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Do we still yearn for a King?
Posts
The current line of British have that too - the people asked William of Orange to come and take over 1689. Of course its not taught any more because slaughtering Catholics isn't very PC.
Also despite the "bigger murdering bastard than the others" school of thought, the origin of nearly all European monarchs can be traced to some elected position (small electorates though) whose holders turned it into something hereditary - hell Charlemagne's grandfather's title was Mayor.
Total agreement there.
I think most of the reasons people are so over the top interested in this sort of thing have mostly been touched on. Some people want to be like them, or at least be like what they perceive those people to be. It's really no different, at this point, from any other celebrity worship. I think some people do wish life was simpler at times and see a monarchy as representative of that, while forgetting that the day to day of life under a king really isn't that much different from a democracy except you have less power to voice opinion and affect long term change. I think there is also probably some small segment that watches these things for the same reasons some people watch Nascar, just in case there is a crazy cool car crash.
I have never felt this from people. People have been fascinated with the wedding for the same reason they fucking pour over People/US Weekly/Enquirer and get all nosy into the lives of celebrities: because they're nosy bastards who want to know all about the lives of celebrities, and those celebs are entirely too happy to oblige. People paid attention to the wedding because it was high profile, people wanted to see the dress, enjoy the pomp and circumstance of the ceremony...
I really don't think it has anything to do with "I want to have a king" and everything to do with "celebrities and personal lives TELL ME MORE!"
I'm a bit optimistic in that I think doing the right thing, and Free-will are not mutually exclusive (perhaps they are though). How one would know the right thing would be the same way we know what is right now: education, social re-inforcement and conditioning, the example of others and ethical frameworks (religious or non-religious), and that cool thing we call emotional empathy (being able to put yourself in others shoes). Rightness in this scenario would not be prescribed because there would be no laws, only voluntary mutually binding unanimous decisions.
These agreements reached through consensus differ from laws, because they can only govern the behavior of actual participants in the accord. Future generations would have the choice to agree or not as they see fit, though given reasonable education most would pick to explicitly get along with everyone else, but they should be given the genuine option to not participate.
Like I said, totally impractical, because it involves too much trust in fallible people.
Yeah, although the Brits don't have a written constitution, and HRH Lizzie theoretically is the one who decides who gets to form a government, and decides when Parliament is dissolved, in practice it doesn't work like that. Cameron's party had the most MPs, so he was invited to try and form a government first, but if a lib-lab coalition had formed, they would have gone with that regardless of who the queen asked to form a government. (She probably waited until it was certain that the unholy Clegg-Cameron alliance was formed before asking Cameron to form the government anyhow).
And as for dismissin parliament, in practice, the PM "requests" that she do so and call for an election (or Parliament has a vote of no-confidence and "requests" that she do so. In that regard, she is merely rubberstamping a decision made by elected officials.
As far as I'm aware, in other European monarchies, the monarchs have similar or even less power. After all, the King of Belgium has been helpless to intervene as his country refuses to form a government.
y'all is missing out
So in lieu of that I would take a parliamentary system where the PM/President is of the same party as the majority party / coalition in parliament. That way you have a more stream lined process than you have with a split House/Senate/President. This of course has its own set of problems. :?
No, I am not really communist. Yes, it is weird that I use this name.
This is about as far away from anarchy that you can get.
I think some people were moderately annoyed at the money spent on the wedding, given the current state of Britain's austerity measures, but yeah, not exactly a groundswell of rage sweeping the nation calling for their heads over it.
I'm not sure this is entirely accurate. Regardless of what Charlemagne's grandfather's title was, Charlemagne became king because his father overthrew the previous king and then convinced the pope to say that it was all according to God's plan.
As far as the other European royal families, they were all hereditary from a very, very long time ago. Sure, the German princes 'elected' their emporers, but only from a small pool of contenders, and only 7 or 9 people were allowed to vote, so I'd hardly call that an elected position.
I suspect most people deep down actually feel the same as myself, because I can't think of a single person who actually likes being told what to do ... maybe other people have met such individuals, but I haven't.
I am truly that selfish about exercising my free-will, and that un-selfish about others exercising their free-will.
The Buganda had an interesting hybrid system in which a council of various regional representatives selected which of the king's non-first-born sons would be the air. Under that system, there was a closed set of specially-trained potential leaders and a way to screen out sociopaths.
A friend of mine said to me some time ago that:
"Let's assume that every tenth person is a tremendous douche and a horrible manager of power. If a parliament is jointly in power then the 10% parliament members that are retarded will get their power negated by the 90% sane parliament members. But if just one person is in power, whether it's as a president or as some sort of king, then you'll end up with a cluster-fuck every tenth person in charge."
If you get so lucky that only 10% are fucking terrible.
However, looking at the lessons of history, with that much power I'd guess that closer to 99%-95% of all people ever to have walked the earth are/were totally unfit to rule anyone or anything other than themselves and their own lives.
The truism that seems to prove itself most often in my view is, "Those who would seek authority are often the most likely to abuse it."
It comes from an old saying about management and promoting from within. To find your qualified applicants from your current staff, ask them to submit their names for the position. Those are the names you can most likely discount.
From my understanding each individual takes a turn leading the group every day, and that leader is responsible for finding food and water for the group. It's basic cross-training that likely predates civilization, and the theory, I believe, is that the group is not overly reliant on a single individual so if the group is separated or a leader dies, the group is not crippled in their survivability. Also, leadership is considered one of the basic tribal responsibilities every member must take on, simply as a way of contributing to their collective survival.
It tends to support the idea that lottery chosen leaders with very short terms can be an effective ruling mechanism, which I find a fascinating prospect. I wonder how the effectiveness of that kind of leadership would scale with group size? Like, could you run a city that way? Would there be advantages over democracy or royal dictatorship? I think there would be, but I wonder what you all think.
So mark me down for the group of people that absolutely do not give a shit about royalty, and in no way yearn for a king.
The goal of our founding fathers was freedom. The goal of our current politicians is control.
I can't think of a single major political philosopher since the 17th century who supported monarchy, so I'm not sure why half of Europe still puts up with them.
This neo-feudalism would be more tolerable if our betters had fancy titles.
I'm glad you wrote a longer, better post than what I was going to, with the same viewpoint. I understand but disagree with the modern love affair with democracy, as I think there are three things keeping it from being tenable in the long term.
1) There's a quote that I only vaguely remember about people being able to vote themselves largesse from the town treasury that applies. Look at what's happened here in America over the last 20 years. People just stopped voting for anyone who wanted to take a larger part of their paycheck. They've voted not to give the government any money, in effect voting "fuck everyone else, I've got mine".
2) Forcing leaders to save their job every few years. Because of that politicians, instead of looking at a situation and taking stock of what their constituents need, listen to what constituents say they want.
3) The public these days is pretty easily misled. I'm not talking about conspiracy theorists, you'll always have those folks. I'm talking about party leaders who figured out how shitty point 2 is, and have elected to simply tell the people what they want. Gays are dangerous. Anorexic government is better than strong government. Taking care of the poor and elderly is unpatriotic. The government has to subsidize anything that needs doing. (I'm trying to find examples from the left, but I think Dems' weak message discipline makes them far less effective at this)
People don't say it outright, but look at voter turnout for presidential elections compared to midterms or local/state elections. Listen to comments from the kind of people who think "Obama should lower gas prices". People think they elect one guy and he does all the work. People absolutely treat the presidency like an elected kingship, and because the president doesn't actually have the power they think, every 4 or 8 years the country looks at the economy and goes "welp, that worked/didn't work" and votes accordingly.
Yes, but what you're not taking into account, is that Americans today are by and large, very stupid people, and have no idea about what's actually going on in the world around them. They don't yearn for a king, they yearn for shiny things, and an easy life, with no worry, and 24/7 access to TMZ.
The goal of our founding fathers was freedom. The goal of our current politicians is control.
Pro-tip: If your leader calls himself Generalissimo, or is somehow otherwise the head of a military junta, chances are it's going to suck.
That being said, I'm speaking strictly in comparison to modern monarchies. Historically, kings are just dictators, but with more incest evolved. For every Queen Elizabeth, you'll get quite a few Tsar Nicholas II or Ivan the Terrible.
If peeps really feel that way you can always move to some part of Africa to get a taste for how much worse dictatorships are than democracy. In fact, try Libya on for size.
Hell, remember that horrible experiment in social engineering called the Soviet Union? Would you really rather live under a government with total control over you, really? (not taking into consideration the terrible economic policies of the Soviets)
Do you prefer not being able to get social justice from your government without killing your leaders? If so then, I suppose I completely understand your preference for a dictatorship. However, if you like to be able to affect the course of your government without having to war and kill and plot to overthrow the bastards then you aught to stick with democracy.
Sure democracy is far from ideal, as are all real government systems, but it's the best of the bunch IMO.
I'm just really surprised to hear people paraphrasing Anakin Skywalker and Senator Palpatine in this thread like it's no big deal.
Well, for certain definitions of "we." I have nothing but contempt for royalty, and I'd sooner smother a prince in his crib than let him have actual political power.
It's kinda why my ancestors left there and fought in some wars to protect the Republic. I hate to admit it, because I am very anti-authority, but if I thought terrorism was a real threat to democracy militarily, I probably would have volunteered. I could fly a predator just as well as any other video game junky, for god's sake.
Humans are a routine based species, but I wouldn't say that we didn't like uncertainty. I would imagine many humans like myself would prefer not to know the outcome of our lives in a lot of aspects. The future is unwritten.
I totes 'gree!
Edit: I'm still here in my feelings right now:
I think we can agree that the problems I mentioned with democracy are real. Some things shouldn't be voted on. But don't make the mistake of thinking that I think a better system exists currently. Maybe it seems that way because I'm sort of moving tangential to the main thread. I wouldn't support royalty by birth, but I do think an executive branch that has more power is desirable.
Sure, I have difficulty reconciling "less accountable to constituents" with "less beholden to the uneducated masses". I'm not savvy enough to construct a perfect alternative, but I'm smart enough to know that sometimes what people want is not what they need. We need energy independence, we want cheap gas.
A assume it must be, since only a few hundred years ago there were a whole lot of revolutions to get rid of "less complicated" governments, in favor of "more complicated" republics and other sorts of democratic forms...
waitaminute
... Aren't there ongoing massive revolutions to replace the dictators of the Middle East with democratic self rule? Shit, there sure are. Guess people still tend to want democracy more than actual dictators, even in Egypt where dictators of one stripe or another have ruled for over 3000 years.
Maybe people in the U.S. are tired of doing the work, but I think people are becoming less engaged politically, because our Republic has become less easy to influence for the common person and has come far too much under the control of the super rich. People don't feel that their government is worth their time, because it's not responsive, not because "democracy is totally inconvenient, dude". However, when their a democratic government is not responsive the correct action is to become more involved not less. The only way to combat the corporations and their limitless spending, is to be much more involved, including educating others who express their uninvolved status. Take them to task, break their balls about it and tell them to stop acting like babies until their lazy asses get out there and participate.
Also, I have never bought the fallacious line that "people are just dumb, so they should have no say in their government" that inevitably crops up in one form or another when people criticize democratic forms of government. Frankly, it is untrue in my experience and it is an offensive over-generalization. I have met virtually no one, out of the thousands of fellow human's I've met that I thought "boy that one's too stupid to have a say in public policy". Even if that was true in the general case (which it is not) the correct response is: fucking "educate the idiots", not "end democracy in favor of a benevolent dictator".
I'm not claiming that democracy is perfect or even pretty, but it's still the best available.
Actually we do need cheap gas if the U.S. is going to keep being profitable enough to pay off our debt at some point. No cheap gas = U.S. defaults on debt and loses economic hegemony.
But until that point, things would be wonderful.
Come on, work with me here. I will put this in simple terms.
I find it a fun challenge to postulate about forms of government that could potentially superior to our own.
I'm not saying the general populace is a bunch of dumbfucks who shouldn't have any say in how they're governed. But I do think that people tend to vote in self-interest (real or perceived), and there ought to be some limits on the ability of people to vote themselves upward at the expense of others.
I am not in support of dictatorship, or any sort of singular entity government. Hell, the latest idea I came up with was still an elected body. I haven't had a chance to really run in through the philosophical wringer, so I'm not going to post it, because it's probably still full of holes.
I am not advocating for anything except a realistic appraisal of the limits and flaws of the current system. If we don't at least do that, how can we ever hope to move forward?
If you quoted the entire post of mine you'll notice that I go on to say that as it stands now a parliamentary system is probably the best realistic system I can think of and even that has it's set of problems. We can still talk about the theory of "a perfect government" while in the same breath pointing out that it will not work in the real world.
Atomic Ross's post does a good job explaining how I really feel about the subject:
No, I am not really communist. Yes, it is weird that I use this name.
Oh, but the Caroligian overthrow of the Merovigian dynasty was a long, drawn-out process. Pepin the Short didn't wake up one day and said, "I'm going to rebel and create a new dynasty".
The European monarchies were MUCH more stable, hereditarily speaking, than the Roman and Byzantine emperors (where every general with enough soldiers and ambition could, and often would, become Emperor).
"Money tends to corrupt, and lots of money corrupts lotsely" - Me.
I'd be fine with an A.I King Godtator.
Mostly because I probably wouldn't have a choice if it was super intelligent and I might as well hope he'll treat me alright.
I agree people vote in their own self-interest, but I'm not sure that's a bad thing in general and I'm pretty sure most people are not capable of elevating themselves above others through their own voting.
It has been my observation that most of the time people's self-interests are not mutually exclusive with one another (like building highways). In addition, there are many, many issues where at least one side does not act out of self-interest such as education, smoking bans, or abortion (the anti-abortion side claims to be acting in the interest of the unborn, although I think the gov't should fucking mind it's own damn business on that topic).
The other thing is that when people's self interest conflict then their votes cancel each other, which is also not a bad thing, because it naturally limits the degree to which parties in disagreement can impose their will on each other, unlike in a dictatorship where limits only exist if the dictator accepts them.
What about when one party is a minority? Is it okay to deny gays the right to marry because they haven't convinced enough people that they're not icky deviants?
What about when one party is wrong? Is it okay to teach creationism in schools if enough people vote against teaching evolution? (Edit: Okay, to be fair, I guess you can argue that I'm imposing my own beliefs here, but the scientific argument for evolution compared to the scientific argument for creationism makes only one of these suitable for the science classroom)
What about when when one party has money? Is it okay to buy massive advertising to convince people to vote one way or the other?