86 Replies to “What Would We Do Without Experts?”

  1. Thanks, larben. Right on!
    God save our gracious queen,
    Long live our noble queen,
    Long may she reign.
    Queen Elizabeth II is amazing!

  3. Kate Middleton is no Diana.
    Thank God.
    Posted by: batb
    Lol. That was my first thought.

  4. Well, cgh, I was with you until your last sentence. Edwards I and III may well have been brutal tyrants (albeit effective brutal tyrants) but Cromwell was a humourless bastard AND a brutal tyrant. The country put up with hundreds of years of the Plantagenets and their heirs but thankfully, tolerated Cromwell and his ilk for only 11. After him, even dilettante Chuckie II (“the Merrie Monarch”) looked good.
    Oh oh, just the mere mention of Cromwell has me relapsing into monarchism!

  5. Larben: well no. The Divine Right was formulated by Jean Bodin some time after the death of Henry VIII. Bodin was only 11 years old at the time of Henry’s death, so that’s just a little bit precocious for writing political theory. The doctrine was first used in England by James I in his instructions to his son, Prince Henry. He embodied it in two works he wrote in the 1590s, Basilikon Doron and The True Law of Free Monarchies.
    Now you made a claim about his intelligence, and that may be true later in life. And I will agree that he’s one of the very few British monarchs who actually wrote anything. But his early reign as James VI was a gallery of horrors. He drove through Scottish Parliament the Witchcraft Act of 1563, introducing witch burning trials into the British Isles for the first time. He is known to have personally conducted tortures on accused. What is also the case is that he remained intensely superstitious all of his life even by the standards of the day.
    batb: “These Royals bring more money to the plebs than you think.”
    I think you need to quantify that statement in some way. What is the additional revenue brought in explicitly by the monarchy, remembering that Britain is a giant antique trap anyway, as opposed to the large levies of public tax money supporting the state list?
    “…and there’s no good reason to abolish it”
    Two words: Prince Charles.
    “…its tourist trade would tank.”
    Good. Then they’d have to go out and get real jobs instead of fleecing the suckers in the sideshow tent.
    “Because most people don’t know any history, they just assume that the Monarchy is elitist and, therefore, should be done away with.”
    This is the funniest one yet. The historical record is extremely clear. All monarchies, and the British one in particular, are thoroughly elitist. That’s the point. They are better than you. Just to cap it all, the British Monarch is God’s viceroy on Earth, or do you not understand how the Church of England is constituted?
    I don’t assume the monarchy is elitist; the historical record tells me so in nauseating detail.
    Kate: “Every so often I like to throw a little red meat to the Monarchists. Heh.”
    And I like to throw them a little dose of bile with their royalist tea.

  6. Felis: “Oh oh, just the mere mention of Cromwell has me relapsing into monarchism!”
    Hah! Cromwell is always the question that sorts out the men from the boys. Given how thoroughly corrupt and insane governance in England and Scotland had become by the end of the 1630s, Cromwell was essential.
    As to the two Edwards, both bankrupted the country. Edward I ruined the economy of England with endless wars in France and Scotland. Oldest rule in military affairs, never fight a two front war. Edward did and left it to his son to lose them both.
    As for Edward III, more disastrous wars in France, the beginning of the Hundred Years War which ruined both countries and for what? A few snippets of territory around Bordeaux. And when the English lost, all those now unemployed soldiers came home and spread mayhem all over the country.
    So effective in what way? Both of them left national governance a shambles after they died. England never really recovered from the disasters of the Hundred Years until at least Henry VIII.
    Now as for Cromwell, he created the modern institutions of the British Army and the British Navy. Where do you think they got the red uniforms from? Many of the oldest British regiments trace their origins to the New Model Army. Trade and commerce boomed in Cromwell’s rule, and the 11 years were marked by a sharp rise in standard of living and personal incomes. The judiciary was thoroughly reformed; for the first time in Britain’s history being an aristocrat was no longer an automatic guarantee of getting off scot-free from some offense against the lower classes.
    As for his mild treatment of the Irish, well, the Irish were generally so muleheaded as to deserve what treatment they got.

  7. For a minute there I thought I accidentally clicked on the American Idol thread.
    altaguy
    +1

  8. Right, cgh, you know the royal family, you know what they do every day, you have an insight into their innermost beings, you’ve got a detective tailing them day and night, and you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt that they’re a bunch of bounders and entitled weenies.
    The Monarchy is an easy target. I’m not impressed with the knee-jerk republican cry, “down with the Royals!” They’re an institution, hundreds of years old, that does a lot more good than harm. I don’t like Prince Charles very much, especially his sidling up to the Muslims (too much polo, IMO), but Queen Elizabeth is an exemplary monarch who even Labour PM Harold Wilson — ‘you remember him, right? ‘you know your history, right? — came to admire and respect for her knowledge of world and Commonwealth politics, which she generously shared with whichever Prime Minister was in power.
    As for red meat, Kate, I like my steak rare.

  9. All she has to do is pop out the heir’s heirs.
    Nothing more. Nothing less.
    Just avoid car drives in France would be my advice to her.

  10. batb: “Right, cgh, you know the royal family, you know what they do every day, you have an insight into their innermost beings, you’ve got a detective tailing them day and night”
    You said that, I didn’t. I’m only going by the historic record and what came during and after their duration on the throne. Mostly it was dismal.
    “…that they’re a bunch of bounders and entitled weenies.”
    If you don’t like the historical facts, don’t blame me. In large measure they were a bunch of bounders and entitled weenies.
    Now as to Queen Elizabeth II, what in any of my postings criticizes her? Go ahead, find just one sentence, phrase or word that criticizes her. Hah!
    All I’m pointing out is that six decent monarchs (Elizabeth I and II, Anne, William III, George VI and Victoria) in the last 1,000 years are little justification for an institution. Note by the way that four of them on my list are women, five if you count William’s wife Queen Mary as they were co-monarchs. So that’s six good ones out of about 30 odd varying degrees of bad with some of it utterly vile.
    It’s tough but it always has to be done. Time to throw out the old dust-shrouded memorabilia cluttering up the attic. We’re fortunate they don’t have any power now, because the odds are that if they did we’d have to have someone like a modern Cromwell to come along to sort things out, again.

  11. cgh >
    “….well, the Irish were generally so muleheaded as to deserve what treatment they got”.
    Yea, they got to help build America into the greatness it once held.
    The brits have been friend to no one except thier elite. Inside or outside of thier own borders, which is why they “deserve what treatment they get”.

  12. “Yea, they got to help build America into the greatness it once held.”
    Indeed. They’d made such a mess of their own country. But then in going to America they became Americans. Ireland was the only nation in western Europe to go backwards over the past 1000 years, at least until the 20th C or so. If you want to lay some of the blame for that at the hands of Brit snobs, I won’t disagree with you.

  13. cgh – “We’re fortunate they don’t have any power now…”
    Well, yeah. But they don’t, so what’s the problem? I’d be more worried about the creeps who do have power.

  14. Plus there is a lot of minor barons and other landed gentry that are buried in Picardy, and it was Lady Astor who confronted Stalin in Moscow, asking him when he was going to stop murdering people, and the very wealthy Sassoons where on the battle fronts. It was only as far back as the Hanoverian kings when they still lead the armies to war, and defended the field manfully; and more recently Prince Andrew faced the guns and missiles in the Falkland War.

  15. If I had to bonk one or the other I would hit on Kate Middleton before Diana Spencer, although Diana had a sense of humour and I’d like to hear about Kate’s.
    But William can rest easy because my interest in the royal wedding and couple is zero.

  17. Larben, you mean the Lady Nancy Astor the Nazi sympathizer? The one who supported German rearmament? Demanded that Czech refugees be barred from Britain? Who labeled the Italian campaign veterans “the D-Day Dodgers”? Who supported Hitler’s occupation of Austria? That Lady Astor?
    Churchill said it best when he quipped that he’d rather drink poison than be married to her.
    “…as the Hanoverian kings…”
    Yes, yes, I know. You’re talking about George II and the Battle of Dettingen during the 2nd Silesian War. So what? Are you claiming some special virtue for Andrew that pertains to none of the other rank and file who fought the Falkand War?
    Well since you brought it up. Name the last time a member of the British Royal Family who actually died on a battlefield along with the millions of poor schubs like you and me who were marched into the cannon fire.

  20. I’m not sure what cgh is advocating as a replacement for the monarchy. Successful democracies flourish because their supporting institutions are stable. There are various models out there, none of which are perfect. In a constitutional monarchy, the monarch balances the power of Parliament and vice versa. Remove the monarch and who balances the power of Parliament? Who retains constitutional power during a general election or a during constitutional crises? Using the fallibility of the office holder as a reason to destroy the institution is superfluous IMHO since the institution is far more important than it’s occupant. Sure the monarch isn’t elected but then again neither is the Canadian Senate. In this country the constitutional monarchy has been a model of success, there’s 350 years of history to prove it.

  21. eastern paul – necrophilia is nothing to be proud of.
    Posted by: a different bob at April 10, 2011 1:44 PM
    Typical brainwashed Judaio-Christian morality. I bet you have a problem with consenting interspecies relationships as well, you illogical fascist. You probably eat shrimp.

  22. Free Thinker >
    “I’m not sure what cgh is advocating as a replacement for the monarchy”.
    cgh doesn’t advocate! How long you been commenting here Free? cgh prefers to dazzle everyone with his Google searching abilities, and attempt to pass them off as historian extraordinaire an ALL things history.
    It’s not about solutions. It’s the argument and leassons.

  23. “These people don’t divorce. They take heads.
    Started with Henry VIII.”
    How now?
    In Henry’s defense, he only beheaded two out of six wives.

  25. Do the people that support a constitutional republic (a la the US) on one hand, still drool over the monarchy, on the other? They are as enthusiastic over a system where anyone borne in the country can become it’s leader, and the opposite system whereby once ascends to power merely by the happy coincidence of swimming upstream at the most opportune moment/location? Is that about right?
    Come ON, conservatives.
    The monarchy, as noted above, is a joke. Elizabeth II is as good a “ruler” as one could hope for, and I agree she’s been a decent queen. But come ON: Charles is waiting in the wings, maybe; would anybody want this jack@ss as our sovereign?
    Why do we even NEED a “sovereign”? Oh yeah: the innovators and those with ambition kicked out the throne in 1776, and the retread Loyalists came hither. Right, I forgot.
    When Elizabeth passes on, it’d be a great time to get rid of this system. Who knows; it might even solve a few problems east of Ontario, to boot.
    mhb23re
    at gmail d0t calm

  26. mhb >
    I agree.
    It’s funny though, it seems like more American’s are embarrassingly enamoured with the British royalty than Canadians these days.
    Of course they aren’t really a Constitutional Republic anymore, except in name and delusion.

  27. Free thinker, not 350 years, 250 years. The system broke down just a bit in the 1640s and ended with the crown losing much of its remaining power.
    It comes down to principles. If you wish to live in a society in which a single family is deemed superior to all of the nation’s other citizens, then a constitutional monarchy can work. If you prize a more egalitarian society where the office is important and not the individual, then an elected Presidency is preferable. Me, I prefer a republic. That way sovereignty derives from the People, not from the Crown.
    mhb, I agree. It’s about time conservatives in this country grew up and dumped the last of the mediaeval relics.

  28. Knight 99,
    it’s not exactly that we’re enamored of the monarchy.
    It’s more like if they shut down the monarchy, it would be like shutting down Disneyland.
    It wouldn’t really matter, but then again you would really miss being able to see Scrooge McDuck and Minny Mouse and Goofy. It wouldn’t affect anything, but it might be a litte bit of a loss.
    On the other hand, if you go to Google images, there’s a bunch of pictures of Kate in a bikini (I’ve always been kind of fond of good-looking brunettes named Kate). I think she’s hot.

  29. Greg in Dallas .
    He he – Good response!
    I was actually thinking of the whole entertainment angle when I wrote that.
    Don’t get me wrong the bikini pics are nice; it’s just that I have higher standards than the Royal squirrels. For me they are cut from the same cloth albeit the far opposite spectrum of the Charlie Sheen tattooed porn star “goddesses”.
    I prefer to be more centered.

  30. This may sound facetious but its not. Frankly its good to have a Monarchy, even a castrated one when the ship finally sinks. At least there is somewhere to invest power in a social collapse.
    If you remember when Rome fell the only organized Institution left was the Church.
    That worked out as we know to the determent of all.
    Most especially the Church. You marry the World, you end up in bed with the devil.
    JMO

  32. Revnant Dream >
    “…its good to have a Monarchy, even a castrated one when the ship finally sinks”
    I respectfully tend disagree. First a “castrated monarchy” is no loss to anyone but tourists, and secondly I think this Monarchy holds far more power in the world’s affaires than we are led to believe these days.
    A lesson learned from the French Revolution: Better to rule from behind the scenes.
    Canada does not have “Crown Land”, “Crown Courts” and QE2 money for sentimental reasons as they would like us to believe.
    The “Commander In Chief” of our Canadian Forces and Royal “R”CMP should be a good hint to those that believe otherwise.

  33. Knight 99,
    your post speaks well of you.
    I completely get the show business angle. For us they’re just kind of a bizarre novelty. To be sure, whatever majesty the crown once held has now been diminished into some endless spiral of half-lives.
    Naturally, I think Canadians are much more in touch with this whole royal gig than we are. I remember some famous American sports hero of an earlier generation (whose name I do not remember) received an award from a king. The sports hero, being unfamiliar with royal protocol, responded, “Thanks, King.”
    Revnant Dream,
    you make a very good point. At the same time when one considers the antics of Diana, Charles, and Fergie, one wonders if the institution can survive its participants.
    If Knight 99 is correct in his association of royals and show business, you can see a vivid example of things losing power over time.
    Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly and others symbolized grace and elegance and culture. Today movie actors just seem like a degenerate group of hangers-on, all scrambling for a job. The touch of nobility that the old studio system lent has now given way to a series of arrest reports, drug rebabs, and intentionally leaked sex tapes.
    Will the new royal nuptials do something to halt this decline? I suppose we’ll see.

  34. Greg in Dallas >
    Agreed! Also, to clarify my overall point so that it doesn’t appear that I’m mixing apples & oranges. I’m making a distinction between the royal celebrity front “men/ act” and the behind the scenes ruling system of the British Monarchy. Each of which interacts differently with the Canadian/ American world position.
    I believe the magazine cover “front royals” do exactly as expected, and trouble themselves with current affairs as dimwittedly as they appear. Yet there is an administrative base beyond the eyes and ears of the public which still runs the remnants of the British Empire to this day beyond the colonies parliaments, including the UK itself.

  36. Being an ‘expert’ on neither Diana nor Kate the most a distant observer can safely say is that Kate seems like one who takes care of herself; judging by the photographs.
    So far I haven’t received an invitation to this nuptial event; but would offer my congratulations in any event, as I would to any young couple making the ‘plunge’.
    As to all the monarchial history of the Crown in the UK, as duly noted by posters above, one can only say that ‘guilt by association’ is a logical error. Further, judging more ancient practices by modern standards is considered bad form in historical studies. A better yardstick is to judge the historical record as compared to their peers at the time.
    Queen Elizabeth II actually ‘shows up’ and makes an effort, which is probably a lot more than some of the occasional scoundrels who ostensibly ‘serve the Crown’ on oath no less.
    Cheers
    Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
    1st Saint Nicolaas Army
    Army Group “True North”

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