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

The best - in fact the only - argument for keeping the monarchy in the UK is not what they do, but what they prevent others from doing.

If there was a cock-up in a British general election like the one in the USA, (difficult: since the government is formed by the party which wins the popular vote, so the popular vote would have to be split 50/50) then the Queen would have the power to step in and nominate some form of interim government. That is probably a bad example.

John Major left it until the last of all possible days to hold the General Election in 1997. If he had thrown a complete wobbly and not called one, then the Queen would have been able to call one. In other words, she is there as the guardian of the (unwritten) constution.

Ok, in practical terms it is all theory... she couldn't do anything about the constitutional changes to the House of Lords, or the National Assemblies. So it is not a matter of what she wants, more a matter of protecting the rights of the people from loopy politicians.

Mind you, she didnt stop Thatcher and hasnt stopped Blair... but how far would they have gone without the emotional brakes applied by the mere existance of the monarchy?

Also it means we have - through good fortune - got a figurehead head of state with a tad more dignity and self restraint than recent or imminent US presidents. Mind you the sainted Di and Fergie had precious little self restraint.

It'll be interesting to see what happens when the Queen Mother dies; and even more interesting to see what happens when the Queen herself goes.

Interesting... or scary?

Oh interesting. I am an anarchist.

Don't you love it when governments squirm? First the fuel, now the US election. It's been a great autumn!

Very scary yet interesting none the less. Don't forget the Monarchy is great for tourism. What else would Americans look at?

Stonehenge, Tower of London, Stratford, Haworth, Edinburgh Castle, Gleneagles...

Scary IS exciting!

The Irish system is very similar to the UK system except:

1. we call the person in charge the President instead of the Queen
2. the President is elected every 7 years

The powers of the Irish President seem to be the same as those of the UK Queen (dissolving parliament etc.). She mainly acts as a figurehead but has some power as upholder of the constitution (written!).

This is very different from the American President who has much more actual power.

Well Eire was part of the Union until 1922, so the similarities should not be too surprising. (Is the date right? I am English so my knowledge of Irish history is slight and rather skewed). Monarchs certainly have a glamour presidents - even ones like the Irish one - just don't have.

Yes, look at George III.

It is very comfortable to be an anarchist when everyone else obeys the rules you don't believe in.

Pardon the intrusion. I just happened upon this thread. I haven't read all the backlog, so I'm coming in blindly. With that little disclaimer.....I would just like to say, as a Native Cherokee Indian. I could show you all MANY Indians <---- *that's not PC*
who wish this big ass island had been left undiscovered. The USA not only leads the World in Military Forces and Patriotism
(I don't see how that's arrogant), this Country also leads in the causes AND the cures of most diseases in the World. There are many beautiful places all over the World. And in each one of these places there are people who are having a hard time getting by. That is the ugly part(s) of the World that many travelers avoid, at all costs. Until/unless the World can have harmony. No one place will ever be THAT much better than the other. Yes, some places ARE safer than others. Hopefully, one day soon, the best/safest places will aid the ailing areas and man (generic) will truely love one another. ~Peace & Love~Pan

Percy - I take your point about it being easy for me to make cheap cracks when I live and work in stable societies. What I really mean when I glibly say "I'm an Anarchist" is that I believe that it is good for the illustrious leaders of the western nations to have their complacency challenged in any legal way. And the more rediculous the final situation, the better. The UK's petrol crisis was the first time Tony Blair's actually had to govern, rather than just make speaches. He actually did rather well, (and I don't like the man or his government). The US election debacle challenges the complacency of the US in all sorts of ways, and again I think that is a good thing. Surely there can be little more terrefying than true anarchy - I am silenced by the bloodshed in places where there is no law and order. Anyway, thanks for the comment, and I'll try to remember to be more sensitive in future.

Pandora - no-one can object to someone being proud of their nation and it's achievements. But I do object when someone disses another person's country, or indeed another person. Mr Loud, referred to above, is patriotic to the point of dissing other people about their countries to their face. That is rude, insensitive and not really very acceptable.

There's a difference between anarchy and Anarchy. The first is a bad situation to be in, the second is a general term for a number of well developed alternative political systems which in general would not be bad. Saying "I'm an Anarchist" is not the same as saying "I like to bomb public buildings".

As another late commer to this forum, I may have missed some clarification of the issue I'm about to whine (US) or whinge (Aus) about, so please forgive any regurgitation of topics.

And that topic is the lack of distinction between Patriotism and Pride in ones country. The point being that there is a vast difference, and some people believe it to be the same thing. I find patriotism not dissimilar from religion, in that a centralized authority (the government in this case) convinces the general populace of doing things they would not otherwise have done (like get killed and mutilated in wars, undergo hardship and generate aggression towards people based on their race) by feeding them ideas such as "contributing to the greater good", "supporting ones countrymen", etc.

Personally I find the whole notion of Patriotism absurd.

Pride in ones country on the other hand is a good thing. A real good thing. It is the driver for continual improvement like creating new medication, better health system, transperant polytical system, yes, all those ideals. And where would we be if we had no ideals to aim for?

Enough said, except that may I propose "nihilism" as an alternative to "Anarchy":

"Nihilism, it's all about not conforming to anything."

Er, wouldn't that be 'anti-social personality disorder'?
One conforms to many ordinary things naturally, i.e. the wearing of clothes, etc..

Neugen talking sense again. Very well put. There was a letter to our local paper this morning which very well describes the German slant on that. And it is a very topical subject at the moment. The whole country is debating "Leitkultur" I have seen it translated on the BBC news site as "leading culture" but I prefer the translation "master culture". If I have time, I will post a translation of the letter later.

Anarchy is one of those words with a large number of definitions and an even larger number of nuances. Doesn't it derive from a the Greek for "Without Structure"? (I assume: since we have archbishops, archangels, hierarchys, and so on).

Anyway, it has always seemed to me that women will just get on and do stuff, forming an effective but unstructured group to achieve a goal, and that men are far more likely to form structured groups.

I guess you need someone to lead and give orders when hunting as a pack (as wolves do), but that gathering fruit and caring for children needs people who will do something as soon as it needs doing (get a child out of a creek, pick blackberries), without the same need for leaders.

I beleive that many women are natural anarchists, in that many of us don't need structures to achieve things in groups. Have you ever been one of a group of women preparing a meal?

This isn't a feminist comment, just an observation. An all-woman society wouldn't work. Flip around the question someone once asked Mark Twain: what would men be like in a world without women? His response was "Mighty scarce". We need you guys, it is just that we can handle anarchy better.

Sorry about the topic-drift: apart from Mark Twain - this has nothing to do with Americans.

Ben,

When you say "the [British] government is formed by the party which wins the popular vote", you are soooooo wrong.
It is decades since a government in the UK was elected with more than 50% of the popular vote. Lately the figure has been around 42%, including Tony Blair's at the last election which gave him a huge parliamentary majority. It is very possible for the opposition party to have won more votes than the government - and the Queen wouldn't be able to change a thing.

In terms of election dates, those in America are set by rules, so there's no need to be "protected" by a benevolent monarch. I'd rather have the protection of rules than a fallible, malleable person anyway.

Britain's electoral system is at least as screwy as the American one - and the House of Lords, before *or* after the changes, is vastly less democratic - so don't go throwing any stones

PF

Oh I agree with you big-time that the British system is screwy.

But a few corrections here:

You say "It is decades since a government in the UK was elected with more than 50% of the popular vote. Lately the figure has been around 42%, including Tony Blair's at the last election which gave him a huge parliamentary majority."

True - but what I said was "the government is formed by the party which wins the popular vote" I should have said "greatest popular vote". We have two major political parties, one medium sized one, and a scattering of mostly nationalist other parties, so it is not suprising that the winner should not get more than 50% of the vote. And at least 80%-90% of us DO vote in general elections. The US turns out less than 50% even for presidential elections.

Anyway, the context of the remark was that it was almost impossible for the popular vote to be tied in the way the electoral college can be, and the indirect vote for the electors can be, and that holds true regardless of semantics.

"It is very possible for the opposition party to have won more votes than the government" NOT TRUE! - in 1974 (it may have been 75) Edward Heath's Tory party won the popular vote, but did not get a parliamentary majority. He was asked to form the government. He decided that he did not want to form the coalitions necessary to gain a parliamentary majority and called a second general election, which he then lost, both in terms of the popular vote and in terms of the number of seats, to the Labour Party.

The strength of the British system is that it is flexible enough for governments to call elections (or to be forced to call elections by votes of no confidence in Parliament) any time up to 5 years after the last one. This means we do not have the two year distraction of the race for candidature, followed by the race for president. And in a situation analagous to the one in the USA - hung vote for president, hung house - the government would probably call an election in order to get a clear mandate - as Heath did.

What the monarch can do, consitutionally, is both prescribed and proscribed. So the falliability of the individual does not really enter in to it.

The one thing I really dislike about the British system is that the "first past the post" method gives rise to landslides, and landslides give rise to arrogant and frequently bad laws. Viz Thatcher's Poll Tax, and Blair's destruction of the House of Lords without replacing it with anything else. (The pre-reform House of Lords was barking mad, but Blair has not made it more democratic. He just replaced the aristos with apparachiks.)

The good thing about the direct election of representatives is that a constituency can oust someone like Portillo, or Hamilton, if they are sufficiently hated.

I am not sure which is worse - landslides or party pillocracy.

All in all though, from a voting point of view, I am glad I am a Brit.

This post has been removed.

See my previous posting...

I am mainly off line for the rest of December, starting 6.00 am tomorrow... so no time for detailed arguments now.

But if you are an American PF I'd like to thank you for the fun and entertainment your country has provided for the last 3 weeks.