h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is an interesting conceit that you, I and many Americans (and hopefully increasingly, the rest of the world) have, but it isn't how the Unitedkingdomese government works. The Queen is considered the Head of State because of her birth, and no other reason. Tony Blair *can NOT* decide that they've had enough of Prince Phillip's idiotic comments, or Prince Charles' philanderings and un-elect them. All of this is a side issue of what my main point is, in that the Queen has *no* autonomy in controlling matters of state of the Unitedkindomese government at all. Impeachment, if it is done according to the US Constitution, requires high crimes and misdemeanors. It is difficult under most circumstances for the Congress to override a veto. Many things you or I consider the workaday functions of our President are totally denied the Queen.

It isn't a matter of whether W or She will be or could be judged insane or counterrevolutionary by anyone. If she herself tried to do *anything* that W or the Prime MInister normally does without
->her directly being told that this specific action is specifically what we want done by the PM<-, she and her whole family would be in serious trouble. This is not autonomy by any means and most people I know would call a person in this situation a submissive or a slave. Conflating the two does violence to the logic and denotation of the English language.

Now the English language is as pure as a claphouse whore, that chases other languages down dark alleys for the purpose of clocking them unconcious and riffling their pockets for new vocabulary. As a gay man I see other pairbonded men who walk like they're married, swim like they're married, and quack like they're married. They love each other deeply and truly in ways that no mere word can describe. But the majority of my country says that this is not what the word means-English is a living language, and so they are right. And the Unitedkingdomese can very well decide that the word 'autonomy' has a very special, non-practical non-autonomous meaning that applies to their Queen.

But it sure sounds awful funny and illogical.

Your missing my point, I'm not arguing wether the queen has power or not. I was stating that the President, the Prime Minister and even the limited powers of the Queen are totally governed by the people.

All their power stems from the people this is what makes the UK and the US democracies. Yes there are lots of powerful men in unelected positions but ultimately if anyone in power working for the government stepped out of line by what the public judged was too far the government would work out a way of removing that person because of the public outcry.

Perhaps the real power in both our countries lies in the media moguls after all they strongly effect the will of the people and they in turn judge the effectiveness of the politicians and civil servants. Hell the US media even managed to give Bush an election victory when he'd actually lost!

Two Bit Trigger Pumping Moron originally asked, in post 1:

Can the queen do anything?



The answer is, no matter where you suppose anyone's power comes from, no. No, she can't.

It certainly seems to amuse the Unitedkingdomese people that their Queen did in fact come from the right vagina, and so your government is not a Republic. They allow her to retain her titles, give her & her kin wads of dosh, greet her adoringly when she does the charity appearance thing, but- they do not allow her to actually *do* any actual governing.

So I have no idea why you are wishing to make this particular point that you are making.

I was replying to your comment,



by making the point that the only REAL power in a democracy is with the public ultimately.


I take it your a republican not a monarchist then!

Bush's real power may *ultimately* be with the people, but he is well insulated from immediate opinion on his actions. Pragmatic reality and idealism do not coincide. His influence within his own government branch is sufficiently high that he is blocking the Plan B contraceptive from being approved for over the counter sales, and this is most definitely against the will of the majority of the people of the United States. You are supposing he wouldn't be able to nuke Iran, and I believe you are mistaken as to the function of the co-holders of the keys to the silo buttons. This can be a side-issue because there are many many more examples of things he can readily do and which I am too lazy to type here which are not fungible or frangible, and that are quite contrary to the opinion of his 'true source of power'.

Since the United States of America also runs on a first-past-the-post system, we aren't so much a democracy as we are a republic. We've got a Republican Party, but they are quite hypocritical about their Federalist ancestry, and have been since about 2 decades when the theocratic takeover was gathering steam. It might be possible, given modern technology, to make even a nation-state as large as ours work as a true democracy, and I would be fine with that.

For at least one instance I have cited here, but actually for many instances, Bush 'has the power' to do lots of things that the American public is not directly insisting upon. He is autonomous in a way that the Unitedkingdomese Queen is definitely not.



I'm neither an Unitedkingdomese Republican or an Unitedkingdomese Monarchist. Part of this is because I am an Unitedstatian, and think all those quaintly established, historically age-honored customs and people are wonderful and charming. I can be amused by this, because I know it's not *ME* who has to live with them. Part of my neutrality is because I think that the way a nation manages its self-rule doesn't necessarily have to seem logical or self-consistent to me, it just has to not-be-inhumane. I think you-all can manage that.