Every so often I'm reminded that "hereditary monarchy" probably seems like a good idea when you're, say, a corn chandler in York, living around a shitload of heavily armed aristocratic assholes bred to consider the lack of ruthless ambition a character flaw.
Ensuring the rules say that you have to hand the keys to the national Volvo to the last boss' kid - even the stupid gormless one - as soon as the old driver croaks so these greedy bastards don't descend on each other and in the process you tend to find that your home and livelihood have been pillaged and burnt, your sons hauled off to dig siegeworks, your daughters and wife (and you, depending on how things go) raped and murdered, and your entire life pretty much destroyed and gone to shit probably seems like the lesser of two evils.
To spend a fairly large chunk of change to maintain this idea as your Head of State in the 21st Century, however, seems pretty silly when you think of it even for a moment.
Mind you, I live in a nation that "elected" Donald Fucking Trump as Head of State, so I should probably be humble at throwing shade on the Brits about that.
Spending money on pretty soldiers and fancy cribs when you could be, oh, I dunno, paying off oil sheiks? Not really an "investment".
But, still...as the placeholder of a fundamentally silly and pointless "job" Elizabeth Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (ok, "Windsor", fine...) seems to have done as good a job as you'd want anyone to do if that's what you wanted someone to do.
She also seems to have been as decent a person who ever did this particular job, although her country's diplomatic and military decline during her tenure meant that she was unable to do some of the appallingly awful things some of the former employees of the Firm got into even if she'd wanted to.
But she never seemed to want to, much.
(Mind you...there's some fair amount of disagreement about that; I don't have enough knowledge to make a sensible observation so I'll simply recommend you go read the linked article. Suffice to say that there are more than a few people who live were the British used to rule who have a veeeeery different view of QE2 and what she stood for.
There's also the issue of what Liz "stood for" as the figurehead for British aristocracy, as well as the whole weird anachronistic "above the law" thing that might have made sense to the corn chandler but seems just another damn entrenched-inequity thing now.
And as this obituary from the European Politico reminds us, the whole "queen" thing was not easy on the person of Elizabeth Windsor. To live as the "queen" meant she had to kill "Lilibet Windsor" as dead as any Kenyan rebel.)
Anyway, she had damn near a century as the rich person in the fancy headgear who was the notional symbol of her country.
Mind you, the end of a reign that doesn't include a vulturine crowd of glittering courtiers hovering around and plotting over the Royal Deathbed eagerly and anxiously anticipating the final gasp, and a dissolute Heir who, while roystering away in some bucolic hunting lodge surrounded by his hangers-on, bravos, and a trollop or three, is surprised while pawing his busty wench by a begrimed messenger leaping from his saddle shouting "The Queen is dead! Long live the King!" as the trollop is unseated and all the dissolute mob bays "LONG LIVE THE KING!!!" with flagons spilling just...doesn't seem quite right.
Ah, well. We live in sadly diminished times.
2 comments:
As a loyal subject of His Grace (Long May He Reign) from the colony of New South Wales, may I stop you there? While I won't defend monarchy per se, and I don't really expect Americans to ever lay off it already - anti-monarchism is the founding myth of your country, after all - what I will say is that I don't think you have a leg to stand on in 2022. Over the course of the 20th Century, you backed yourselves into a head of state that is far, far scarier, for my money, than any constitutional monarch. I'm not even talking about The Former Guy specifically: just the nature of the U.S. presidency, post-Roosevelt and Eisenhower, concentrates far too much power into one person's hands for my comfort. I'm open to being corrected, of course, because I'm not sure of the specifics of either office. But in brief, while I'm not sure Australia really needs a king, I'm very sure Australia doesn't need a president.
I'll repeat the txt I sent out to the few of my friends who actually care when I heard the news: may Charles III oversee an age of prosperity, decadence, art, music, sex & wine, like Charles II, and not a time of religious zealotry, genocide, civil war and a military dictatorship that eventually chops his head off, like Charles I. That's the hope, anyway; post-Brexit, I don't like the odds.
I did get a kick out of that final paragraph, though. "Sadly diminished times", indeed...
Like I said in the post; I can't really throw any shade because, yes; the fucked-up electoral system we won't fix has gifted us not just Tubby but several Republican scumbags who lost the popular vote. The set-up the Framers laid down to ensure that the "mob" didn't run the joint currently empowers the rural chucklefucking QANuts who have got us in this fix.
Now, Brexit, mind...it's not JUST us.
That said, "hereditary monarchy" isn't a "better" idea. It's just an idea that WAS better in 1189 (than having a fucking murderous war amongst the ambitious mobbed-up aristos every time the king or queen dies) but is way past it's sell-buy date.
If the Brits want to have a "head of state" who's not the head of government I'd be fine with having a nice bougie guy or gal who gets to amble out of their row house and put on a crown to open fairs and do public stuff. Given the pile of jack that the current "royal" get-up pulls in? No, fuck that. The average Brit needs that like the average Yank needs the "Former PResidents Act" (which we ought to 86 most quick smart, too). Make the whole business less wasteful and it doesn't seem any worse than any other "figurehead" stuff...
The thing is that the old kings and queens at least provided some good bloodthirsty Game-of-Thrones sort of fun. But go read the Politico article and it's just kind of sad; "Queen Elizabeth" seems to have had a pretty miserable time of it - to be "queen" she had to fork over any hope of having any sort of normal life. Yeah, Liz was good at it (in ways that Chuck probably won't be...) but why? The modern monarchy just seems, like I said, diminished.
Post a Comment