Happy 98th Birthday to Prince Philip the Duke of Edinburgh

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

1 minute ago, HornsOverIthaca said:

Takes him out to look at the queen
Only place that he's ever been
Always shouts out something obscene

Ahhhhhh art imitating life......

[Ghost of LL 15606]

From a political science standpoint, I see real value in separating the head of state from the head of government.  So even if you think Theresa May is a fool and a failure, you don't have your patriotism questioned because you're still loyal to the queen.  There's value in having the party out of power styled "Her Majesty's loyal opposition."  Countries with unified heads of state & government encounter the trouble of having their out-of-power parties' loyalty questioned, which is ultimately harmful to democracy.

A lot of countries--e.g., German, Israel--accomplish this by having an elected president with minimalistic powers who serves as the head of state while the prime minister is the head of government.  But those elected presidents serve fixed terms.  There's no continuity.  And there's no greater institution underlying the constitution as there is in the UK with the Crown.  The presidency in Germany is a creation of the constitution; the constitution in the UK is a creation of Parliament (of which the Crown is a part).  So in some ways, I think the elected-president model is an inferior one.

Beyond that, as the UK marches toward a constitutional crisis, I suspect we're going to see if the Crown has any ongoing political use/relevance.  At some point, I think the Queen is going to be called upon to break a constitutional stalemate.

As an American, though, that interests me only in a purely academic way.  She's not my queen; I'm not going to bow to her.  And when I'm in London, I'm much more interested in going to see the British Museum and eat Indian food than I am in watching the changing of the guard.

['stache 21925]

1 hour ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

So yer opposed to lotteries, and kids inheriting their parents wealth ?

Lotteries are a tax on the poor, and I feel similarly about inheritances as many of the founding fathers and others early in our country's history. 

Quote

If there was one thing the Revolutionary generation agreed on — and those guys who dress up like them at Tea Party conventions most definitely do not — it was the incompatibility of democracy and inherited wealth.

With Thomas Jefferson taking the lead in the Virginia legislature in 1777, every Revolutionary state government abolished the laws of primogeniture and entail that had served to perpetuate the concentration of inherited property. Jefferson cited Adam Smith, the hero of free market capitalists everywhere, as the source of his conviction that (as Smith wrote, and Jefferson closely echoed in his own words), "A power to dispose of estates for ever is manifestly absurd. The earth and the fulness of it belongs to every generation, and the preceding one can have no right to bind it up from posterity. Such extension of property is quite unnatural." Smith said: "There is no point more difficult to account for than the right we conceive men to have to dispose of their goods after death."

The states left no doubt that in taking this step they were giving expression to a basic and widely shared philosophical belief that equality of citizenship was impossible in a nation where inequality of wealth remained the rule. North Carolina's 1784 statute explained that by keeping large estates together for succeeding generations, the old system had served "only to raise the wealth and importance of particular families and individuals, giving them an unequal and undue influence in a republic" and promoting "contention and injustice." Abolishing aristocratic forms of inheritance would by contrast "tend to promote that equality of property which is of the spirit and principle of a genuine republic."

Others wanted to go much further; Thomas Paine, like Smith and Jefferson, made much of the idea that landed property itself was an affront to the natural right of each generation to the usufruct of the earth, and proposed a "ground rent" — in fact an inheritance tax — on property at the time it is conveyed at death, with the money so collected to be distributed to all citizens at age 21, "as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property."

Even stalwart members of the latter-day Republican Party, the representatives of business and inherited wealth, often emphatically embraced these tenets of economic equality in a democracy. I've mentioned Herbert Hoover's disdain for the "idle rich" and his strong support for breaking up large fortunes. Theodore Roosevelt, who was the first president to propose a steeply graduated tax on inheritances, was another: he declared that the transmission of large wealth to young men "does not do them any real service and is of great and genuine detriment to the community at large.''

In her debate in Delaware yesterday, the Republican Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell asserted that the estate tax is a "tenet of Marxism." I'm not sure how much Marx she has read, but she might want to read the works of his fellow travelers Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Herbert Hoover, and Theodore Roosevelt before her next debate.

https://www.economist.com/lexingtons-notebook/2010/10/14/you-cant-take-it-with-you

['stache 21925]

It works for now because the Queen is like a kindly old grandma. They hate Charles, so he'll probably abdicate to William, and that will really only work if the focus is on Kate and the kids and Harry and his wife and kids.  At least they served in the military and I think are involved in real business matters. It will need to be more of a young family institution and not one lady wearing a crown, which works for now, but nobody wants Charles or William to be the lone face of that institution.

Edited June 12, 2019 by 'stache

[Ghost of LL 15606]

21 minutes ago, 'stache said:

It works for now because the Queen is like a kindly old grandma. They hate Charles, so he'll probably abdicate to William, and that will really only work if the focus is on Kate and the kids and Harry and his wife and kids.  At least they served in the military and I think are involved in real business matters. It will need to be more of a young family institution and not one lady wearing a crown, which works for now, but nobody wants Charles or William to be the lone face of that institution.

Charles is not going to abdicate, and he's going to be fine for the ten years or so that he's king (very Edward VII).

[relapse98 634]

46 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

Charles is not going to abdicate, and he's going to be fine for the ten years or so that he's king (very Edward VII).

This. Charles will be king someday, just won't be for long. Of course, there is something in the blood of that family that makes them seem to live forever. Blasted Elizabeth I lived till 101. Elizabeth II still kicking pretty strongly at 93. Her 3rd cousin/husband 98.

[formermav43 4606]

1 hour ago, Ghost of LL said:

Beyond that, as the UK marches toward a constitutional crisis, I suspect we're going to see if the Crown has any ongoing political use/relevance.  At some point, I think the Queen is going to be called upon to break a constitutional stalemate.

Did you happen to catch King Charles III on either BBC or PBS a couple of years ago? It imagines a future where Charles becomes king and precipitates a constitutional crisis by refusing to give his ascent to a law he conscientiously objects to (and all in blank verse-it was pretty entertaining, I thought).

[Ghost of LL 15606]

48 minutes ago, relapse98 said:

This. Charles will be king someday, just won't be for long. Of course, there is something in the blood of that family that makes them seem to live forever. Blasted Elizabeth I lived till 101. Elizabeth II still kicking pretty strongly at 93. Her 3rd cousin/husband 98.

For the record, Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother) lived to be 101.  Queen Elizabeth was George VI's wife, and the consort of the monarch is not accorded a numeral.  

Queen Elizabeth I reigned from 1558 to 1603 and only lived to be 69 (which, in fairness, was of pretty advanced age in the 17th Century).

37 minutes ago, formermav43 said:

Did you happen to catch King Charles III on either BBC or PBS a couple of years ago? It imagines a future where Charles becomes king and precipitates a constitutional crisis by refusing to give his ascent to a law he conscientiously objects to (and all in blank verse-it was pretty entertaining, I thought).

I did, and I agree that it was entertaining.  And I could see Charles pulling something like that.

But he's not going to abdicate because he thinks "oh, I'm too old and I need to step aside for a younger generation for the good of the monarchy."  He's been trained to be king since he was a kid--there's no way he thinks that anybody other than him would be a suitable monarch.

[Grade of D as in David 13253]

Especially when he's relatively new blood after replacing his near 100 year old mom

[ImissWallyPryor 9046]

10 hours ago, Kennythetiger said:

Yep, me too.  I was somewhat entertained when that younger prince was growing up, as it seemed like he was kind of a black sheep.  And the two brothers found two hot wives, so good for them.  Other than that, not really my deal.

Crazy Diana was a real turn off, too. 

[Gil Bang 26121]

7 hours ago, Ghost of LL said:

For the record, Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother) lived to be 101.  Queen Elizabeth was George VI's wife, and the consort of the monarch is not accorded a numeral.  

Queen Elizabeth I reigned from 1558 to 1603 and only lived to be 69 (which, in fairness, was of pretty advanced age in the 17th Century).

I did, and I agree that it was entertaining.  And I could see Charles pulling something like that.

But he's not going to abdicate because he thinks "oh, I'm too old and I need to step aside for a younger generation for the good of the monarchy."  He's been trained to be king since he was a kid--there's no way he thinks that anybody other than him would be a suitable monarch.

You're quite the royal fanboy dude.  NTTAWWT

[Ghost of LL 15606]

No--I'm a history major.  I can tell you the same level of absurd shit about American presidents and German chancellors.

[G650 14304]

10 hours ago, Ghost of LL said:

No--I'm a history major.  I can tell you the same level of absurd shit about American presidents and German chancellors.

I'm glad you are explaining it because I can't be bothered. 

[El Diablo 4232]

12 hours ago, ImissWallyPryor said:

Crazy Diana was a real turn off, too. 

She hated land mines. Land mines!