions. And all the countries that retain monarchies do so because at some point the electoral/parliamentary process of the day decided to do so, and by implication might one day decide otherwise.

It's purely a matter of appointing someone to exist as a symbol - and a constitutional longstop in a real crisis. Apart from that last point, we could just as well put a stuffed penguin at the centre of the relevant ceremonies (it might be rather kinder than to have a real person there). For almost all the things that royalty actually has to do, the point is the collective celebration of the people involved of whatever it is they are there to celebrate, not the reality of the individual person whose presence is deemed to make it a special occasion.

I wouldn't be a monarchist if we were starting a country from scratch. But the UK's particular problem is that mediaeval notions of the absolute power of the monarch have migrated to 'The Crown in Parliament', i.e., whoever happens to have a big enough majority in the House of Commons. What I would abhor would be a huge hooha to establish a presidency without changing anything else about the system of governance and politics, because after that there would be little chance of any more change.

I must admit to being a fervant anti-royalist but after living with Tony Blair's presedential style of Government for the last 8 years, I am rather alarmed at what being a republic would be like.
Although in contradiction - people say that the royals bring in tourists (and money) to the UK. Yeah, so does Tower Bridge but I'm not about to call it Your Majesty.

"Message: I must admit to being a fervant anti-royalist but after living with Tony Blair's presedential style of Government for the last 8 years, I am rather alarmed at what being a republic would be like."

Ever notice that the left wingers really despise democracy. They prefer leaders like Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao. If they can't get those, they'll take a KIng or Queen. They want anybody ruling but the populus' choice.

Metellus,
Isn't that rather disingenuous of you?

It was the "left wingers" who so abhored the Tsar and the Emperor. Hardly a ringing endorsement for monarchy by the left!

Disingenuous? Absurd -- in the literal sense of being so illogical as to be funny. Metellus has just tripped over, and demonstrated, the phenomenon whereby extremists lean so far in a given direction that they meet the opposition coming the other way. Leftist thought never embraces the idea that power sifts down from a central top - it sometimes just ironically, or by fiat -- ends up that way. Rightist thought always assumes that power devolves by some natural process to those who "deserve" to be powerful -- it just ironically ends up that the already powerful accrue more power, by concentration of might and wealth.

My take on royalty? At least they represent some sort of cultural continuity and tradition, dusty and sentimentalized as that might be. And they are held to some sets of rules by official regulation and public expectation -- often broken but still recognized.

The alternative is the American star-celebrity system, contrived by PR and a bizarre combination of values such that we have a "royalty" of actors, athletes, rock stars, politicoes, and the occasionally flamboyant businessman or businesswoman. And the rules mainly seem to do with doing whatever it takes to remain a celebrity -- the whole idea of "role model" has vanished in favor of the transient, offensive, and contra-ethical.

Of course, European countries have the celeb-star affliction too, but there's still an expectation (however mythical) that nobility should be noble -- something utterly lacking in the US. I'm sorry Robespierre's navigation around London has been hampered by HRH, but consider the challenge of dealing with WashDC when the limos and motorcades move into rush hour traffic.

Finally, have to ask, really, what's it to you?

>...the US model, in which the president functions as a sort of elected king, is outdated and inappropriate.<

I don't agree with the premise. Even with a majority in both houses of the Congress, Mr Bush is going to have a very hard time changing the Social Security System here, and it's not at all certain he will be successful.

It will be interesting to see what system Australia adopts.

As for Mr Blair being "too presidential", the criticism is valid in that he is, supposedly, "first among equals"; or is that an old-fashioned idea?

((I))

Am I accused of being a left winger Metellus?
The reason that the UK sees Blair as Presedential (or some say Dictarorial) is that he has presided over two of the largest majorities ever seen in modern Parliament. He can almost do as he pleases knowing that he has 160 or so more MP's than all the others put together.
Even in times of rebellion, it would take over 80 of his own side to vote against him. Yet, what has kept Blair at bay is the House of Lords that is currently overturning just about every major policy he makes. So what is Blair doing? Abolishing the House of Lords so that he can fill it with his "cronies".