150th Gettysburg Address

[Drunkencorgimaster]

Anyone have any thoughts about why President Obama ditched the 150th Anniversary of the Gettysburg Address celebrations?

[Denzark]

Any time Obama does anything that flies in the face of tradition/the establishment I put it down to him being a socialist left leaner. At least that is my take if you look at his attitude towards the 'Special Relationship'.

[Psychosplodge]

Well he is of half Kenyan descent, the former rebels there will hardly be complimentary to us old chap will they? Despite bringing the rule of law, and other modern ideas to their particular backward corner of the world.

How big a thing is it for someone not really up on their US civil war history?

[DarkLink]

What, the Gettysburg Address?

I didn't know they were having a ceremony about it. But I'd say that Abraham Lincoln is generally considered to be the greatest American in our history. He is singlehandedly as famed as the collective founding fathers. Everyone knows what the Gettysburg Address is.

[Psychosplodge]

And is this routinely attended by presidents?
Or is it just an event to mark 150 years?

[DarkLink]

I've never heard of it as an annual event before. I'm not at all suprised that they'd have an anniversery ceremony. The Gettysburg Address is, I dunno, our equivalent of the signing of the Magna Carta. It's right up there with the signing of the Declaration of Independence. And signing the Constitution.

[Mr Mystery]

http://images.postling.com/4/483/g_fullxfull.54407.jpg

[Psychosplodge]

Not more akin to Churchills fight them on the beaches speech?

[Mr Mystery]

http://ts3.mm.bing.net/th?id=H.4687910779028958&w=154&h=147&c=7&rs=1&url=http%3a%2f%2fsydwalker.info%2fblog%2f2011%2f08 %2f13%2fonce-in-eternity-the-good-lord-swears%2f&pid=1.7

[ElectricPaladin]

This is why America needs a monarch. We need someone to do this useless ceremonial **** while the elected officials see to the business of running the country.

Honestly, I've got enough reasons to be disappointed in Obama's policies - I still support him, I'm glad we had him instead of any of the alternatives - but seriously... I have bigger beefs than whether or not he showed up at a speech.

[Mr Mystery]

This is why America needs a monarch. We need someone to do this useless ceremonial **** while the elected officials see to the business of running the country.

Honestly, I've got enough reasons to be disappointed in Obama's policies - I still support him, I'm glad we had him instead of any of the alternatives - but seriously... I have bigger beefs than whether or not he showed up at a speech.

We can do you a sweet deal on Prince Edward. He's not up to much over here?

[Psychosplodge]

Not Andrew?

[ElectricPaladin]

We can do you a sweet deal on Prince Edward. He's not up to much over here?

Isn't he that all the women want and the men want to be (except for the gay men, who want both, and the lesbians, who want either both or neither, and the trans and non-gender-binary folks, who occupy all sorts of positions in-between)? The one who got recalled from the Iraq war because the enemy was gunning for him and it put his unit in danger?

Yeah. We'll take him.

[Mr Mystery]

Nah. I think they deserve Edward more.

And....yes.....yes that's the one......

[ElectricPaladin]

Nah. I think they deserve Edward more.

And....yes.....yes that's the one......

Oh, right. I see. It's the other one.

That's ok. I'll keep the secret. Maybe if he shows up here to be our useless royal and everyone's looking up to him and thinks he's actually his sexy, heroic brother, it'll do him good.

[Mr Mystery]

I hear you have plenty wildlife.

Just give him a Horse, some hounds and a bunch of Toffs to charge about with and I'll sure he'll be fine.

(snickersnicker....silly Yanks! They've not twigged which one Edward is!.....This is almost as much fun as when we sold them London Bridge!)

[ElectricPaladin]

I'm telling you, man... I don't care which one it is. I don't care if he's a coke-head... no, wait, that was our last president. Ok, I don't care if he's an alcoholic... no, Bush had a drinking problem, too. Ok, I don't care if he has a degenerative brain condition... no, that's Reagan. Um... a philanderer? Clinton. Takes too many vacations? Bush again. Crap.

Do you see what I mean? It will be an improvement over our current situation to have anyone to be the symbol and figurehead of our country, even if he's a loser.

[Mr Mystery]

Certainly Sir.

One workshy fop coming right up.

That'll be your entire GDP for the next 100 years. Pleasure doing business with you.

[Wildeybeast]

I've never heard of it as an annual event before. I'm not at all suprised that they'd have an anniversery ceremony. The Gettysburg Address is, I dunno, our equivalent of the signing of the Magna Carta. It's right up there with the signing of the Declaration of Independence. And signing the Constitution.

Hate to tell you, but you guys put more store in the Magna Carta than we do. No one really cares about it over here. It's a big marker on the road to universal emancipation, but that's all. Hell, it didn't mean that much when it was signed, never mind now.

Edit: Also, good job on selling the Yanks Edward, Mystery.

[Nabterayl]

Hate to tell you, but you guys put more store in the Magna Carta than we do. No one really cares about it over here. It's a big marker on the road to universal emancipation, but that's all. Hell, it didn't mean that much when it was signed, never mind now.
That ... might not be too different from the Gettysburg Address, really. I mean, it was just a speech by the president in commemoration of a battle. A battle with significance to the strategic course of the war as well as global military history, and a speech that did a good job of encapsulating some American ideals, but still just a speech in commemoration of a battle. It does not have, and does not purport to have, any governmental effect. It was not much noticed at the time. For a while every American schoolchild memorized the damn thing, but not anymore. What importance it has is entirely symbolic. So ... maybe not so different from Magna Carta after all.

[Drunkencorgimaster]

Oh, I don't think whether something is noticed at the time is particularly important to gauging its place in history. If we collectively decided we value something after the fact, it then becomes important after the fact. By the end of the American Civil War certainly the Address had become important. It just struck me as odd that Obama would not want to cash in on an obvious and largely bi-partisan "feel good" thing as the 150th anniversary of the Address. On the other hand if he did go, he'd probably be criticized for just that: cashing in on a historical event.

[Wildeybeast]

Again, that's why monarchs are great. Their presence at such events is completely apolitical and adds some much needed glamour (or not, if you get Edward)

[DarkLink]

Of course, the open implication that said monarch is somehow inherently better than their subjects simply for being born into a particular family isn't so great. Maybe if we appointed a figurehead, sure, but no one needs royalty nor nobility.

[Psychosplodge]

So more like this (http://youtu.be/MkTw3_PmKtc)then than the magna carta, like I said.

[Wildeybeast]

Of course, the open implication that said monarch is somehow inherently better than their subjects simply for being born into a particular family isn't so great. Maybe if we appointed a figurehead, sure, but no one needs royalty nor nobility.

Nobility or a family with huge of sacks of cash and wealthy business backers. Either way the, position of head of state is very much a closed system for all but a tiny minority who are there through accident of birth.

[DarkLink]

Possibly.

Think of it this way. If I were to give a super-brief history of the United States, it would look like this:

1: We rebelled against the British and with the Declaration of Independence declared our, well, independence.
2. We expanded west, buying/taking land as we went.
3. We fought a civil war that was, for all intents and purposes, over slavery, and with the Gettysburg Address and the Emancipation Proclamation Lincoln declared the slaves free.
4. WWII ended European dominance and set the stage for the Cold War. Peal Harbor and FDR's Day of Infamy speech sparked off America's coming-to power.
5. Vietnam and the Cold War.
6. Modern day stuff.

So, yeah.

[Psychosplodge]

2 pretty much being the real reason for 1...

Didn't the emancipation proclamation not include freeing slaves in union states though? Only in confederate ones?

[Wolfshade]

I think you missed no 7 where you allowed black people the right to sit anywhere on a bus...

Ah flippancy.

While not strictly related I was thinking about republicans (not The Republicans, just republicans, as in those who believe that a republic is a better governmance system). One of the things that they proclaim is that the monarchy is wrong as a person through no merit of their own inherits a position and it is this inherited inequality which is wrong. Sentiments that I would agree with, but I am quite happy to have our big tourist attraction and apolotical figure head. Because they come from wealth and power they start of life with an inherent advantage. So, if we were to remove the monarchy and landed gentry then what, would that make us all equal? No.
Rich parents have more resources than poor and so the children of the rich also have a distinct advantage over their poor equivalents. So you end up with rich clique, and the thing is that people socialise with their socio-economic peers and pick mates from that circle so you end up with a privelidged elite again who have better chances just because of a fortune of birth.

The only way to really get everyone equal is for all children to be brought up away from their parents in state schoolaria, there they can be indoctrinated for a love of the country and society over that of an individual and within 2 generations we can take over the world!

*Ahem* sorry little off sheet their, but the thing of it is that there will always be those who are advantaged/disadvantaged through a freak accident of birth.

[ElectricPaladin]

Personally, I think it's very interesting that the UK has - for example - a higher real life rate of upwards mobility than the US does. I recall having a very strong bias against this fact and having to have statistics quoted at me until I believed it.

My bias came from the perception that you guys have a more stratified society. You have a royal family and noble class; we don't. Everyone has classist ways of perceiving others based on how they talk, but you guys seem to make a science of it. We have a system where anyone can go to university if they can convince one to accept them, you have a more complex system where you've got to test in at one specific point in your life.

But apparently all that cultural stuff is just so much noise and the only thing that counts is the free university you (used to :() have.

[Psychosplodge]

You can go later, or rarely earlier. But the pushing everyone in post 18 is more to keep them off the unemployment figures than anything else. I think they said yesterday on news 40% of graduates in London are doing non graduate jobs.

The last government got rid of the biggest aid to social mobility by closing grammar schools.

You'd have to ask someone more in the know about the aristocracy but below that it's just money...

[Wolfshade]

Ah yes, the government of the people, rather than the government of the toffs who are looking at bringing them back...

But yes free university was brilliant, the new system is still good and indeed it would have cost me less to be on the new "more expensive" system than the old one, but still not as good as my other sisters who had the free one.

Social mobility is always a problem in times of less affluence so the coming gneration will be interesting to see.

[Mr Mystery]

Disagree on Grammar schools completely.

On their own, they were an elitist institution. Very few kids from less privleged backgrounds got in, as those from better to do families got private tuition for the 11 Plus.

And, you know, they were caught out many times turning down poorer pupils.

Now, Grammar and Technical schools together? Yes. Please. Academia for the Academics, Technical for the Technically minded (carpentry, electricals, network design etc), and then your comprehensives for those without a particular leaning or interest.

Boom. Everyone catered to.

[Nabterayl]

Didn't the emancipation proclamation not include freeing slaves in union states though? Only in confederate ones?
I ... don't see what the Gettysburg Address has to do with freeing slaves, DL.

And yes, Psycho, the Emancipation Proclamation applied to Confederate states only (not that there were many slaves in Union states by then). But even with respect to Confederate states ... well, it's really not clear what, if anything, it did in terms of law. Practically speaking, of course, the Confederate states to which it purportedly applied were not under Union control at the time. In terms of political wartime theater it was significant, but ... well, this quote from Lincoln puts it pretty well:


I decided that the Constitution gives me war powers, but no one knows just exactly what those powers are. Some say they don't exist. I don't know. I decided I needed them to exist to uphold my oath to protect the Constitution, which I decided meant that I could take the rebels' slaves from them as property confiscated in war. That might recommend to suspicion that I agree with the rebs that their slaves are property in the first place. Of course I don't, never have, I'm glad to see any man free, and if calling a man property, or war contraband, does the trick... Why I caught at the opportunity. Now here's where it gets truly slippery. I use the law allowing for the seizure of property in a war knowing it applies only to the property of governments and citizens of belligerent nations. But the South ain't a nation, that's why I can't negotiate with 'em. If in fact the Negroes are property according to law, have I the right to take the rebels' property from 'em, if I insist they're rebels only, and not citizens of a belligerent country? And slipperier still: I maintain it ain't our actual Southern states in rebellion but only the rebels living in those states, the laws of which states remain in force. The laws of which states remain in force. That means, that since it's states' laws that determine whether Negroes can be sold as slaves, as property - the Federal government doesn't have a say in that, least not yet. Then Negroes in those states are slaves, hence property, hence my war powers allow me to confiscate 'em as such. So I confiscated 'em. But if I'm a respecter of states' laws, how then can I legally free 'em with my Proclamation, as I done, unless I'm cancelling states' laws? I felt the war demanded it; my oath demanded it; I felt right with myself; and I hoped it was legal to do it, I'm hoping still. Two years ago I proclaimed these people emancipated - "then, hence forward and forever free." But let's say the courts decide I had no authority to do it. They might well decide that. Say there's no amendment abolishing slavery. Say it's after the war, and I can no longer use my war powers to just ignore the courts' decisions, like I sometimes felt I had to do. Might those people I freed be ordered back into slavery? That's why I'd like to get the Thirteenth Amendment through the House, and on its way to ratification by the states, wrap the whole slavery thing up, forever and aye. As soon as I'm able. Now. End of this month. And I'd like you to stand behind me. Like my cabinet's most always done.

The Thirteenth Amendment is what ended slavery in America. The Emancipation Proclamation was a bold statement of intent, and once a historically significant thing has happened there's a tendency to focus on the bold moment where somebody announced their intent to make it happen, rather than the nuts and bolts of making it happen, but ... it's really not clear that the Emancipation Proclamation had any legal effect.

[DarkLink]

I think you missed no 7 where you allowed black people the right to sit anywhere on a bus...

Yeah, I skimmed recent history, that would be there, too.



While not strictly related I was thinking about republicans (not The Republicans, just republicans, as in those who believe that a republic is a better governmance system). One of the things that they proclaim is that the monarchy is wrong as a person through no merit of their own inherits a position and it is this inherited inequality which is wrong. Sentiments that I would agree with, but I am quite happy to have our big tourist attraction and apolotical figure head. Because they come from wealth and power they start of life with an inherent advantage. So, if we were to remove the monarchy and landed gentry then what, would that make us all equal? No.
Rich parents have more resources than poor and so the children of the rich also have a distinct advantage over their poor equivalents. So you end up with rich clique, and the thing is that people socialise with their socio-economic peers and pick mates from that circle so you end up with a privelidged elite again who have better chances just because of a fortune of birth.

I've heard people here promote the idea that monarchies are good because the authority of the government is vested in them, granting other parts of government limited authority to do their jobs, but keeping them from overstepping their bounds. They usually seem to use it to claim our President is a bad idea (in general, not to single out Obama).

The problems with this are multitude. For one, it requires that the rights of the people come from this one person. Implicitly, I am only a human being with rights because arbitrary random monarch says I am, and the logical extension is that that monarch can take those rights away. That's an inherently immoral stance.

In America, our symbolic ideals are that the power is vested in the people, because people all have inherent rights. Not the right to be rich or anything, but the right to work and live and be free and pursue a business to get rich if you choose. That's what I mean by equal. Martin Luther King Jr. wasn't asking for every single black to be filthy rich in order to be equal, he was asking that they would be free from racial persecution. There's a distinction there, and it's an important one. You have the right to work and go to any public place and live free of fear of being attacked and the like, but you don't have the right to have other people just give you money to make you rich. Unless you do business. If rich people tend to socially clump together and create an economic elite, that may or may not be acceptable, which is why stuff like insider trading and economic regulation is a thing, but that's a different issue from human rights.

So the people hold the ultimate authority in our government, even if the actual power is vested in our governmental institutions. And while having a figurehead to hold symbolic power theoretically prevents other politicians from overstepping their bounds, we have a system of checks and balances to do that. Whether or not either system works is purely execution.

[Psychosplodge]

Disagree on Grammar schools completely.

On their own, they were an elitist institution. Very few kids from less privleged backgrounds got in, as those from better to do families got private tuition for the 11 Plus.

And, you know, they were caught out many times turning down poorer pupils.

Now, Grammar and Technical schools together? Yes. Please. Academia for the Academics, Technical for the Technically minded (carpentry, electricals, network design etc), and then your comprehensives for those without a particular leaning or interest.

Boom. Everyone catered to.

Just like anywhere the rich were at an advantage. but as a general rule its grammar schools that gave greatest social mobility.
But its the privately educated champaign socialists that did away with them.


I ... don't see what the Gettysburg Address has to do with freeing slaves, DL.

And yes, Psycho, the Emancipation Proclamation applied to Confederate states only (not that there were many slaves in Union states by then). But even with respect to Confederate states ... well, it's really not clear what, if anything, it did in terms of law. Practically speaking, of course, the Confederate states to which it purportedly applied were not under Union control at the time. In terms of political wartime theater it was significant, but ... well, this quote from Lincoln puts it pretty well:



The Thirteenth Amendment is what ended slavery in America. The Emancipation Proclamation was a bold statement of intent, and once a historically significant thing has happened there's a tendency to focus on the bold moment where somebody announced their intent to make it happen, rather than the nuts and bolts of making it happen, but ... it's really not clear that the Emancipation Proclamation had any legal effect.

So for it to actually apply he was implicitly accepting them as a separate state, despite that being what the the war was over?
Just another greasy politician.

[ElectricPaladin]

Disclaimer: I believe that Abraham Lincoln was a heroic figure who saw the US through a terrible time, managed to fail-forward into wining the war that would have torn us apart, and ultimately freed our slaves. Whatever I say next, he did run on an abolitionist platform and had long written and spoken from that point of view.

The Emancipation Proclamation was basically a PR move. It freed the slaves in the southern states for the express purpose of making the war even more about slavery and - consequentially - less about culture, economics, and politics. Lincoln did this in order to deprive the rebels of assistance from other countries (like, say, you guys) who supported the South because of economic ties, because they wanted to see the US reduced as a rival, or both. By making the war more about slavery, Lincoln was able to put the South's potential allies into an untenable position. They might be able to ally with a slave-holding country and then turn around to their own people - remember that the US was, at this point, the last slave-holding anglo nation and widely despised for it - and argue that they were supporting the rebels for other reasons. Once the Emancipation Proclamation focused the war largely on slavery, this became much harder, and all the South's potential allies backed out.

Of course, the rebels could have issued their own statement condemning slavery and releasing their own slaves. If they had, you guys probably would have come in on their side. But, the fact is that the war was enough about slavery that, to them, doing so would have felt too much like losing.

Oh, and also they were terrified of the just and righteous vengeance of the humans they had bought and sold as property, beaten, and raped for almost two hundred years. So there was that.

So was the war about slavery? Among other things, yes. Did Lincoln always intend to free the slaves? Almost certainly, though of course we can never know his mind, and he did get around to it later.

But was the Emancipation Proclamation the way it was done? No, that was a clever PR move. The political work of freeing the slaves came a year later.

[Wolfshade]

Mystery: I do agree with the issue of coaching, I was a grammar school boy and by the time the GCSEs rolled around it was quite clear which of us got there under our own merit and those who were coached. I received no coaching in them before I took mine, though I did see sampler papers to see what they looked like. I did resent those coached to get in as they took places of others who could have got in in their own merit. When I took the exam I don't recall them asking about my parents financial background. As an aside, this is personal experiance, so may be an exception rather than the norm, our PTA had set up funds and a school "shop" so that the specific clothing required could be acquired second hand at a very reduced price to help those less affluent.

DarkLink: One ruling elite will replace another. The only way to remove any inherited advantage is to seperate children from parental influence. I also think sometimes the views of a consitutional and absolute monarchy are mixed. The monarchy here has no power, or the power that they weild is arbitary, for instance they may apoint the primate of the Church of England, but only from the two possibilities that is presented to them. The open parliament, but on the day that they are told to. In a lot of ways, I think we see the power weilded by the President as being closer to that of a monarchy then that or a politician.

[eldargal]

I've heard people here promote the idea that monarchies are good because the authority of the government is vested in them, granting other parts of government limited authority to do their jobs, but keeping them from overstepping their bounds. They usually seem to use it to claim our President is a bad idea (in general, not to single out Obama).

Constitutional monarchies are good because political authority stems from the Monarch, while political legitimacy stems from the people. also worth nothing the American president is an elected constitutional monarch with far more power than even George III had let alone Elizabth II.


The problems with this are multitude. For one, it requires that the rights of the people come from this one person. Implicitly, I am only a human being with rights because arbitrary random monarch says I am, and the logical extension is that that monarch can take those rights away. That's an inherently immoral stance.
The problem is you mischaracterise it. The rights do not come from the monarch, our rights are inalienable, only we don't require a 200 year old piece of paper to tell us what ours are. The monarch cannot strip anyone of their rights, unlike the American government which can declare anyone an 'enemy combatant' and strip them of all their rights with little consequence.


In America, our symbolic ideals are that the power is vested in the people, because people all have inherent rights. Not the right to be rich or anything, but the right to work and live and be free and pursue a business to get rich if you choose. That's what I mean by equal.
Your symbolic ideal is that power is vested in the people, because all people have inherent rights. In practise power is vested in rich white men.

Martin Luther King Jr. wasn't asking for every single black to be filthy rich in order to be equal, he was asking that they would be free from racial persecution.
Hows that working out, what with that private prison system that makes vast profits through incarcerating black men for crimes white men don't go to prison for?

There's a distinction there, and it's an important one. You have the right to work and go to any public place and live free of fear of being attacked and the like, but you don't have the right to have other people just give you money to make you rich. Unless you do business. If rich people tend to socially clump together and create an economic elite, that may or may not be acceptable, which is why stuff like insider trading and economic regulation is a thing, but that's a different issue from human rights.
Unless you're a woman, in which case god forbid you walk the streets alone or after dark or socialise at night or drink alcohol etc...

So the people hold the ultimate authority in our government, even if the actual power is vested in our governmental institutions. And while having a figurehead to hold symbolic power theoretically prevents other politicians from overstepping their bounds, we have a system of checks and balances to do that. Whether or not either system works is purely execution.
We have a figurehead who denies power to politicians AND checks and balances. Execution is everything, though. Any system of government can aspire to lofty ideals, whether it delivers them is another matter entirely and is the real test. Does America, with it's people power, deliver better representation than the British system? No, it doesn't.

I'm not trying to bash America here*, no country is perfect and god knows Britain has some immense problems of it's own. But when it comes to political systems ours is no less democratic or representative than yours even if it is headed by a hereditary monarch.

*Having said that, I can't take American claims of a greater morality due to people power seriously. Slavery + native genoicde = **** your morality.

[DarkLink]

You're responding well beyond the scope of my intent, eldargal. I'm merely stating that monarchies inherently have unfortunate implications, and they shouldn't be wished on anyone. You might have your monarchy in check, but it is in spite of those problems, not because of them. There are enough nations out there without monarchies that are working pretty well to negate whatever argument you have about how monarchies are good because they symbolically blahblahblah.

That's not to say your actual government is bad, any more than you are saying ours is bad. Claiming our rights come from our constitution rather than being inherent is just as offensive to us as you seem to find the idea of a monarch determining your rights.

All I'm saying is that monarchies are inherently bad because they are fundamentally based on the idea that one person somehow has special privileges and rights for no real reason, just that they are somehow inherently better than everyone else. It doesn't matter if they have actual abusable political power, the fundamental idea is inherently immoral.

Not trying to say that America is better than Britain because we don't have a monarch, or that having an economic elite is a good or bad thing. I'm just saying, **** anyone who thinks they can make me bend the knee because they're wearing a crown.



So for it to actually apply he was implicitly accepting them as a separate state, despite that being what the the war was over?
Just another greasy politician.

Just because you play politics doesn't make you a bad person. If he hadn't, then the union would have split and the south would still have slavery. I wouldn't call that the goal of a greasy politician.

Edit: I'd be more thorough and clear in what I'm trying to say, but I'm posting from my phone so I don't really have an opportunity to properly address everything.

[DarkLink]

Also, I know the Gettysburg Address itself wasn't about slavery. Like I said I was skimming over stuff. The Gettysburg Address was a pivotal moment the Civil War, and the civil war itself, while strictly speaking about States seceding from the union, slavery was right at the core of the issue for multiple complex reasons. That's why I listed the two of them together.

[Nabterayl]

Just because you play politics doesn't make you a bad person. If he hadn't, then the union would have split and the south would still have slavery. I wouldn't call that the goal of a greasy politician.
I do think it's fair to say that Lincoln was a hard-nosed pragmatist, at least about things he felt very strongly about such as slavery and the impossibility of secession. And I think it's fair to say that the rationale behind the Emancipation Proclamation didn't, and doesn't, actually hold up under American law.

Whether that makes him "greasy," well ... I don't really know how you mean that, Psycho. It's true that there are some people who think Lincoln was some kind of saint, and those people are obviously wrong. But you can still admire the man. Personally, I view Lincoln as sort of our real-life version of the Roman dictator ideal. *** needed kicking and names needed taking, and he kicked and he took. I don't admire him as a paragon of virtue or a saint. I admire him as somebody who did a good thing that needed to be done under difficult circumstances and did about as little damage to our way of life (as immense as that damage was) as anybody could be expected to do under the circumstances.

[ElectricPaladin]

Whether that makes him "greasy," well ... I don't really know how you mean that, Psycho. It's true that there are some people who think Lincoln was some kind of saint, and those people are obviously wrong. But you can still admire the man. Personally, I view Lincoln as sort of our real-life version of the Roman dictator ideal. *** needed kicking and names needed taking, and he kicked and he took. I don't admire him as a paragon of virtue or a saint. I admire him as somebody who did a good thing that needed to be done under difficult circumstances and did about as little damage to our way of life (as immense as that damage was) as anybody could be expected to do under the circumstances.

I think this is a very good depiction.

Like I sad - he was always an abolitionist. That's an admirable position, especially in his time and place. What it comes down to is the fact that he was willing to subvert his abolitionist goals to political realities, even if it meant that the few slaves in the North remained in bondage for one extra year (not that the Emancipation Proclamation had much effect on the slaves in the South...). I know that he missed an opportunity to give an extra year of freedom to some people, and that's a problem, but it was in service of the larger (for him) goal of keeping his country united and achieving freedom for all the slaves as soon as was practical. I don't see that as a damning bit of pragmatism, myself.

[DarkLink]

Right, he's well respected because slaves needed freeing, so he rolled up sleeves and made it happen even when opposition threaten to destroy the country (though preventing succession was his priority). It's not unlike Martin Luther King Jr, who had a lot of his own personal issues, but is remembered for being the driving force behind the civil rights movement.

[ElectricPaladin]

Right, he's well respected because slaves needed freeing, so he rolled up sleeves and made it happen even when opposition threaten to destroy the country (though preventing succession was his priority). It's not unlike Martin Luther King Jr, who had a lot of his own personal issues, but is remembered for being the driving force behind the civil rights movement.

We have a saying among the Jewish people: "the greater the man, the greater the evil inclination." For context, the "evil inclination" is the dark side of your psyche. Your id. Or, to edify with another rabbinic saying: "without the evil inclination, no man would ever build a house, go into business, or marry and have children."

[Psychosplodge]

Whether that makes him "greasy," well ... I don't really know how you mean that, Psycho.

I'm probably applying my dislike of modern slimey politicians out for themselves to it.
As you say it was a clever move to accomplish his goals, which clearly weren't ones for himself.

[eldargal]

You're responding well beyond the scope of my intent, eldargal. I'm merely stating that monarchies inherently have unfortunate implications, and they shouldn't be wished on anyone. You might have your monarchy in check, but it is in spite of those problems, not because of them. There are enough nations out there without monarchies that are working pretty well to negate whatever argument you have about how monarchies are good because they symbolically blahblahblah.
Except they don't, why should they? Constitutional monarchy implies nothing bad, it's just a different way of choosing your figurehead and yes it is a choice. We could become a Republic if we wanted to, we don't, because it it abundantly clear looking at republics that it would make nothing better and probably make it worse. I can turn that around and say there are enough failed republics out there to illustrate that the success of some republics is in spite of them being republics not because of.


All I'm saying is that monarchies are inherently bad because they are fundamentally based on the idea that one person somehow has special privileges and rights for no real reason, just that they are somehow inherently better than everyone else. It doesn't matter if they have actual abusable political power, the fundamental idea is inherently immoral.
What you are saying is wrong. People do have privileges, real privileges. We at least acknowledge our monarch has some privileges in return for a lifetime of duty. America privileges white men by default and then tries to hide it in lofty talk about equality and liberty. Why is bowing to someone wearing a crown worse than a rich (mostly) white man who won a popularity contest? This is nothing but a personal preference, I would rather bow (well curtsey) to someone raised to perform a duty than an obnoxious politician.

[Denzark]

Succinctly put Ma'am.

[Psychosplodge]

Also the position of monarch is a gilded cage. You may have privilege, but you don't have any of the freedoms that the subjects enjoy.
Not like an elected head who can pretty much carry on as they will after their term.

[Aenir]

Also the position of monarch is a gilded cage. You may have privilege, but you don't have any of the freedoms that the subjects enjoy.
Not like an elected head who can pretty much carry on as they will after their term.

Cant a monarch just abdicate and relinquish their "powers" then wouldnt they just be any other citizen...granted with a heck of a resumè?

[Psychosplodge]

In theory, but its not the done thing.

[Aenir]

In theory, but its not the done thing.

That just seems silly to me then, if you stifle at the responsibilites.... you get out of them, end of statement... (in regards to things like govt and the like. If its there... you know? I admit im biased towards the US governmental style having lived here and it just seems wierd to me to call someone your supreme leader/monarch/ whatever because they happened to be born into it. Not saying the US is better what with rampant corruption and parties who could care less about you unless its time for the vote.

[Psychosplodge]

Well theoretically everyone can support the head of state as they aren't political. As opposed to only the people that voted for them...

[Wolfshade]

In theory, but its not the done thing.

Not strictly true, in Holland, the monarch "regularly abdicates", perhaps retire would be a better phrase


Queen Beatrix is the sixth monarch from the House of Orange-Nassau, which has ruled the Netherlands since the early 19th Century.

[Psychosplodge]

Yeah I know, but I thought we were discussing ours?

[Wolfshade]

I thought we were discussing in general. I would point to the "figure head" role. For instance there is a movement within Romania to re-instate King Michael I
, purely for his role as being apolitical.

[Aenir]

Well theoretically everyone can support the head of state as they aren't political. As opposed to only the people that voted for them...



So........


http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTf7iLhdp7eoQGGj5o0U0Lt2NfMIXnz_ 3NrbV1p3Jdv4lvzi3TvPddAMdUT + http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSQ6pcyN3_Z5sF7Zv7nZIM5u5HfSJ7rD 4KNRCRxpYnrMiGGc0L_B0P1CHCj = http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQbDcvFxFLekpb1w3hQsPV38_Xx2f9_M xRa3LKs6_T_hXIJCSmDOpIVP8Ng



In the most basic fashion I mean

[Psychosplodge]

Isn't that a team mascot? So thats no different than a politician.

[Aenir]

Isn't that a team mascot? So thats no different than a politician.

It was within the context of the Monarch(s) of the UK, as it has been stated they dont have any role in the making and passing of laws...


(But yes I would agree on the politician thing)

[Wolfshade]

Powers of the Queen:

The power to appoint and dismiss the Prime Minister
The power to appoint and dismiss other ministers.
The power to summon, prorogue and dissolve Parliament
The power to make war and peace
The power to command the armed forces of the United Kingdom
The power to regulate the Civil Service
The power to ratify treaties
The power to issue passports
The power to appoint bishops and archbishops of the Church of England
The power to create peers (both life peers and hereditary peers).

If the Queen pleases, she can ride in a horse carriage down Rotten Row, where others can only ride horseback.
Her picture will appear on postage stamps, but she will not need them; her personal mail is franked.
She can drive as fast as she likes in a car which needs no license number.
She could tell her sister Princess Margaret when she could marry.
She can confer Britain’s highest civilian decoration, the Order of Merit—one honour in which the Sovereign retains freedom of choice.

What Her Majesty cannot do is vote. Nor can she express any shading of political opinion in public.
The Queen cannot sit in the House of Commons, although the building is royal property.
She addresses the opening session of each Parliament, but she cannot write her own speech.
The Queen cannot refuse to sign a bill of Parliament, and she cannot appear as a witness in court, or rent property from her subjects.

[DarkLink]

Succinctly put Ma'am.

She's also completely missing my point, but whatever.

[Nabterayl]

I have to admit, I don't really understand the viewpoint that several of our British friends have made in various threads here that political authority comes from the monarch, but political legitimacy comes from the people. I suppose it's not surprising given that I didn't grow up under a monarchy, but those just aren't the terms I think in at all.

As an American, I'm not used to thinking in terms of either authority or legitimacy. I'm used to thinking in terms of sovereignty. I can't tell if that's just shorthand for "authority + legitimacy" or if it's something else altogether. What I mean by sovereignty is something like ... <thinks for a while staring at his screen trying to decide what exactly he means> ... the right to do what one will. It is the attribute that permits an entity to do whatever the hell it wants, subject only to its own moral sense. An entity with sovereignty can be persuaded and it can be coerced but it is not subject, morally speaking, to any other entity except by its own choice.

I'm probably expressing this more concretely than most Americans would, but I think this is pretty much the way we grow up thinking. The great American political question is: Who is sovereign in this country? And the American answer is: the American people (typically, in an American context, this is taught as the people in contrast to the executive, or even the government as a whole). Now of course, there are all sorts of caveats and corollaries and buts one can put on that in the real world, but that question, and that answer, is an important part of the American cultural fabric.

I guess this sounds a bit like the "legitimacy" term our British friends have used in this thread and others, but I can't help but feel like Britons (and maybe other Commonwealth people?) don't grow up thinking in these terms at all. I'd be surprised if British (or any Commonwealth) schoolchildren were ever taught, "This is the entity in this country that can do whatever the hell it wants" - it just doesn't seem like something you guys think about/teach your children to care about. Can one of you subjects of her oh-so-tyrannical imperial majesty take a stab at the British/Commonwealth equivalent here? EG, you've used the authority-and-legitimacy thing most often, I think ... what exactly do those terms mean to you?

[DarkLink]

I would like to add that I won't begrudge someone who feels like following a monarchy, its just that I don't buy into that crap. I guess I now know how atheists feel about people in religions.

And, yes, a popularity contest is still better.

[Nabterayl]

As an example of the divide I think I'm seeing ... I'm willing to bet that DarkLink has a problem with "bending the knee" because he sees it as an abdication, rather than a delegation, of sovereignty - and if so, that would offend the bedrock American tenet that the people are and should remain sovereign. And I'm willing to bet that our British friends don't even think about it in those terms.

[Denzark]

I can't get around the American people being sovereign - and then (from an external viewpoint I may be wrong) being utterly powerless to prevent half of the government stopping the country working because it doesn't like a law to try and give the poor some extra healthcare.

How is that being sovereign and if indeed it is, what is the point of being the sovereign if you are that powerless?

DL as to EG not answering your points I was not commenting on the efficacy of her post as a response to you.

[DarkLink]

Yeah, no worries, the argument here is over looking at this from two very different lenses.


As an example of the divide I think I'm seeing ... I'm willing to bet that DarkLink has a problem with "bending the knee" because he sees it as an abdication, rather than a delegation, of sovereignty - and if so, that would offend the bedrock American tenet that the people are and should remain sovereign. And I'm willing to bet that our British friends don't even think about it in those terms.

I think, to put it simply, it's about being a leader. I'll follow someone I respect. Being born into a particular family is not a way to earn respect. Whether it's a rich kid or nobility, I don't really care, my respect for them is based on their achievements as an individual. Birth is utterly irrelevant to whether or not they've achieved anything, even if it may be a partial explaination as to why they've achieved what they have. So even something as silly as earning enough respect from the nation as a whole to get elected is an respectable achievement. A significant part of leadership is simply looking good enough to follow, after all. Even if I didn't personally vote for them, I can still at least respect the will of the People. But for nobility? There's no achievement involved, at all. There's nothing I can even pretend to respect. They've done nothing to earn that responsibility relative to why they were given that responsibility. We might as well hold a lottery, winner gets a makeover and represents us for the rest of his or her life, and let's hope it works out. That's about as much sense as a monarchy makes, in the best possible case.

But an elected official? Sure, on some level it's a popularity contest. But that's worst case. At the least, the public gets to say 'we're tired of X party's problems, try something else'. That's at least one step better than rolling the dice. And if the president or whatever screws up, then we the people say gtfo.

That's all independent of the degree of power said official holds. Whether it's an actual political leader like the POTUS or a figurehead monarch, they are in power and legitimized because we, the people, have decided to allow them their position, and if they mess up we can take it away. No need for some nonsensical outdated model of hereditary authority.

It's also a separate issue from the exact means of election. There are several ways in which we could quantifiably improve public elections in America. Eliminate gerrymandering, promote runoff elections, things like that, and we could have 4-5 major political parties with fewer entrenched incumbents that are better selected. But that's nitpicking details, and it sidesteps rather than addresses what I was talking about above.

[Nabterayl]

I can't get around the American people being sovereign - and then (from an external viewpoint I may be wrong) being utterly powerless to prevent half of the government stopping the country working because it doesn't like a law to try and give the poor some extra healthcare.

How is that being sovereign and if indeed it is, what is the point of being the sovereign if you are that powerless?

Well, we do have something like 314 million people in this country. Getting even a bare majority of them to act in concert isn't exactly easy. On the other hand, I do think there are practical ways in which the American cultural obsession with popular sovereignty manifests itself. I don't know why you guys have elections (literally, I don't know it's tied to legitimacy-vs-authority, or something else), but we have them because otherwise our elected representatives would have no power to act - they derive their powers from the fact that they are the delegates of the sovereign, whose will the elections make clear. In states like my native California we have an initiative process whereby constitutional amendments and statutes can be drafted by private citizens and enacted/adopted by popular vote, without legislative or executive action (or even assent) - that's another practical way we express popular sovereignty. When the sovereign consists of hundreds of millions of minds it isn't particularly useful for comparatively nuts-and-bolts governing on issues like "What's the budget going to be for next year?" or "Should we issue additional debt?" but it does come up in other real-life ways.


I think, to put it simply, it's about being a leader. I'll follow someone I respect. Being born into a particular family is not a way to earn respect.
So, I know one response to this would be to say that the royal family is keenly aware of the need to earn respect with each new generation, and the fact that the family is so obviously keenly aware of that and takes such strenuous steps to make sure it is inculcated in each new generation is one of the reasons that the House of Windsor is so beloved. But I might point out that this is really just a monarchy's version of the dead hand problem. The American version is this: why are we beholden to our written constitutions? They were, after all, written by people who are dead, for reasons that were not half so pure as we tell our schoolchildren, debated about by people who are dead, and ratified by people who are dead.

I think the answer for most Americans who have an actual loyalty to the constitution (as opposed to those who are just too lazy to bear the cost of contravening the law) would be that we like our constitutions - we don't think they're perfect, and we might not even think that they're for everybody, but there are enough things about them that we admire that, at some point, we graduated from, "Well this is the way it is" to "I support this way of life." Most of those who never get there obey anyway because they don't disagree enough to bear the costs of acting on it (e.g., moving to a different country). A very few of those who never get there care enough to emigrate. I'd be really shocked if the Commonwealth nations didn't have the same breakdown vis a vis the House of Windsor. Some people (most people, I expect) will be loyal to the monarchy because that's the way it is in the country they grew up in. Others are not loyal, but not enough to bother emigrating. A very few will be not loyal to the extent that they actually emigrate. And some will graduate from "This is the way it is in the country I grew up in" to "I actually do respect this particular dynasty and/or this particular reigning monarch."

[Wolfshade]

Birth is entirely relevant. Take JFK, it is topical, he comes from a dynasty of rich and politiciaions, would he be able to become president if he wasn't rich and that is a fortune of his birth.
On a non-political nature consider Chris Hoy, britians most sucessful olympian, he is privately edicated (in public school) then at the British Olympic team more than 50% of the medalists were from private schools, rather than state schools, despite only 7% of the population going to private schools.
The argument is that because of who their parents were it offers them more chances and opportunities than others.

[Nabterayl]

Birth is entirely relevant. Take JFK, it is topical, he comes from a dynasty of rich and politiciaions, would he be able to become president if he wasn't rich and that is a fortune of his birth.
The American counter to that would be that, although we de facto restrict the ranks of our delegates to the rich and powerful, we only select those we choose (some might say the worthy, but I can't bring myself to go that far) from that pool. Being born rich and powerful is [practically] necessary, but it is not sufficient. JFK didn't become president because he was a Kennedy, even though he probably wouldn't have made it if he wasn't.

But I wonder how big a difference this really is. Britons clearly like the House of Windsor, and they clearly like Elizabeth II. To my American eyes, it seems like you have chosen both of them, even though you didn't express that choice through an election. And the House of Windsor actually does have a pretty good track record, so far as I understand it - long enough that I imagine for most Britons, "the monarchy" and "the House of Windsor" are basically the same thing. But if the dynasty and the monarch were incompetent for as long as this particular dynasty and monarch have been competent, I wonder if the Commonwealth would continue to choose them.

[Wolfshade]

But you only have a choice of those who are able to become short-listed which is by virtue of birth. It is like Henry Ford said "you can have any colour car as long as it is black".

Take for instance our elected politicians we have
PM - David Cameron - Oxford Graduate, Eton Educated (privated school), rich father descendant of William IV, mother daughter of an earl.
Deputy - Nick Clegg - Cambridge Graduate, Calidcott & Westminster (private schools), rich father related to Kira von Engelhardt,
Opposition - Ed Milliband - Oxford Graduate, Comprehensive educated, gained experience from family friend Tony Benn (former 2nd Viscount Stansgate, MP.

Milliband is the most "normal" of the three, so you see while we have free choice of whom we elect, none of them are not without family ties that other people may not have.

In terms of our politics, we do not tend to consider the Queen as part of the system, indeed most people would not mention them in terms of the political system, similarly so with the un-elected house of Lords. It is not so much we like the Windsors (or Saxe-Coburg and Gotha) it is just they have "always been", their interference seems to be minimal and they are not an embarrassment.

[Nabterayl]

In terms of our politics, we do not tend to consider the Queen as part of the system, indeed most people would not mention them in terms of the political system, similarly so with the un-elected house of Lords.
This is, I think, something most Americans do not understand (and to be honest I'm not sure I would claim to "understand" it myself).

[Wildeybeast]

The American counter to that would be that, although we de facto restrict the ranks of our delegates to the rich and powerful, we only select those we choose (some might say the worthy, but I can't bring myself to go that far) from that pool. Being born rich and powerful is [practically] necessary, but it is not sufficient. JFK didn't become president because he was a Kennedy, even though he probably wouldn't have made it if he wasn't.

I thought Dubya became President precisely because he was a Bush?

But you are right, we did choose our monarchy/ monarch, and have done so for quite some time. We decided that having an all-powerful religious nutjob in charge was a bad idea and restored a monarchy with reduced power after the civil war. We got rid of the Stuarts and replaced them with the Oranges in the Glorious Revolution. Hell, even Harold II was chosen in 1066. Admittedly 'chosen' in these contexts means by a small wealthy elite, but I see little difference between that and the 'selection' of candidates for the US Presidency. And by tacit consent, if we didn't like our current HoS system there would be a popular republican movement. There is no desire for that. We like our system because no one in government has too much power and they are all easy to get rid of, except the monarch who has no real power to worry about.

[Wolfshade]

This is, I think, something most Americans do not understand (and to be honest I'm not sure I would claim to "understand" it myself).

I think so, or at least from what you say.
I suppose it is quite an alien concept that the countries figurehead, the source of power is not a political entity. I can see why it is strange, for me it is strange that your figure head changes each 4 years (or potentially) and so the nature and character of the country also changes so rapidly. If we had an unelected president I could see how that would be seen as a bad thing, since it would make them unaccountable with "limitless" power.

[Nabterayl]

I think there's also the fact that, since our secondary school curricula do not include studying the political systems of other countries (it barely includes studying our own political system), most of what Americans know about the British political system they pick up as a side effect of their history courses. That exposes us to the risks of not appreciating how much the British political system has changed over time, as well as to the risks of placing too much emphasis on the version of the British political system trotted out by our rebel ringleaders during the Revolution to justify their rebellion, which besides being 200 years out of date is also of ... suspect motive :P I'm better educated than most Americans, I even had university focuses on [non-British] history and [non-British] law, and I still know next to nothing about the nuts and bolts of your guys' system. One of the reason I appreciate these cross-pond dialogues.

So ... once again I have a Brit saying, "the source of power" with respect to the monarchy. Yet Wildey suggested that if the will was there your currently toothless republican movement could, at least conceivably, gain teeth. Can somebody try to unpack that for the colonial? Obviously I understand the possibility that, practically, you could overthrow the Crown if enough of the population truly wanted to do so. What is interesting to me is the undercurrent that the British people would have the right to do so, and not just the theoretical ability. If that is so, it sounds to me like the Crown is not actually "the source of power" at all. But I suspect I'm not understanding something about the way you think.

[Kyban]

I was under the impression the monarchy was more like a figurehead, almost a mascot. How much say do they still have in the government?

[Nabterayl]

I was under the impression the monarchy was more like a figurehead, almost a mascot. How much say do they still have in the government?
Not much, I gather. Though I am curious whether the monarch could effectively paralyze the government by, say, continually dissolving Parliament.

If you want to put it this way, I guess another way to ask my question is just how much like a figurehead the monarch is. You don't have to be involved in government to have the kind of power/influence Americans think of We the People having - the people are not very much involved in government at all, but it's still important that we all agree they retain sovereignty. The British monarch may not be involved in government, but if he or she was truly just a mascot then the political story of the United Kingdom would still make sense even if he or she didn't exist.

Would it? If the American People (the concept, not the population) suddenly didn't exist, then there is no coherent way to tell the story of by what right the American governments governed. There's no ... failsafe, no backup - our federal and state governments derive their right from the people and there is no other source from which they could derive that right. If the Crown evaporated, but the British people still elected representatives to Parliament, would the government of the United Kingdom still have the right to govern? It sounds like yes, but it also sounds like no.

[Denzark]

I was under the impression the monarchy was more like a figurehead, almost a mascot. How much say do they still have in the government?

Nothing... And everything.

HM signs off on all laws passed. She cannot express an opinion and is a de-facto rubber stamp. It would be a constitutional crisis if she refused to give assent to something. But say fascists got into power and the law they tried to pass was 'put all of demographic x into camps'. She has the power to say 'no ta that's a bit silly'. Then dissolve the government and we can start again. If one party disagrees (either HM or parliament) then it comes down to who the armed forces would support really. And we swear an oath to the Crown not the pox politicians.

[Nabterayl]

Denzark, am I understanding you correctly that Her Majesty actually has more political power than she (and I guess her predecessors) are in the habit of using? It sounds like she could probably influence politics quite a bit under her accepted powers, if she decided it was worth the system shock to society of dusting them off.

[Wolfshade]

So ... once again I have a Brit saying, "the source of power" with respect to the monarchy. Yet Wildey suggested that if the will was there your currently toothless republican movement could, at least conceivably, gain teeth. Can somebody try to unpack that for the colonial? Obviously I understand the possibility that, practically, you could overthrow the Crown if enough of the population truly wanted to do so. What is interesting to me is the undercurrent that the British people would have the right to do so, and not just the theoretical ability. If that is so, it sounds to me like the Crown is not actually "the source of power" at all. But I suspect I'm not understanding something about the way you think.
The Armed forces are "interestingly" swear loyalty to the monarch, not the country so conceivably the armed militia might have some issues with that...
By source of power, perhaps I mean legitimacy of power, they technically invest the heads of both church and state, both of those positions can be dismissed by the monarch, though in practical terms they do not do so. So the elected PM only becomes PM when the Queen says so and once made the PM then wields the power. The dichotomy is a subtle one, the Queen has executive powers granted to her, but these are limited and defined by the elected parliament. The PM who wields the power, but not as much as a president, does so by royal prerogative, so in effect on behalf of the Queen, where the power to make law actually resides. It then gets rather more confused with other countries where the monarch does actually wield executive power. I am not sure that makes anything clear, to be honest I have not given this topic so much consideration before.


I was under the impression the monarchy was more like a figurehead, almost a mascot. How much say do they still have in the government?
A bit, but there is a difference between the power she has and the power she chooses to use.
The PM must be invested by the Queen, this can be anyone, but is by unwritten convention the leader of the party with the majority in the House of commons.
Some of the government's executive authority is theoretically and nominally vested in the Sovereign and is known as the royal prerogative. So while the Queen does have these powers, they are only really excercised on advice of the PM.
The Royal Prerogative includes the powers to appoint and dismiss ministers, regulate the civil service, issue passports, declare war, make peace, direct the actions of the military, and negotiate and ratify treaties, alliances, and international agreements. However, a treaty cannot alter the domestic laws of the United Kingdom; an Act of Parliament is necessary in such cases. The monarch is commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces (the Royal Navy, the British Army, and the Royal Air Force), accredits British High Commissioners and ambassadors, and receives diplomats from foreign states.
She can recall parlimanent.
Before a bill passed by the legislative Houses can become law, the Royal Assent (the monarch's approval) is required. In theory, assent can either be granted (making the bill law) or withheld. Some sources say this hasn't been refused since 1707.

While complining this I found: http://www.royal.gov.uk/MonarchUK/QueenandGovernment/QueeninParliament.aspx might help answer some questions

[Wolfshade]

Not much, I gather. Though I am curious whether the monarch could effectively paralyze the government by, say, continually dissolving Parliament.
The ability to dissolve parliament was curtailed in 2011 when fixed term governments were introduced.


If you want to put it this way, I guess another way to ask my question is just how much like a figurehead the monarch is. You don't have to be involved in government to have the kind of power/influence Americans think of We the People having - the people are not very much involved in government at all, but it's still important that we all agree they retain sovereignty. The British monarch may not be involved in government, but if he or she was truly just a mascot then the political story of the United Kingdom would still make sense even if he or she didn't exist.

Would it? If the American People (the concept, not the population) suddenly didn't exist, then there is no coherent way to tell the story of by what right the American governments governed. There's no ... failsafe, no backup - our federal and state governments derive their right from the people and there is no other source from which they could derive that right. If the Crown evaporated, but the British people still elected representatives to Parliament, would the government of the United Kingdom still have the right to govern? It sounds like yes, but it also sounds like no.
I think with any form of goverance either imposed on the people or imposed by the people it would have the right to govern since when it comes down to it, something is either freely selected by the people and so there is no opposition, or forced on the people and it is an unsailable might which makes it legitimate. But technically, if the system was as it is now but without the government, then no law could be signed in and no PM could be elected. Though that is not to say a change might make it possible.



Denzark, am I understanding you correctly that Her Majesty actually has more political power than she (and I guess her predecessors) are in the habit of using? It sounds like she could probably influence politics quite a bit under her accepted powers, if she decided it was worth the system shock to society of dusting them off.
Yes, this is it exactly.

[Nabterayl]

A lot of those powers are very similar to what our president has, Wolfshade. This discussion has reminded me of times in our history when the president declined to use many of his powers, or to use them only to rubber-stamp the "advice" of Congress, and was popularly expected to take a back seat like that. The "active" presidency the world knows now is really a creature of the 1930s (you can trace the development further back, of course, like you always can). For most of the 19th century (Civil War excepted) we expected our presidents to basically be a figurehead who did what Congress told them to. I'm reminded of President Cleveland's famous remark that "The office of the President is essentially executive in its nature," meaning its job was to execute Congress' not-technically-orders. Even our least active presidents still occasionally used their prerogative to decline to sign bills that Congress had passed from time to time (sounds very much like refusing to give Royal Assent), so maybe our presidents were never quite as figure-heady as the Crown currently is, but they weren't always expected to be the policy-directing, economy-saving, rights-defending, country-saving dynamos that we presently (more's the pity) expect them to be.

[Wolfshade]

Yes indeedy, and quite a number of republics have their president do just that head of state / rubber stamp office as a check/balance to the elected PM and government. The big difference is while a president can bring whatever law they like into pass the queen can only bring those which are brought to her.

[Nabterayl]

The big difference is while a president can bring whatever law they like into pass the queen can only bring those which are brought to her.
How do you mean that? I don't actually know much about how other republics work, but in our republic, the president actually has the exact same restriction. A bill does not become law unless both houses of Congress have passed it and the president signs it, or (departure from British practice here, I think), in the event the president declines to sign it, a supermajority of both houses of Congress will suffice. But the president has no power to introduce bills in the first place.

What he can do (and these days, often does) is say, "If Congress were to pass a bill that looked like this, I would sign it," and he can say to the leaders of his party in Congress, "You should introduce a bill that looks like this, or I will make sure the public knows it's not my fault it hasn't happened yet," but if Congress stands firm and refuses to pass the bill, there's nothing the president can do about it. I gather that Her Majesty could do something like this as well, but given past practice it would be quite a shock (as it was when our presidents started doing it on a regular basis, though I imagine the shock would be bigger for you).

[Wolfshade]

Oh, I thought that they could, hence the furore over "obama-care". Or is that a case of the president's party introduced the bill on his behest?

[Nabterayl]

Yeah, it's a case of the party doing something at his behest, as is pretty much every other accomplishment that is attributed to an American president. If you read American political news closer than you have any reason to do you might occasionally hear about Senate Majority Leader Reid (head of the Democratic Party in the Senate) refusing to do something that Obama wants him to - that's the president running up against the fact that he can't actually initiate any legislative action. Obamacare is Obamacare because the president made it known that he wanted it done, and there was just enough of a sense in Congress that the people wanted it too for Congressional Democrats to do it.

EDIT: There are some things the president can do on his own initiative, in his role as head of the executive branch. If something can be done by an executive bureau or department or agency, then the president has the power to order that bureau, department, or agency to do it. If a statute says, "And the Department of X [a department of the executive branch] shall issue regulations consistent with this statute," then the president can order the Department of X to do whatever he wants so long as it's within the wiggle-room allowed by the statute. But anything requiring a new law has to begin in Congress. I guess the closest UK analogy there would be the PM rather than the Crown, right?

[Wolfshade]

No, the Prime Minster wields both legislative and executive powers rather than them being seperated. So he can introduce bills on his own. Though obviously requires party support to do so.

[Nabterayl]

Interesting ... so who is the titular head of your executive departments? If somebody wanted to order an executive bureau (say, the people in charge of investigating and prosecuting criminal cases at a national level or the people in charge of collecting taxes) to do something that bureau had the power to do, but was currently not doing (or stop doing something that they currently are doing, but are not required by statute to do), who is the highest-placed official with that power? The PM? Could the Queen (theoretically) order the appropriate minister to make it so?

[Denzark]

Denzark, am I understanding you correctly that Her Majesty actually has more political power than she (and I guess her predecessors) are in the habit of using? It sounds like she could probably influence politics quite a bit under her accepted powers, if she decided it was worth the system shock to society of dusting them off.

That is my understanding - actually she never uses anything and signs off everything brought to her. I think there must be an understanding in some areas of what she won't do. Such as the creation of knights. The vast majority are political appointees - by which I mean even if it is someone getting a knighthood for sport or whatever, that will have been put forward by politicians/civil service headed by politicians. But whereas it is common for ex-Prime Ministers to be knighted, it sure as hell won't happen to Tony Blair yet...

[Wolfshade]

If I understand the question:

There are two types of departments, Ministerial and Non-Ministerial, the executive agencies are the departments that sit just below these ministries.

Ministerial departments are headed by the Secretary of State (SoS) for X, for example the Ministry of Justice is headed by The Rt Hon. Chris Grayling, MP, Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor. They are usually members of the cabinet (the ruling party or coalition).
Non-ministerial departments are headed by senior civil servants and are usually departments which are supposed to be apolitical like the serious fraud office.

These executive agencies then act with a degree of autonomy to fulfil their specific mandate.

So for example the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory is run by a senior civil servant and is the executive agency of the Ministry of Defence which is run by the Secretary of State for Defence. There is also the permanent secretary who runs the department (with this being the ministry of defence it has an additional role as Chief of Defence Staff, who is the most senior military commander, the Queen retains the title of "Commander in Chief" but this is enacted through the CoD). The SoS provides the political will and steering to the permanent secretary who then gets the job done.

So, the titular head is the SoS, who enacts the will of parliament/cabinet of which s/he is a member of. Any instruction would probably go through the Whips Office. It is the Prime Minister who can create SoS and therefore alter the remit.

The SoS are formerly, though never referred to as Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for X. But they are from the cabinet which is appointed by teh PM not the Queen.

The permanent secretaries role is more administrative, it is to ensure that money granted by the government is spent appropriately, so it is these permanent secretaries that can be called into question by Parliamentary Committees.

[Nabterayl]

So ... am I correct that the Queen formally appoints and dismisses the heads of ministerial departments, even if in reality I assume she appoints whoever the PM asks/advises her to? If somebody wanted to order an SoS to do something (nothing unlawful, just instruct him or her to alter the department's behavior in accordance with some new policy), am I correct that:

The Prime Minister could do so, even if not of the SoS' party, ultimately backing that up with the power to get the SoS dismissed (technically, ask the Queen to fire the SoS, which the Queen need not do but in reality would) if s/he didn't comply?
The SoS' party leader (possibly through his or her whip) could sort of do so, ultimately backing that up with the usual ways you enforce intra-party discipline.
The Queen could do so (though wouldn't) do so, ultimately backing that up with the power to dismiss the SoS?

[Wolfshade]

No, the Queen only appoints the PM. It is the PM who then assembles his cabinet/appoints heads of ministerial departments.
There are two mechanisms that a SoS will be mandated to do something, usually, it will be from the PM (formally, though obviously he has his advisers, one of whom would be the relevant SoS, also the Queen could advise) or extraordinarily if the Common's Select committee finds something amiss.
The SoS will always belong to the ruling party (or dominant coalition) so the SoS's party leader will be the PM.
The Queen cannot directly interfere with the way a department is run, they can advise the PM of what they think and indeed she holds a weekly meeting with the PM and has done so since her coronation where they talk about undocumented things. It is not her job to enforce or enact policy, just enact law (and those laws which are brought to her to sign which have successfully passed through the Commons and Lords).