Saturday, March 12, 2011

A Farewell to Kings?


Rex wins! Windsors unwind with a brisk game of ‘Mock the Pauper’.
Ever wonder where the politicians are calling for a republic, or at least a public discussion? Wouldn’t it be a vote winner? Why do the pandering panderers quit pandering when it comes to the status of that fun (though costly) family of parasitic life forms known as the Windsors?
Whichever way we slice it, either a majority or a preponderance of public opinion supports dumping the monarchy, even while many admit they’re not quite sure they understand the current arrangement all that clearly at all.
Well, if you’re a little unclear on it all, here it is:
Currently, we pretend the Cabinet, with the Prime Minister as the sort of straw boss, are all working away in the service of Her Britannic Majesty (ably represented by The Right Honorable Whatsisname) who, on behalf of us all, makes sure they stay on the straight and narrow.
This is of course, a pile of horsesh a polite fiction. In reality the Prime Minister enjoys a “friendly dictatorship” and can do whatever he likes, including re-writing the Constitution to his own liking.
Not surprisingly, the more people understand this, the more they favor getting rid of the monarchy and changing the arrangements.
So, what’s the problem?
Well, the current arrangement itself is the problem. Either a politician figures they have a shot at being all-powerful themselves (and what self-respecting control freak would turn that down?) or they know full well what would happen if they started making noises that could wreck things for the Big Dogs. Its called “party discipline”.
They're either a Big Dog or a trained seal barking and clapping on command; its an interesting menagerie we’re pleased to call the House of the Common People (Common People ‘cause, you know, its the house of thee and me. There’s others that are just cut of a better cloth. Nice, huh?)
The whole thing reeks and even mentioning the monarchy risks opening the whole can of worms.
No, this is one sure-fire poll booster that will continue to lay there untouched. We'll continue to await the semi-quasi-pseudo-election of a not-so-friendly dictator who figures everyone's so sick of what's basically a travesty of elections we'll never miss them.
And I’ll confidently predict right here and now that future archeologists will be unearthing plenty of these:

2 comments:

Larben said...

Well David, you appear to be having great fun here, but all you say, I refute. (well, perhaps not all). As a starter I must suggest that an aristocracy, even one of earlier centuries, would be desirous when compared to what we now experience (not being monarchical in the real sense) at the very least, it would be less harmful. What Tsar was as blood-thirsty as Stalin and his bunch; or what Tsar could starve millions with such efficiency as they? And King Charles I had the fortitude (some would say, audacity)to enter the Commons alone, leaving his private guards outside, in order to personally arrest 5 members, who had (some would say cowardly) slipped through the back door, and rowed across the Thames. And though it was as far back as the 2nd Hanoverian King, who last led his armies into conflict it is said that he disputed the field manfully! And how many elected represented leaders have done so since the time of Washington? And many sons of Lords and Earls and other minor aristocracy, freely joined along with the commoners to fight in the trenches, to die and be buried in Picardy, and wasn't it Prince Andrew, who might have died in the Falklands War? I believe too, that it was Lady Astor who approached Stalin at a social get together in Moscow to ask him when he planned to stop killing people. It certainly wasn't Churchill or Roosevelt or his ridiculous wife, or God forbid! Mackenzie King.
Your comments here appear splenetic and pertinacious and lacking in civility (as do mine)but then it is your site, and I a visitor who speaks out of place.

David in North Burnaby BC said...

"and I a visitor who speaks out of place."

Not at all, you're very welcome and you make your points well.
I would have neither kings nor Stalins, history to my mind has proven we can do without and in the end there seems scant difference between.
And yes, mea culpa. I do play it for laffs, why not, see any ads on this blog?
;-).