DescentBB

We had to have one thread on this




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This one

When I am Princess I will bloody well set the hounds on anyone who dares play a bagpipe in my presence!

Ooo! His nose whistles when he does that. I hate that.

Pathetic- in this day and age to still have a 'revered monarchy' of any kind.

ThunderBunny wrote:Pathetic- in this day and age to still have a 'revered monarchy' of any kind.

Why?

"Ewwww, cooties!"

I was saying exactly the same thing last night TB. Why? Well it makes sense that you could convince uneducated and superstitious people of your right to rule them by saying your bloodline is somehow more highly favored or more divine than anyone else's, but not in this day and age. No one should have a right to rule in this day and age as a birthright. It's reminiscent of how the Japanese call the emperor "heavenly sovereign". As if he is on a higher spiritual plane with God than anyone else and is of the "chosen" blood line. Who's gonna openly disagree with God's chosen?

.

The little girl on the right echoes the dreams of every little girl I know, while the one on the left doesn't like where this thread is eventually going to go.

lol

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Maybe i'm the only one that feels this way...

flip wrote:I was saying exactly the same thing last night TB. Why? Well it makes sense that you could convince uneducated and superstitious people of your right to rule them by saying your bloodline is somehow more highly favored or more divine than anyone else's, but not in this day and age. No one should have a right to rule in this day and age as a birthright. It's reminiscent of how the Japanese call the emperor "heavenly sovereign". As if he is on a higher spiritual plane with God than anyone else and is of the "chosen" blood line. Who's gonna openly disagree with God's chosen?

You do realize that, at least in England, that attitude hasn't held sway since around the time of the Magna Carta, right? And that the royal family of any modern constitutional monarchy doesn't even particularly "rule" anything anymore? The Queen is the official head of state of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth countries, and she has certain ceremonial duties related to that, but she no more controls the day-to-day operations of the British government than the statue of Abraham Lincoln on the Mall controls ours. Britain's royal family acts as a figurehead, a living symbol of the country and its centuries of history, and the same is true of the royal families of other European nations and the Japanese imperial family. Personally, I think it's really neat to have that embodiment of hundreds of years of tradition; we don't really have anything resembling all of that pomp and ceremony that we saw on TV yesterday, and it's cool to see it in action.

In the end, is treating a royal family as a special symbol really any different from doing the same for a flag, or for a piece of paper sitting in the National Archives?

Yea, let’s just forget about all of the oppression…and look back at history thru rose colored glasses.

WOW I don't see any of this in that Caption

It's amazing how something so benign can be trolololo'd, isn't it?

Yes Top Gun I do realize that. That's the very reason the weirdness of it shines so brightly nowadays, but I wouldn't say they have no influence. I would think if they felt shat on by parliament they still have some muscle they could flex. You know being King and all

Not really, actually. The Queen is still the person who formally convenes and dissolves Parliament, but I'm fairly certain she can only do so at the standard times specified by elections. And she really doesn't have any pull whatsoever in the day-to-day affairs of government. As I said, it's a figurehead position, not a medieval despot.

(Just as a point of comparison, the Japanese emperor only very rarely makes public appearances; his doing so after the earthquake and tsunami was considered a notable event.)

“medieval”

Your sense of time is fascinating, it was less than 100 years ago that the Japanese emperor wanted to rule the world and enslave all Americans.

Yes Top Gun I do realize that

So your saying that the Queen and the Emperor are just figureheads without any authority? First, let me say I have a rudimentary knowledge of how both systems work, so no history lesson. I still have to think that nothing would happen in either of those countries if it was to violate the direct wishes of either the Queen or the Emperor. That leaves me to think they still have at least a direct and personal influence over the decisions made in those countries.

Spidey wrote:“medieval”

Your sense of time is fascinating, it was less than 100 years ago that the Japanese emperor wanted to rule the world and enslave all Americans.

Your lack of historical perspective and awareness is even more fascinating. Go write me a compare/contrast on the Japanese and European monarchies, paying special note to the culture in pre-WWII Japan that led to the overall sentiment you're alluding to. I'll wait with red pen in hand.

flip wrote:So your saying that the Queen and the Emperor are just figureheads without any authority? First, let me say I have a rudimentary knowledge of how both systems work, so no history lesson. I still have to think that nothing would happen in either of those countries if it was to violate the direct wishes of either the Queen or the Emperor. That leaves me to think they still have at least a direct and personal influence over the decisions made in those countries.

If you know even a rudimentary amount about either country, you'd know that the "direct wishes" of those individuals don't mean anything at all in terms of the operations of their countries. They're not part of either the executive or legislative branches of their government. They're completely-separate entities, mainly ceremonial in nature at this point. You're trying to insinuate a connection where it simply doesn't exist.

Y'know, I think I've finally figured out what the real problem with this folder is: there's essentially no one outside of the North American continent who posts in here. There's no one with the personal experience that could provide personal anecdotes of how things really work in countries that frequently get brought up in here. As a result, we get utter silliness like this topic.

Isaac wrote:

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Maybe i'm the only one that feels this way...

Couldn't tell that from the media. They were drooling with 24/7 coverage all week! Almost EVERY network covering this thing was waaaaaay to much of a waste of screen time, except for women and gay guys I guess.

But my caption would be:

Eww gross! Gag me with a spoon!

Domestic Affairs
The appointment and dismissal of ministers;
The summoning, prorogation and dissolution of Parliament;
Royal assent to bills;
The appointment and regulation of the civil service;
The commissioning of officers in the armed forces;
Directing the disposition of the armed forces in the UK;
Appointment of Queen's Counsel;
Issue and withdrawal of passports;
Prerogative of mercy. (Used to apply in capital punishment cases. Still used, eg to remedy errors in sentence calculation)
Granting honours;
Creation of corporations by Charter;

Foreign Affairs
The making of treaties;
Declaration of war;
Deployment of armed forces overseas;
Recognition of foreign states;
Accreditation and reception of diplomats.

So far these are what I've dug up but I still need to check the validity of some. Still, you miss my point. I'm not trying to imply she "rules" today as was done 300 years ago. Yet, I still think that family yields a great deal of power and influence in that country and you try to make it sound like their mascots.

leave it to you guys to turn a fun "caption this" thread into a completely boring shoutfest.

go outside or something.

Lol :p
Hey, I've been working outside all day.

Ferno wrote:leave it to you guys to turn a fun "caption this" thread into a completely boring shoutfest.

go outside or something.

x2
Life is too short, you guys need to lighten up sometimes and have fun. you screwed up what had the makings of a good thread.

Maybe this should have been started in the Café…or should be split.

Top Gun wrote:In the end, is treating a royal family as a special symbol really any different from doing the same for a flag, or for a piece of paper sitting in the National Archives?

Yes…

That Piece of paper “sitting in the national archives” represents freedom and liberty…

You have two choices as to what royalty represents…oppression or celebrity status. (traditional vs. modern) Both suck balls in my opinion.

I'm going to go ahead and quote someone else on another forum as my response, because they said it far better than I could have.

Why do we keep an original copy of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence? Paper isn't meant to last hundreds of years, so there is a fair bit of money and effort put into maintaining the conditions necessary to prevent them decomposing. The originals serve no purpose in the presence of thousands (millions?) of reproductions, so why bother? These documents are a tangible reminder of history. They link us to our origins and provide us some common culture. You don't dismiss the Declaration a longform tantrum; it's the righteous indignation of our founding fathers.

The founding of nations wasn't done with documents in 927 A.D. Great Britain has no Declaration or Constitution to preserve. They have a royal bloodline to connect them to the founding of their nation. To dismiss it so blithely is to imply that the nation's living history is not worth the effort to preserve, and that's quite a slap in the face, considering what Britain is and has been.

Not only that, but as I saw someone else point out, the British monarchy represents a massive tourist attraction that brings a great deal of money into Britain's economy.

Yeah that's true enough.

The girl on the left looks like she is the possessed one in the exorcist. Mark my word strange things are forth coming.

I'll have to agree with Bee as it was nice for once not to have to read about earthquakes, tidal waves, falling nuclear reactors and people senselessly killing each other. I for one wish the newly weds all the best and a long life.