Queen has to approve of the parliament before it can sit? She's been dictator longer than F Castro.

Fidel Castro
1959 - 2006


Her Majesty The Queen
1952 - present




:wow:

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She has never failed to approve the parliament as elected.

She also has no vote in the election.

:crazy:

Don't worry about it. The actual procedure is laid out in the Constitution (yes, we do have one, we just don't have a codified Constitution). The Royal Assent has never been refused. It's purely a formality.

Same goes for "Never been refused".


:shrug:

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IT. WILL. NOT. HAPPEN. The Queen is not Castro, we are not Cuba, we like our political system and we get very pissed about Americans telling us how awful it is.

Contrary to your assertions, HRH has no actual power.

It's Lyndon LaRouche bullshit. He ALWAYS compares Queen Elizabeth to Castro.

Props go out to the OP! They talk just like Castro

:rofl:

Queen Elizabeth being the biggest drug dealer in the world any time now.

Serious question: what happens if the Queen publicly declined to give her assent?

Seriously. And probably a domestic crisis as well. If the Royal Assent was refused, you could expect rioting, mass protests and a constitutional crisis that would probably end the monarchy entirely (or, at least, remove even the pretence of any sort of power. But more likely end the monarchy entirely).

Seriously, the British people would simply not put up with it and the monarchy would end.

The monarchy has been on the edge of a cliff for a while. It's a quaint institution so long as the will of the people is not fucked with. IF that ever happened, there would no longer be a Queen or King of the United Kingdom.

The very, very best outcome the monarchy could hope for would be that they would be stripped of even the pretence of power and hang on purely to wave at crowds outside Buck House (which is not much different than what they currently do) but there's a 99% probability that it would cause a constitutional crisis which would end the monarchy.

The monarch hasn't failed to approve the parliament in centuries. Realistically, the queen is a symbol of the government of the UK, not an actual ruler.

:rofl:

That's playing Muskrat Love.

"Every time I sing this song, I think of Henry Kissenger"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBYV_7a0FQs

the result was the English Civil War (IIRC, my UK history's a bit rusty,) but there's a reason why the Queen doesn't stand in the way of Parliament...

The Parliamentarians (which is just about everyone in the UK today) don't like it when the Monarchists try to claim unitary executive power.

She can't introduce or change law. In theory, she could veto it by refusing the Royal Assent but that hasn't happened in centuries and would end the monarchy if it did. She doesn't have command of the armed forces either. The only actual power she still has is the right to be "advised" of proposed law (a formality) and the right to dissolve and invest Parliaments (again, formalities).

And it's a classic example of how democracy evolves (let's throw in a little poli-sci). Granted, some of my memory of the details may be completely wrong, but I hope this gets the point across.

You start with anarchy, like in Somalia. It starts off in chaos and war as various warlords slug it out and fight over who gets to be alpha dog.

Eventually, one wins. You've got one brutal warlord, who has himself named "King" that is now the proud new ruler of a nation state.

Of course, he and his descendants can't just rule by chopping the heads off of everyone who pisses them off. Now he's got to collect taxes, manage the military, administer a burgeoning bureaucracy, throw a few goodies at the peasants so they don't revolt... You know, ruling a nation.

The ones who don't figure this out get bumped off rather quickly. The ones that do start by delegating. They hire some thugs, call them "knights", send them to all the parts of the nation, with the first thing on the to-do list being the collection of taxes. Brutal authoritarian monarchies don't just pay for themselves, y'know.

Despite the threats of being drawn and quartered for skimming the king's taxes, some of the knights are going to get sticky fingers when they have big sacks of tax money they just collected from their peasants. Eventually, there's gonna be some pissing contests, some of these knights are going to band together so they don't get their heads lopped off, and before long, there will be laws allowing these knights (who also take titles like Count, Baron, etc.) to keep some of the take. The groups the knights form to not get broken on the wheel will evolve as well.

The peasants, in the meantime, are going to find the local knights easier to reach than the distant king, so instead of trying to deal with the king directly, either through politics or violence, they're going to deal with their neighborhood knight. When the weather's bad and the crop yields aren't so very good, but the taxes are still high, they'll bitch at him. And if the knight pushes his luck too far, he may have a revolt on his hands. Because revolts not only endanger the knight but also are an annoying expense that cuts into his revenue (hiring enough thugs to put down a big revolt costs cash,) he's going to want to avoid revolts. And sometimes, that means giving the peasants what they want.

Over the centuries, the knights, as well as the king's advisors, will weasel or grab more powers from the king - taxation was but the first. Before long, they'll be demanding a say in who the king appoints to his inner circle of advisors, they'll be demanding a say in the laws that govern them, and so on. Eventually, the knights will assume more new titles, and group together in organizations that eventually evolved into Parliament.

The peasants continue to demand things of the knights/lords/Parliament members, eventually demanding the rights to put their own people in government rather than be stuck with hereditary nobles.

Just look at British history, including the signing of the Magna Carta, and the English Civil War. These were events where the monarchy surrendered what was once absolute power to the nobles, and later to the people, piece by piece. Today, the UK is a democracy, which evolved over time.

Over time, virtually all of the monarch's actual power has gradually been surrendered. Now, she just hangs on for formalities, waving at crowds and advising the PM (on process, never on policy).

the aristocracy learns from the mistakes of the past, controls the politicians and media, and actually manages to convince the people they are free.

weird, huh?.

and in the case of Canada and Oz, a hangover from the colonial days. She can only dissolve Parliament in practice in one of three circumstances: The sitting PM requests her to so that an election can be held; the five-year term expires or the government falls due to a parliamentry vote of No Confidence.

It's seen as the nuke behind the door for an out of control prime minister or parliament. And when was the last time a monarch made use of that power?

Queen Elizabeth I, over four hundred years ago.

Not exactly routine.

My meds play merry hell with my memory so you're probably right. But yeah, it's exceedingly rare.

rather than go to the mat with them. More likely to keep head attached to body that way. :evilgrin:

IIRC, the ECW pitted the forces of Parliament against the forces of the King (Charles I).

There were quite a few reasons behind it. That was a major one though.

Charles II shutting down Parliament ultimately led to his execution.

Chuck One, Daddy, got chopped. Two just put off the inevitable. Brother Jimmy II didn't have the brains, unlike Two, to play chicken with Parliament and the oligarchy and being Catholic in an island full of Protestants didn't help either. He got lucky and was just kicked out. After that over the next century the monarchy was stripped of most of its power.

Sorry about that. thanks for the correction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional_crisis

Could have had another in December 2008 in Canada.

She, officially, invites someone to be PM. The monarch's personal preference hasn't, in reality, mattered since the start of Queen Victoria's reign. But 'approving the parliament' is a new term to me. The MPs do have to swear an oath of loyalty to her and her successors before voting (which is why Sinn Fein MPs don't vote).

it could and probably would declare the UK a republic the next day. Parliament has total control over the monarchy; it controls the succession and the Civil List. Hell, the monarch has to get permission from the PM to leave the country.

The one where she and Charles De Gaulle overthrew the legitimate government Benjamin Disraeli.



Here she is seen replacing a drum magazine on one the latest Royalist anti-personnel armored vehicles.

Charles De Gaulle was later gunned down in Bolivia.

:rofl:

was that before or after she ordered the Boston Massacre to get even with Paul Revere for denying their love child?

:rofl:

complain.

For the record, the queen doesn't particularly have any other power. She can not make law. She can not raise money. Without that law making power she is no dictator because she can not dictate shit.

And as for Fidel? I wish him well. Cuba is not our 51st state.

So the Cubans shouldn't have the right to choose their leaders?

Fidel was originally brought to power in a popular revolution that overthrew a vicious American made dictator, Batista. Over his career he has done a lot of good for his people. He might of been one of histories great men if he claimed to be a "Capitalist" instead of a "Communist." US foreign policy has crushed Cuba's economy, and he was used as a game peace in the great game between the U.S. and the old Soviet Union.

If Fidel had been the kind of monster that Batista was, he would have been removed by popular revolution decades ago. The U.S. even tried and failed to invade. But, hopefully, the Cuban people will transition to a more open government when he goes, if that is what they want.

But here's the question I can never get an answer to:

Why can't you combine those good things with political freedoms?

And if Fidel is such a saint, why aren't there real elections?

A couple of years ago, I met several students from China. I discovered that they considered China a free nation. They enjoyed voting in elections, which by American views are not free.

I discovered that Freedom is not a constant, that the idea of what freedom is changes from culture to culture.

For most of the 20th century, Cuba had a higher lever of literacy than the U.S. They have a better medical system than the U.S. It is difficult to reconcile better schools and better medical benefits with the myth of Fidel's tyranny.

When you add the fact that Fidel was the last of a line of governments that came to power by overthrowing the dictatorship before them.

Before Fidel, Cuba existed for the benefit of the U.S.A. ruled by tyrannical dictators. I have no idea what the real Fidel Castro is like. But, in all the time he ruled, there was no serious attempt at internal revolution. The U.S. tried with the bay of pigs. That invasion ended because it wasn't popular in the country.

You are asking why so call free nations can not have things like good health care and schools. That, of course, is the wrong question. Why can't the U.S. have those things, being a free nation and all. Why can't we have health care like France, or the better schools, like most of the western Europe, all free nations? Why can't our healthcare be as good as Cuba under that Communist dictator, Fidel Castro.

Though there are things about Cuba that are not good, he often ran his government for the benefit of the people, better schools, better health care. What would Cuba have become if they did not become they were not reviled as the enemy of everything Americans see as good an pure. It's people should be free to starve because their wages are kept unnaturally low to keep profits high. They should be free to die because healthcare is just too damned expensive for the lazy poor, who should be allowed to die so they do not consume goods that can be sold to middleclass consumers in other nations.

the right to trade with most other nations. When that subsidy ended, the U.S. did not lift it's embargo, but let it remain.

up as an example to them all. No mention of the US embargo then.

Or the Soviet subsidy, actually.

Being a citizen of a constitutionalized monarchy I welcome all the scorn that is heaped on that nostalgically fueled institution.

A person who is not elected by the people or appointed by such elected persons, have no business having any sort of governing power assigned to them by law. However hollow it is deemed to be.

It is making a mockery of democracy.

Its your two party system that gave you Bush and Cheney politics. Not your lack of kings and/or queens.

It was in 2005 or so, made by Jerry Springer when he had a talk show on Air America. It was maybe the day after Prince Charles got married to Camilla Parker-Bowles, which is what brought the issue up.

This was the main point -- following the criminal enterprise in Iraq initiated by Bush, the anti-war movement broke out. And many right-wing nutcases derided the anti-war protesters as unpatriotic (at best) and traitors because they were opposing the President - and by doing so, they were showing that they were 'against the country'. In other words, the President symbolized the country, and being against the President meant you were against the country. And that argument caught on.

Springer made the point that in a constitutional monarchy, the monarch would be the symbol of the country (hopefully, personify what is best about the country itself). He/she would not be associated with the country's politics. The 'Chief Executive' would then symbolize the government, and not the country. And you could criticize the chief executive (typically called Prime Minister) as much as you wanted to without being derided (at least with any credibility) as unpatriotic and/or traitorous.

I thought it was an interesting point.

that there's a secret society of the five wealthiest people in the world, known as The Pentavirate, who run everything in the world, including the newspapers, and meet tri-annually at a secret country mansion in Colorado, known as The Meadows. The Queen, The Vatican, The Gettys, The Rothschilds, *and* Colonel Sanders before he went tits up. Oh, I hated the Colonel with is wee *beady* eyes, and that smug look on his face. "Oh, you're gonna buy my chicken! Ohhhhh!" He puts an addictive chemical in his chicken that makes ya crave it fortnightly, smartass!

I knew there was a reason :) As far as the 5 wealthiest people running the world, it isn't far from the truth. Our representative are bought and paid for, and they pass the laws they are told to pass (which are written by the corporate lobbyists). The fighting between dems and reps is just a sideshow to keep us distracted. Bread and circuses.

but I can buy the addictive chemical- I have an unnatural lust for KFC :hi:

I give it a 10.

Bismarck summed it: Never inquire too closely how sausages and laws are made.

Unless your saying that the Brits killed less than 1k.

She has virtually no power these days.

She's not a fool and she learned Politics 101 from Winston Churchill.

:rofl:

QEII: I got my eye on you!

some argue it to be 'merely a formality' but that has been said about approval of Supreme Court nominees by the President, technical votes in the Senate on procedural matters, etc... and in many cases, a mere formality turns into a means to thwart procedure.

Should the Assent ever be refused, there would be a constitutional crisis which would make us a republican by the end of the week.

"Royalty" means nothing more than "Top Trust Fund Baby (Over Time)".

Rich people are dangerous enough without literally making themselves kings and queens.

And while the OP is hyperbolic, my opinion is that a country that is still a monarchy (constitutionalized or not) have no business calling itself a democracy.

"She would never say no" is mindboggling as an argument. Either she can wield the power or she cannot. And if she does, you live with it. Or change the rules before it happens. Not doing so is making a mockery of democracy and the rule of law.

2010, kings and queens. We need to grow up.

She cannot. Excericising that power would cause a constitutional crisis and we'd be a republic by the end of the week.

The whole concept of royalty makes my blood boil.

Money equals power enough without it legally conferring political power.

Whenever surveys are done, a majority of the British public (admittedly, a slim majority that may well change) favours keeping it and since our monarch no longer tries conquering the world (and no longer has control of the armed forces so she couldn't even if she changed her mind), it is, bluntly, no other nation's business. The monarch has almost zero political power these days (she can't even vote), doesn't cost us very much (the funds received from the Civil List have been instantly returned for years now, most of their money comes from massive land holdings and, as national treasures, we'd be paying for the palaces anyway), brings in a massive amount of tourist cash and generally, doesn't bother us.

Somewhere down the line, Britain may well choose to abolish the monarchy but it will be because we choose to, not because other countries dislike the technicalities of our system of government.

But as a human institution, I think monarchies represent the worst of class warfare.

I know she cannot. But why have such an element to governing in a socalled democratic society then? Either she CAN use that power - or you remove the notion of it.
Fact is that it is in her power to cause a constitutional crisis. Singularly because of who her parents were.

It only works as long as the monarch does what he/she "is supposed to do". How mindbogglingly fucked up is that in a society that claims to be built on the rule of law?

And thats all disregarding that the general idea of someone being born into a society _inheriting_ a legal position different from any other child born at the same time is so utterly anti democratic in itself - and an attack on the rights of either child.

But lets keep taking a dump on the concept of democracy as long as they behave like we think they should and bring in tourist cash. If you can live with that, you better also be able to live with it when a drunken crown prince runs your pregnant wife over as well and walks away - out of reach of the law - because he is one of the latest products of the inbreeding program that is/was the european monarchies.

For two reasons. Firstly, the monarchy is so deeply embedded within our constitution that we would have to overhaul the whole system to get rid of them (which isn't to say that there isn't a case to be made for exactly that). Secondly, if a crown prince runs over your wife, they will be charged. Only the sitting monarch (i.e. HRH) is unable to be charged with a crime and even that's not entirely true anymore due to the Acts of Succession.

If you don't like it, that's fine. You're free to make your case and argue for abolition just as monarchists are free to argue for keeping it. May the best argument win.

People shell out big bucks to go to "The Magic Kingdom" in Orlando, Florida.

In the UK, it comes with the price of admission.

Doesn't change the fact that the richest people in England hundreds of years ago simply deemed themselves super special.

I'm just saying that nobody goes on the "Tour of Hovels of England" either.

Happy poor folk in a pristine little village diligently and willingly doing work for the king and queen.

Surely a mock village is a tourist attraction somewhere.

...or at least when I do, the striking thing is the craftsmanship of those very folks. It is every bit as much their legacy as that of the monarchy.

When you go to Egypt, you look at the pyramids. Now, one can bemoan the fact that the pyramids are an artifact of an authoritarian political system, but there's not much that can be done about that at this point other than to admire the result of the coordinated effort of the common people who built them, regardless of what had motivated that coordinated effort.

The great buildings we admire in Washington DC were built by slave labor under contracts with their owners. Still... look at what they built.

:wow: indeed

Or send them into exile. Like Castro has since he took power. You know that of course.

The monarch, legally the head of state, is required to perform certain ceremonial duties. In the UK, ceremonially approving the election results is one of them. She cannot make laws, cannot revoke laws, cannot control the military, cannot control the gov't purse. All of that actual governing stuff falls under the prime minister and Parliament.

Still, she's no Castro. That's absurd.

.. is born into the job, that state has no business calling itself a democracy.

And you are wrong about her authority, while being right about its practical application. She appoints the Prime Minister. The courts are hers. She approves laws. She opens Parliament. If she does not act like she is expected to (but not required to, because she is still, by law, the Sovereign) the entire foundation of british government collapses. Britain would be without a legal foundation if parliament acted as she had no power - should she try to wield it. Government would have to be reestablished - but on what grounds? Going on as before - but without a queen - would essentially be a coup/revolution.

silly royalty is.

Were this England several hundreds of years ago, Bill Gates' and Warren Buffett's armies would be hashing it out over who gets to run America. :puke:

Buffet has more money, but Gates has vastly superior manpower and technical capability.

Now, Jobs vs. Gates, that might be interesting, especially if Sergey and Brin engage in the battle on a given side.

us Americans that sports figures and actors shouldn't be treated as old time royalty!

;)

...

been a great monarch. They generate a lot of tourism, a lot of what they do is mostly sybolic these days.

And if you think the Queen of England is powerful, you don't know the meaning of the word.






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