10A076 Morphed Monarchy by Jim Davies, 11/17/2010

So Bill and Kate are engaged. How nice, good luck to them.

Many years hence (the Windsors live long) they will be King William and Queen Catherine, but fortunately will not have any particular power over lesser mortals. Or will they? - it's an odd thing, the institution of monarchy, in other European countries as well as Britain. Half a millennium ago, when Kate's namesake lost her head, a monarch's word was pretty close to law, though it began to get trimmed in 1215 when his nobles agreed to go and kill Muslims for John only on condition that he signed a charter giving them the right to over-rule his laws. That's a right inherited by US juries, though the legal profession does its utmost to pretend otherwise.

Today monarchs reign, but don't rule; and it's hard to understand the subtle meaning of "reign." While it includes being an icon in a sense similar to a wildly popular movie or rock star, unfortunately it's not limited to that; Elizabeth, today, does carry weight in London's corridors of power, and in due course so will William. It's done partly by the long tradition that the Top Pol holds a weekly chat with her and hears her advice - which, since she's outlasted twelve Prime Ministers in the UK itself, and 152 in the Commonwealth, is not to be heard lightly. She probably knows more about governance than anyone alive.

Yet by the same long tradition (which is Britain's substitute for a constitution, and treated with much more respect) the monarch "must" not express a political opinion in public, and of course is not allowed to vote. He or she is "above" party politics, and so is monarch of all the people. It's really a cunning arrangement; a very large majority of everyone holds the monarch in awe, reverence or at least respect, while the monarch sprinkles the entire kleptocracy with his or her blessing and approval. Hence, the institution of government itself, which deserves no more of it than any other gang of organized torturers, extortioners, pirates and liars, is held also in respect; so do its victims and subjects bow down before it willingly. If you were planning to set yourself up as a tyrant, could you design a trick that smart? The monarchy all-but ensures that, however unpopular a particular administration may deservedly become, the institution of government itself will survive. Given the appalling mess most of them make, that's a rather valuable insurance. Given that all of them in their very nature devastate the rights of everyone they affect, it's a masterpiece of deception worthy of Macchiavelli.

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