67 replies to this topic

[ExpandMyMind]

TheLastLazyGun, on 22 January 2013 - 04:17 PM, said:

Please stop trying to impose 21st Century behaviour onto a 16th Century person.  They were completely different times.

People should be judged by the era in which they live? Or in other words, they should be judged by their surrounding environment and culture, and not held to modern day Western standards?

[Colonel Rhuairidh]

I've got nothing against the Royals, the Queen (and Wills once he gets the job, I'm sure) are infinitely preferable to a power-hungry Politician or an incompetent bumbler like the present and the previous Prime Minister, but all this dickering about medieval titles and so on is all a bit of an irrelevance, isn't it. And all this nonsense about whether or not it should be illegal for a Catholic to be on the throne. These may have been importnat issues 300 years ago, but come on now. Rather like the Church of England, which just spends all its time bickering about whether women should be bishops.

[TheLastLazyGun]

ExpandMyMind, on 22 January 2013 - 04:29 PM, said:

People should be judged by the era in which they live? Or in other words, they should be judged by their surrounding environment and culture, and not held to modern day Western standards?

Henry VIII did abide by modern Western standards - those of the 16th Century in which he lived.

The era in which Henry VIII lived was a very different one to the 21st Century.  Stop acting as though he was wrong to not abide by today's standards.  He lived in the 16th Century when monarchs the world over married for political reasons or to give themselves a male heir.  Stop trying to impose 21st Century standards onto someone who lived in the 16th Century.

Edited by TheLastLazyGun, 22 January 2013 - 04:34 PM.

[ExpandMyMind]

TheLastLazyGun, on 22 January 2013 - 04:29 PM, said:

It's a pity for you that hardly anyone in Britain agrees with you.

Give me a King or Queen as Head of State rather than some politician anyday of the week, thank you very much.

Aye, because having an unchallenged dictator as a head of state always ends well. I can't believe I'm reading this right. The single best and most important event to take place in British politics was the empowerment of parliament and the Lords, at the expense of the monarchy.

No offence mate, but I'm actually laughing right now. You'd rather roll the dice with a single person who inherits power, than have democracy (albeit the flawed version we right now have).

[TheLastLazyGun]

Lord Vetinari, on 22 January 2013 - 04:29 PM, said:

(and Wills once he gets the job, I'm sure)

I think you'll find that Wills has a job.  He's an RAF Sea King Helicopter pilot.

[Colonel Rhuairidh]

ExpandMyMind, on 22 January 2013 - 04:04 PM, said:

*Woosh*

That was the point, flying over your head. The point being that all men should be (or in reality, are) born equal; that someone having the birthright of 'King' or 'Queen' is archaic and belongs in the distant past, nowhere near a modern democratic society.

... whereas (as mentioned above) it would be preferable to have a President? What difference would it make? Would it just be the Pri Minister rettitled, or would we have to elect yet another power hungry Politician to a position above the one that already tries to run the country? Anyway, what exactly is democratic about Western "Democracy"? Being able to vote for whoever it is that decides to put up taxes and intervenes Militarily in places that we have no business in? Like one rather than the other would make the slightest difference. To say nothing of the benefits for tourism and the PR value. I'd say have a modernised Monarchy, without all these medieval trivialities.

TheLastLazyGun, on 22 January 2013 - 04:34 PM, said:

I think you'll find that Wills has a job.  He's an RAF Sea King Helicopter pilot.

I mean the job of King, possibly bypassing Charles, who means well, but he's getting on a bit now isn't he.

[TheLastLazyGun]

ExpandMyMind, on 22 January 2013 - 04:34 PM, said:

because having an unchallenged dictator

The Queen isn't a dictator.  Only a politician can be one of those.  She has no political powers at her disposal to dictate to us with.

Quote

No offence mate, but I'm actually laughing right now. You'd rather roll the dice with a single person who inherits power, than have democracy (albeit the flawed version we right now have).

You are still in the minority pal.  Most Britons WANT our constituional monatrchy and don't want a republic.

Come back when you speak for the British people.  We don't want a republic.

Edited by TheLastLazyGun, 22 January 2013 - 04:37 PM.

[Colonel Rhuairidh]

ExpandMyMind, on 22 January 2013 - 04:34 PM, said:

Aye, because having an unchallenged dictator as a head of state always ends well. I can't believe I'm reading this right. The single best and most important event to take place in British politics was the empowerment of parliament and the Lords, at the expense of the monarchy.

No offence mate, but I'm actually laughing right now. You'd rather roll the dice with a single person who inherits power, than have democracy (albeit the flawed version we right now have).

The single best and most important event to take place in British politics was to give "elected" politicians completely unchallengeable powers? Surely you don't really believe that either the Lords or the Opposition have the slightest effect on what the party in power does, do you? Does the record of past Governments and Pri Ministers, going back as far as memory can recall, give you any confidence at all that "Democracy" is working properly? It really doesn't to me.

[ExpandMyMind]

TheLastLazyGun, on 22 January 2013 - 04:32 PM, said:

Henry VIII did abide by modern Western standards - those of the 16th Century in which he lived.

The era in which Henry VIII lived was a very different one to the 21st Century.  Stop acting as though he was wrong to not abide by today's standards.  He lived in the 16th Century when monarchs the world over married for political reasons or to give themselves a male heir.  Stop trying to impose 21st Century standards onto someone who lived in the 16th Century.

For the record, there are no 'today's standards'. There are specific Western standards which are not even applied by a majority of the World, but no sweeping standards of 'today'.

You do realise that by applying the same logic you have just now provided, we can adjudge the horrendous acts of many of the people of the lesser cultures, such as Arabic and Indian, to be perfectly alright, for they are living in a different 'era' to us in the West. Just pointing this out.

Of course people of the past should be judged by today's Western standards. Someone such as Henry who is guilty of the most horrible, or rather, infamous, crimes in our history should not be held any less accountable due to the era in which they lived. Would you try to claim the same thing regarding a Roman soldier who pillages villages, raping women and children because it's the norm for them? Or Vikings who did the same? Or the English right of prema nocta? Or William Wallace's raping and pillaging spree? Or Genghis Kahn for his brutality? Oh how noble Henry and the rest of those examples were!

This employed logic becomes even more ludicrous when we consider that Henry had access to a Bible, and even wrote his own version! How can he not be held accountable when he had the New Testament as a morality guide?

Your reasoning finds its roots in nothing more than misplaced, blind admiration for British history. Which, when we get down to it, is a horrible history to have that, bar some of the technical achievements, no human being should admire.

Edited by ExpandMyMind, 22 January 2013 - 05:30 PM.

[ExpandMyMind]

Lord Vetinari, on 22 January 2013 - 04:39 PM, said:

The single best and most important event to take place in British politics was to give "elected" politicians completely unchallengeable powers? Surely you don't really believe that either the Lords or the Opposition have the slightest effect on what the party in power does, do you? Does the record of past Governments and Pri Ministers, going back as far as memory can recall, give you any confidence at all that "Democracy" is working properly? It really doesn't to me.

Just because the system is in the state it is in right now, doesn't mean that we haven't benefited immensely as a society because of those acts. The rise of the working class and empowerment of the people meant that we used to have politicians who were scared to antagonise the voters. Without the socialism these politics brought we would still have Victorian level poverty. It is only with the rise of the 'dumb' population, so blinded to the world outside their own little circles, that we have had politicians able to get away with murder. Only since the rise in mass apathy has this been allowed to happen.

The fact is that we wouldn't have the society we have right now if it were not for the evolution of our politics. We would still be living in a largely feudal society.

Edited by ExpandMyMind, 22 January 2013 - 05:01 PM.

[Colonel Rhuairidh]

ExpandMyMind, on 22 January 2013 - 04:49 PM, said:

Your reasoning finds its roots in nothing more than misplaced, blind admiration for British history. Which, when we get down to it, is a horrible history to have that, bar some of the technical achievements, no human being should admire.

Is that solely attritutable to having a Monarchy? The histories of numerous countries after they (often forcibly) got rid of Monarchies wouldn't sem to suggest so. Otherwise, is britain's Horrible History germane to the question of Monarchy at all?

[Colonel Rhuairidh]

ExpandMyMind, on 22 January 2013 - 04:59 PM, said:

Just because the system is in the state it is in right now, doesn't mean that we haven't benefited immensely as a society because of those acts. The rise of the working class and empowerment of the people meant that we used to have politicians who were scared to antagonise the voters. It is only with the rise of the 'dumb' population, so blinded to the world outside their own little circles, that we have had politicians able to get away with murder. Only since the rise in mass apathy has this been allowed to happen.

The fact is that we wouldn't have the society we have right now if it were not for the evolution of our politics. We would still be living in a largely feudal society.

So perhaps it might be a more useful use of time to try to find ways to salvage the "Democratic" system, if that's at all possible, than devote energy to getting rid of the monarchy, which for a good couple of hundred years hasn't actually had much effect on what Britain or its Politicians do in the world?

[ExpandMyMind]

Lord Vetinari, on 22 January 2013 - 05:00 PM, said:

Is that solely attritutable to having a Monarchy? The histories of numerous countries after they (often forcibly) got rid of Monarchies wouldn't sem to suggest so. Otherwise, is britain's Horrible History germane to the question of Monarchy at all?

It's not solely attributable, no, but they were more often than not started by similar dictatorships, or monarchies, with governments merely carrying the torch afterwards.

[ExpandMyMind]

Lord Vetinari, on 22 January 2013 - 05:03 PM, said:

So perhaps it might be a more useful use of time to try to find ways to salvage the "Democratic" system, if that's at all possible, than devote energy to getting rid of the monarchy, which for a good couple of hundred years hasn't actually had much effect on what Britain or its Politicians do in the world?

Of course, but just because we go after one, does not mean the other should be ignored.

[ealdwita]

I'm not going to get entangled in this Charles I v Cromwell argument because it's pointless, and most people on here are aware of my views, so allow me to return briefly to topic. Traditionally, the title 'Princess of Wales' was usually conferred automatically upon the wife of the Prince of Wales. Therefore, technically, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall is the present Princess of Wales but doesn't use the title out of respect for the late Diana.

Including Camilla, there have been 10 Princesses of Wales dating from Joan of Kent (1367). Another snippet - with the exception of Mary Tudor, no Princess of Wales has been a princess in her own right, so all these digs about Kate's ancestry matters not one jot.

OK, back to the English Civil War..........have we got to Marston Moor yet?