The Royal Baby Thread

[Neil]

I keep reading the thread title as The Royal Navy thread.  Dreadnoughts are even better than babies.

[katmai]

Neil, always with Seaman on the brain.

[alfred russel]

There has always been two aspects to royalism:

(1) Oooh, a celebrity! Such pagentry! etc.

(2) Royals as a symbol of tradition, continuity, stability and hence good government, as near-figurehead for a whole system that includes a functioning parliament and judiciary (but with a carefully circumscribed power to act where the political machinery gets jammed for some reason).

This is why royalism has survived some truly repellant persons who graced the throne. Even if they can't charm the public (and some have been rather less than charming), it really doesn't matter all that much for reason (2).

As to why a near-figurehead is necessary ... it is nice to have at least a notion of a head of state who is above party and faction. The Americans achieve this by respecting the office of the Presidency, even if they happen to hate the clown who inhabits that office, but that takes a certain amount of willing schizophernia to work. In a system where you have a mostly-symbolic head of government, you can vent on your political master in parliament while acknowledging that, of course, both you and he or she are loyal to the Crown - who returns that loyalty by, basically, existing as a symbol of the country as a whole (except in rare cases where a head of state above faction is actually necessary to break some kind of political gordion knot).

This is all easy when there is a queen like Elizabeth who represents the WWII generation. But a king like Prince Charles?

I have nothing against the guy at all. He seems like a decent fellow. But the first thing when I think of with Charles are him wishing to be a tampon. To me that is a problem with an entirely symbolic monarchy: you get the ridiculous tabloid aspects, but he can't really actually do anything substantive. So in a certain sense he will be King Tampon. A politician (like say a Bill Clinton) has a better opportunity to overcome that, and doesn't have to endure the lifetime media glare that has to be suffocating.

[alfred russel]

I keep reading the thread title as The Royal Navy thread.  Dreadnoughts are even better than babies.

These days the Royal Navy has as much to do with dreadnoughts as baby prince george.

[Admiral Yi]

This is all easy when there is a queen like Elizabeth who represents the WWII generation. But a king like Prince Charles?

I have nothing against the guy at all. He seems like a decent fellow. But the first thing when I think of with Charles are him wishing to be a tampon. To me that is a problem with an entirely symbolic monarchy: you get the ridiculous tabloid aspects, but he can't really actually do anything substantive. So in a certain sense he will be King Tampon. A politician (like say a Bill Clinton) has a better opportunity to overcome that, and doesn't have to endure the lifetime media glare that has to be suffocating.

Not that much different from a powerless figurehead president.

[Neil]

I keep reading the thread title as The Royal Navy thread.  Dreadnoughts are even better than babies.

These days the Royal Navy has as much to do with dreadnoughts as baby prince george.

Nobody operates dreadnoughts anymore. 

[11B4V]

I keep reading the thread title as The Royal Navy thread.  Dreadnoughts are even better than babies.

These days the Royal Navy has as much to do with dreadnoughts as baby prince george.

Nobody operates dreadnoughts anymore. 

Because they're useless now.