The Australian Constitutional Monarchy is not so bad after all

This letter to the editor was published in The Age as a comment of the US election

The Australian Republican Movement has been strangely quiet during the US presidential election. Maybe it is thinking our system is not so bad after all.

David Carlyon, Sandringham

Camilla and The Night Manager

The Daily Telegraph reported the first meeting of HRH Camilla Duchess of Cornwall and Tom Hiddleston who won fame in the BBC's great thriller success The Night Manager, which was on air in March in the UK, on Foxtel in Australia and is presently shown in the USA.

The Duchess didn't mind Tom Hiddleston's arm on her shoulder.

Obviously the Duchess watched the five-part mini series as this dialogue proves:

"After [BBC Radio 2 host Chris] Evans greeted her with a kiss on the cheek, he introduced the Duchess to Hiddleston, saying: 'Your Royal Highness, The Night Manager.'

"The Duchess said: 'Hello Night Manager, how are you? Sunday nights just aren't the same without you.'

"'Well I can only apologise unreservedly for that,' said Hiddleston

"'But you might come back again?' the Duchess asked hopefully.

"'Well you never know,' he replied. 'We will have to ask John Le Carré [the writer].'

"'Well it was brilliant, the Duchess said. 'Everyone sat gripped.'"

Once again Her Royal Highness showed her good taste.

Harvard Professor Nelson: The Royalist Revolution - Monarchy and the American Founding

Eric Nelson is the Robert M. Beren Professor of Government at Harvard University. His research focuses on the history of political thought in early-modern Europe and America, and on the implications of that history for debates in contemporary political theory. Particular interests include the history of republican political theory, the relationship between the history of political thought and the history of scholarship, theories of property, and the phenomenon of secularisation. Nelson is the author, most recently, of The Royalist Revolution: Monarchy and the American Founding (Harvard/Belknap, 2014).

Generations of students have been taught that the American Revolution was a revolt against "royal tyranny". In this revisionist account, Eric Nelson argues that a great many of the US-American “founding fathers” saw themselves as rebels against the British Parliament, not the Crown. The Royalist Revolution interprets the patriot campaign of the 1770s as an insurrection in favour of royal power - driven by the conviction that the Lords and Commons had usurped the just prerogatives of the monarch.

Leading patriots believed that the colonies were the king’s own to govern, and they urged King George III to defy Parliament and rule directly. These theorists were proposing to turn back the clock on the English constitution, rejecting the Whig settlement that had secured the supremacy of Parliament after the Glorious Revolution. Instead, they embraced the political theory of those who had waged the last great campaign against Parliament’s “usurpations”: the reviled Stuart monarchs of the seventeenth century.

Monarchie - Why?

The Exiled Belgian Royalist gives Americans are charming answer to their questions concerning his loyalty to the Kingdom of Belgium. The Belgian Monarchs can be proud of having such supporters.

US for revival of active monarchy in Nepal?
Since Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal resigned on 30th June under pressure from the Maoists, the Constituent Assembly, which has failed to draft a republican constitution and could not agree on anything but to depose King Gyanendra, has failed for the tenth time to elect a Prime Minister.

The Telegraph, Nepal, reported on moves to give the country the Monarchy back:

Can the world lone super-power, United States, afford another failed state in South Asia? Perhaps not!

With war torn Afghanistan already a failed state, Pakistan zeroing in the failed state status and, continued political instability already pushing Nepal to imminent economic collapse, should the US revise its Nepal policy?

The Nepali Patra Weekly, October 29, 2010, claims that the US has all of a sudden acquired an active posture in Nepali politics. The US is entirely convinced that the Nepali political actors and political parties were an incompetent lot and to expect positive results from them would be a self defeating exercise, writes the weekly referring to various sources in Kathmandu.

"The US is overly concerned over the increasing hobnobbing between leaders of the largest party in the Constituent Assembly, Unified Maoists and Communist China. The current state of Nepali politics is not appropriate for institutionalizing democracy in the country. And, the continuation of political deadlock could lead to the state capture by the Maoists with the support of the Chinese", the US has also comprehended.The US basically fears that Nepal could become ultimately another North Korea in Asia, the weekly reveals.

Sources have told the weekly newspaper that the US is in favor of "reviving monarchy in Nepal".

Interestingly, the report reveals that the US is not in favor of reinstating Gyanendra Shah as just as a Constitutional Monarch but it wants to see the former sovereign as an "active monarch". Sudden twist in Nepali politics?

Envious republicans

Everybody is entitled to a holiday. A Royal or a president, a few weeks away from daily routine are necessary for everyone. Well paid critics in the media or in politics are less generous, they try to sew dispute.

This holiday season in the Northern hemisphere saw two cases of envious reporting.

US president Barack Obama’s wife Michelle and daughter Sasha were were on a four-day visit and stayed at the five-star Villa Padierna, rated as one of the world's top 30 hotels, with 40 friends. The party has reserved 60 rooms. The First Lady went to the city of Granada and enjoyed the spectacular Alhambra Palace. Mrs Obama and her daughter also paid a visit to Spain's King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia at their summer palace on the island of Majorca, a short flight from Marbella.
From the website of the Casa de Su Majestad el Rey: Sus Majestades los Reyes y Su Alteza Real la Princesa de Asturias, acompañados de la primera dama de los Estados Unidos de America, Michelle Obama y su hija, Sasha

Mrs. Obama left no doubt that this was a private tour at her own expenses. Fair enough and the Kingdom of Spain is worth more than one visit. She will certainly be welcome whenever she wants to return to the Iberian Kingdom.

Some 250 Spanish officers and military personnel protected the Obamas during their stay. They include police divers, bomb disposal experts and dog handlers. About 70 US Secret Service agents are also in Marbella, some of them dressed undercover as tourists.

US Republicans have criticised Mrs. Obama for taking a holiday in the Kingdom of Spain instead of visiting the Gulf of Mexico. While the US security staff was paid by the US taxpayers, the cost of the 250 Spanish security personnel was shouldered by the Spaniards, and despite the country’s dire financial situation there was not criticism about the unknown bill.

Had this happened in Australia, would the republicans be up in arms against the expenditure for a foreign tourist? Certainly not, if it was a family member of a foreign republican head of state. What would they have made of the second example.

This July the Australian Royal Family had a cruise around the Western Highlands and islands of Scotland on the Hebridean Princess, a converted ferry. The Queen has paid £300,000 out of her own pocket, but that did not cover the security surrounding her, including the protective shadowing of her vessel by a Royal Navy frigate and divers.

In August 1979 Lord Mountbatten, Prince Philip’s uncle, was killed when the Irish Republican Army blew up his boat.(Sinn Féin vice-president Gerry Adams said of Lord Mountbatten's death: “The IRA gave clear reasons for the execution.”) The Royal Family is still on many terror groups’ death list. In civilised countries security measures are paid by the public for ex-prime ministers like Tony Blair as well as for authors like Sir Salman Rushdie. Only the Royal Family is always under criticism, because of the cost to protect their lives.

Gerald Warner:

„ ... By an extraordinary coincidence that [amount of money] is precisely what the frigate would have cost if it had carried out the same exercises purely in theory, without the presence of the Queen to make them more focused and realistic. The only way to avoid costs would have been to put the ship in mothballs which, with our services currently so overstretched, would hardly be practical. Don’t forget the divers! snivel the critics. Right, so, Royal Navy divers should never venture into the water, on grounds of expense – is that the idea? Should our divers keep their flippers dry while any terrorist who can use a snorkel attaches limpet mines to the vessel carrying half of the royal family?
Or if al-Qaeda were to raid the ship and hold the royal family hostage, would that be less expensive?”

Imagine, the Royal Family had decided to take a holiday in Australia, just like Michelle Obama wanted her time off in the Kingdom of Spain. The republicans would be running amok, crying foul and murder over the cost for a couple of security officers who would have to be paid anyway, since in analogy to Gerald Warner, they would have cost the same amount sitting at stand-by.

Republicans – in the US and in Australia or in the UK for that matter – just play political games, and very cheap and obvious ones as well.

A product which should be bought by everyone


Customizable Liberal Neo Monarchist t-shirts from Zazzle.com - Choose your favorite Liberal Neo Monarchist t-shirt from Zazzle.

The Joys and Scares of Republicanism

Contrary to the bright future in flourishing democracy and in prosperity that republicans claim "an" Australian republic would be, this is what a direct elected presidential system could hold in store. In a letter to The Age of 1st September 2008 a reader expressed these fears:

I am perturbed, no, I am absolutely terrified when I think of the ramifications of McCain’s selection of a running mate. If anything should happen to John McCain, and let’s face it, he is 72, we would then have an untravelled, inexperienced, pro-gun, anti-abortion, pro-death-penalty (these on their own seem to be a contradiction) pro-creationist, pro-drilling in the Alaskan Wilderness, woman with an accent that could cut glass as president of the most powerful country in the world. Does the world really want or need this? I certainly hope not!
R. H., Beaumaris, Victoria

A rather scary portrait of a possible US vice president or even US president. An elected monarch for four years with men and women nobody knows waiting in the shadow to take over the administration not only of the 300 million US cititens, but to a large extent, of us all. Instead of a cabinet or a party leadership with lots of names the US voters vest all their hopes – or fears – on four people. Who will form the next US administration? Nobody knows. That’s an even scarier thought than the potential vice president Sarah Palin becoming president.

Although our Monarch exercises very little power at her own discretion, the Queen is the central cog in the machinery of state, the common link between executive, legislature, judiciary, civil service, military, and other institutions. The Crown embodies the central authority under which these other bodies operate; it gives the final stamp of approval, the Royal Assent, to legislation. The Crown is the source of all state authority (although it is still subject to the law of the land - its authority is not absolute).

The existence of a hereditary monarch keeps the politicians in their place. However eminent a Prime Minister may become, (s)he is always subject to a higher personal authority. Ambition, politicking and intrigue can never take someone to the highest office in the land, and he can never aggrandise himself by claiming to be the head and ultimate representative of the nation. A Prime Minister can be verbally mauled in the legislature, and summarily dismissed by it, with a level of disrespect which few nations would be happy to show to their Head of State, but might like to inflict on their lesser politicians. Although, in practice, it is always the politicians who give the orders and run the country, if they go far beyond their authority, others can, in theory, defy them by claiming allegiance to the higher authority of the Crown, which is duty-bound to uphold the democratic order without personal interest or favour.

"Our President is now our Emperor"

US journalist Glenn Greenwald: A virtually omnipotent President is just an assumed fact of American political life, and the reason that there is such a fixation on the personality and "character" traits of the presidential candidates is because Our President is now, in essence, our Emperor, empowered unilaterally to do everything from attacking other countries to acting outside of and above the law. As Penn's analysis illustrates, our political establishment isn't bothered by that at all, but instead, just tacitly accepts it as the natural and desired state of things.

Since Pelosi and Reid took over Congress, the Congress has funded the Iraq war without even a symbolic condition. It has rejected every proposal to limit war spending. It has enacted one right-wing proposal after the next, from warrantless surveillance and telecom immunity to declaring parts of the Iranian Government a "terrorist organization." It passed a housing bill and "stimulus" package approved by the administration. It has done nothing to reverse the radical executive power theories and has done much to institutionalize them. If there is one predominant trait of the Congress over the past several years, it has been a willingness to grant every item on the the President's wish list regardless of whether Democrats or Republicans are in control.

I can hear Australian republicans say: "Well, that's not, what we want in Australia." But what kind of republic do they want? The politicians' republic was rejected in 1999. Will they offer an Emperor's republic next time?

May Australia never end up like the USA

Is that what lies ahead of Australia should republicans have their way?

Harper's Magazine:
... one could argue that the American democratic experiment was at least in part an attempt to challenge this “reality,” to establish a political and legal culture from which would emerge, organically, a new sensibility: independent, unburdened by the protocols of class, skeptical of inherited truths. Willing to be disobedient. To moon the lord.

Alas, if that was the plan, it went sideways a long time ago. In today’s America, the majority is nothing if not impressed by power and fame (its legitimacy is irrelevant), nothing if not obedient. As for mooning the lord, the ass to the glass these days is more likely to be the lord’s, and our own posture toward it, well, something short of heroic. Worse yet, should someone decide to take offense, and suggest that it is not the lord’s place to act thusly, he will be set upon by the puckering multitude who will punish him for his impertinence.

At a White House reception a couple of years ago, President George Bush asked Senator-elect Jim Webb how things were going for his son, a Marine serving in Iraq. “I’d like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President,” Webb replied. “I didn’t ask you that,” the president shot back. “I asked you how your boy was doing.” ...

... Democracy, of course, is not an absolute but a relative value: “We’re not perfect,” the cry will sound, “but show us who is!” I’ll take a pass on perfection, but I’ll say this: when it comes to the egalitarian attitude democracy presupposes, the Brits, for all their wigged getups and parliamentary histrionics, have it all over us. It’s not just the formal, procedural differences between the two political cultures (the mandated brevity of the British election season, or the government’s strictures on how much money a candidate can spend) that cast us in a sad and diminished light; it’s the difference in spirit that lies behind, and informs, these distinctions.

In general, the Brits act as though the government is their business and they have every right to meddle in it. Americans, by and large, display no such self-assurance. To the contrary, we seem to believe, deep in our hearts, that the business of government is beyond our provenance. What accounts for the difference? My wife, whose family hails in part from England, has a theory: unlike us, the Brits don’t confuse their royalty with their civil servants, because they have both, clearly labeled. Acknowledging the universal desire to defer, they channel that desire, wisely, into the place where it can do the least harm, a kind of political sump. Americans, on the other hand, lacking the royal catch basin, are squeezed between pretense and practice. Though we continue to pay lip service to the myth of the independent American, we understand it as a fiction—nice for a Friday night with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s but about as relevant to today’s world as a butter churn. ...

The Crown protects our civic rights

Three republican opinion pieces in a row, that’s a new record even for Melbourne's daily newspaper The Age. But it demonstrates beyond doubt, how much energy can be set free by thinking about Queen’s Birthday. And a lot of thinking they must do, considering that the latest pro-republican author Christopher Scanlon conceded "the debate about whether Australia should become a republic has had about as much substance as an issue of New Weekly". And to no Monarchist’s surprise he found out: "Even supporters of the republic are hard pressed to explain the meaning of republicanism".

His remedy for the ailing republican movement in Australia is to turn towards "the much longer and richer tradition of republican ideas". Should you now expect any suggestion on how a republican system could improve the life of the ordinary Australian, then Christopher Scanlon leaves you clueless. "In the ideal republic, the greatest freedom is experienced not by Robinson Crusoe, but by a person living in a society where the exercise of power is checked by laws, and where everyone has equal ability to exercise these laws. For republicans, the goal is not only to ensure that arbitrary interference does not happen, but that the very capacity for arbitrary interference is removed."

You may wonder, what he really wants that isn’t already in force in Australia. What is he complaining about? "In recent years, though, the threat of arbitrary interference has grown. Proposed changes to telecommunications laws have sought to give police powers to intercept telephone calls without independent oversight. This has come on top of anti-terror laws that permit a person suspected of engaging in or aiding a terrorist attack to be held without charge for 48 hours." He is right in mentioning these appalling laws, but could he have missed, where all the ideas for the new laws came from? Hasn't he spotted the USA as the republican nation that declares war on everything and everyone? The great republic across the Pacific Ocean became independent in 1776, yet that republican superpower is responsible for the Guantanamo Bay prison system and the mockery of a judicial system that takes place there. The USA are at the top of the list of executions worldwide, barring the other republican superpower the People's (!) Republic (!) of China. But Christopher Scanion is not so much afraid of that sort of restriction of liberty rights for those unfortunate people who suffer under the republican death penalty, but of "arbitrary interference".

Surely he knows, who is demanding fingerprints from all travellers. The collected fingerprints from completely innocent people are kept indefinitely and nobody - except a few insiders - knows what happens to the data collected from millions of people. Even if you avoid going to the USA, you are subjected to US demands: The currently standardized biometrics used for the new type of passports with electronic identification systems, the facial recognition, fingerprint recognition, and iris recognition are introduced worldwide due to USA pressure. Our freedom is not restricted because we enjoy having the Queen of Australia, but because republicans - with small and capital R - cannot collect enough data from us. Does Christopher Scanion really believe, an Australian president would do anything against that?

I wonder, what Christopher thinks about the increasing pressure from the US about Digital Rights Managment ie copyright controls to prevent fair use of copyrighted works and the extension of copyright from 50 to 75 years to ... who knows how long for the benefit of powerful "big media" (of which The Age is a part). Republics where big business set the tone are threatening us all.

I am equally opposed to “arbitrary interference” of any kind, as I wrote before on this blog and I would like to co-operate with Christopher Scanlon in fighting them back and put them, where they should belong: in the dustbin of outdates laws. But despite all efforts I cannot see how in these political fields any republic in the world is doing better than Australia. The points he raises have nothing to do with republicanism, Christopher Scanlon wants civic rights. In that case there is not difference between me as a Monarchist and him as a republican. I see my civic rights better protected by a Monarch than by an elected president who owes his allegiance to parties, pressure groups, his bankers and opinion polls.