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Syndicate
Yes, by all means dump the Royals - after first ensuring that all the unsatisfied obligations of the Crown to the illegally invaded, occupied and destroyed sovereign Indigenous nations are recognized and assumed by the Republic that replaces the 'Dominion'. Of course this is all moot and purely theoretical in a country that can't get off its political ass to do anything but obey the orders of various vested interests and powers, foreign and domestic.
After nearly a decade of labour here, finally at long last the recognition I truly deserve, however short lived. It all leaves me with the sense that I'm the victim of a conspiracy, and I'm getting tired of this silencing I tell you.
#30, fantastic argument, others have committed crimes against humanity, so, what is your problem....
Well, my point was that if every country were to stop honouring political figures from the past who did nasty stuff, none of them would be left with anyone to honour. It's hardly a phenomenon confined to monarchies.
What a fascinating concept, accountability!
Sweden's days as an expansionist imperial power waned a very long time ago for the most part, while our own European inspired imperialist structure continues to linger on, with all of its contemporary ramifications. Perhaps the worst of it does wear off over time, but why wait.
1. Damn, arrived too late to ban patriot. And I had such hopes, given this, my last 8 hours as a moderator.
2. It's STIs, people. Get with it.
Just for fun, ban the other Mods.
and while you're at that...entertaining requests?
I have tried, really tried hard, to get worked up about the monarchy.... and I can't. Regardless of the fact that the ancestral family tree has a few limbs that end abruptly at the end of a rope back in Ireland (that is how they dealt with popular discontent back in the day), my blood pressure refuses to climb at the mention of the monarchy. My saliva glands will not work overtime to produce the froth that is being called for by some in this thread. I just cannot get over my massive, huge, practially all-encompassing indifference towards the monarchy.
On the other hand, I can get quite irate when confronted with the "imperial presidency" model we see to the south, or by the pretensions of our current PM to such imperium. It is bad enough he has centralized so much power into his own hands, but are we really interested in giving him the fucking trappings to go with it?
If there is any redeeming grace to our bizarre little constitutional compromise that has the PM as the head of the government, and Liz (and her representative du jour) as the head of state, is that we can be significantly more vocal in our disgust, contempt, hatred, whatever vis a vis the PM without falling into the trap conservatives set for their opponents in the US when they equate an attack on the person of their all-powerful president with a disloyal, traitorous, gosh darn un-American attack on the office of the president. [And isn't it sickly amusing that this trap only works one way?]
_______________
And to reinforce a point NDPP brings up in post #31, before issuing a rallying cry of "off with their heads" (as much fun as that would probably be) - we better be damned sure the FNs agree... their relationship to the symbol is quite different than that of her majesty's settler/subjects.
As an exercise in humility?
If this were a democracy, I could be swayed to vote for that.
*waves (cruelly) to Maysie*
You know the conversation has become ridiculous when you accuse the imperial presidency down south, when the country up north, as we all know it today, was not created not on actions of imperialism but ones of love and peace!
I exorcise my humility every day, Rebecca.
One major difference between Sweden and Canada:
Sweden's royal house is just that - Sweden's.
In the case of Canada, the Crown of England was forced upon British North America (later Canada) by Britain's/Canada's colonial history.
The Crown of England, both actually and symbolically, represents Canada's position of serfdom/servitude/slavery within this relationship.
It never ceases to amaze me how many among the Canadian gen. pop. fail to see this.
It has nothing to do with failing to see anything; some of us just disagree with you.
It seems to me if we are talking about principles of autonomy and servitude a pretty basic part of that is the freedom to have one's own opinion, and to respect others' freedom to have thier own opinions.
As for the subject itself, it was beaten to death several threads ago, in my opinion. I don't see any point in repeating myself all over again.
Getting worked up about the monarchy is a distraction from our real imperial masters the USA. Our subservience to the Queen is nothing in comparison to the soverreignty we are losing right now with deep integration.
Oh dear. It seems I need to make a number of clarifications:
1. Don't confuse me with "patriot."
2. Don't confuse babblers with "many among the Canadian gen. pop."
What I don't get is whenever the queen or prince Charles and lady Camilla Bowles-Parker or now prince William and Kate Winslet visit Canada, the number of Canadians (and many Americans are just as guilty, btw) and the press just gush ad nauseum all over it (the visit)/them (the royal persons.)
Is this the result of years of indoctrination from early childhood with fairy tales about kings and queens, princesses and valiant princes and faraway magic kingdoms?
But do you think that the reason why many Canadians, the press and their government has substituted their allegiance/fealty/loyalty from the crown of England to the cabal of U.S. oligarchs (the military industrial complex being a good example) is due to the decades and centuries of allegiance/fealty/loyalty to the crown?
Too many Canadian young people have been reading too many fairy tales for too long?
Once a serf/slave, always a serf/slave?
Frmrsldr, I was quoting you, and I don't think there is any diffence between those of us here and the public at large, at least when if comes to the fact that some of us hold informed decisions, and are not necessarily blindly ignorant just because we don't think the monarchy is a malignant parasite on our society.
You feel otherwise? fine. My point is that if you are waiting for everyone to wake up and see the light, you might be waiting in vain.
(edit)
and the implication that my opinion on this makes me a slave is false.
Wrong on two counts:
1. I'm not here to convert anyone over to anything. So, you don't need to be scared/get defensive. I find discussion of the topic interesting from a political as well as a psychological point of view.
2. I don't equate "many among the Canadian gen. pop." with babblers.
Support/enthusiasm for the crown of England is the result of an "informed decision"? As Mr. Spock from "Star Trek" would say, "Fascinating."
The entire concept of a monarchy is that it is an unelected, unrepresentative, antidemocratic, inegalitarian idea that holds that persons, by right of birth, are superior to others and who have an inalienable right to govern over others. The current Western monarchies are institutions that date back to the feudal ages.
I can understand people who are Conservative/conservative/aristocracy supporters to be supporters of monarchy. But democrats, egalitarians, socialists, progressives and other supporters of the political left?
For Most Governments the Honeymoon is Over: Why I Don't Want To Pay For Will and Kate Middleton's Honeymoon
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/top-business-stories/w...
"Ottawa, the provinces and the territories will foot the bill for the future kin and his bride. But here's the question: if the British understand what a gesture means in this post-recession period, why doesn't Stephen Harper?"
The entire concept of a monarchy is that it is an unelected, unrepresentative, antidemocratic, inegalitarian idea that holds that persons, by right of birth, are superior to others and who have an inalienable right to govern over others. The current Western monarchies are institutions that date back to the feudal ages.
I always detect a strong streak of literal-mindedness in these sorts of republican critiques of the monarchy. Yes, I suppose, a monarch does symbolize, at some level, all the bad things you mention in your bill of indictment. But really. Can anyone today point to some nasty aspect of life in Canada that is caused, or even just being made worse, by the presence of an almost-entirely symblic head-of-state? Would abolishing the Crown somehow make our politics less beholden to the whims of the moneyed classes? Hasn't really worked that way in the US. And that's probably because the power of moneyed classes is no longer dependant on receiving its powers from the monarchy.
Don't get me wrong. I don't believe that the USA's political problems result in any way from their being a republic. And if I were an American, I would almost certainly want to maintain republicanism, simply because returing to monarchy would be a lot of effort, for very little tangible payback(It's not as if a figurehead king would have any more power to enact universal health care than Congress does). And the same would hold true for changing Canada's monarchial system: Lots of paperwork with not much to show for it in the end. You could probably characterize my position as monarchist-by-default.
They are one of the most visible symbols of the imperium, alongside the state police. Their Royal hand wave visits among the peasantry who have been queued up for hours, their painted on smiley faced ‘how do you do' comportment is intended to obscure centuries of vicious worldwide colonialism which continues to linger on to this day. It is for good reason that we find statues among the first symbols to be torn down in any revolutionary situation. In the imperialist construct, they signify a consistent reminder of state tyranny as if they were literally presiding over it in person.
I agree 100%. The "left" argument for the monarchy - which seems to boil down to that it distinguishes us from the imperialist Americans - is pretty absurd.
But you have "left" supporters of Catholic school funding in Ontario as well which seems equally ridiculous.
I'm neither scared nor defensive. I just think portraying opinions other than your own as a lack of understanding is kind of insulting. I think I explained my position on it pretty clearly a few times already. Whether you agree with me or not is not important, but I thinkI have given you enough already for you to understand why I feel the way I do about it.
Yes my political beliefs are on the left (though obviously not left enough for some) but no, I don't think getting rid of the monarchy as part of Canada's political system would be a good idea. Frankly I don't think it is even a realistic expectation.
If royalists are ever offended or insulted by anything we republicans say . . . then good. Why should we care about or cater to their petty feelings?
That's a perfectly good argument if you have no concept of class.
Serfdom/servitude/slavery is no better under Canadians than it is under citizens of the UK. Why would I care?
If you are a strong/very strong supporter of (grass roots) democracy and egalitarianism/equalitarianism,
Then the existence (and support - whether active or tacit, "by default") of monarchy is logically contradictory and deeply offensive to one's moral and political values.
One is either a grass roots democrat and egalitarian/equalitarian or a monarchist.
One cannot, logically, be both as the two ideologies/beliefs are contradictory.
What Former Soldier said, right on!
Paul Martin would have sent Canadians to Iraq, but as he said to a US news reporter who asked him whether he would send troops to that country, Paul Martin said we didn't have enough. When the same CNN reporter pressed Martin on whether he would not or could not send troops, Martin repeated the same answer, implying that he would send them if we had enough troops.
Canada's secret war in Iraq
Our plutocrats in Ottawa think Canadians are basically stupid.