http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/house_of_lords/newsid_8364000/8364950.stm
Listen to it. In every instance the queen states "my government". As if a government of free people were just so much property.
We do not have inherited power, we have inherited wealth. Wealth that is earned, fairly or not, but it is earned. Any power that is derived from that wealth is always subject to the consent of our free people.
The queen and the royals, by accident of birth, claim dominance over the Brit Parliament and Brit people. Free Irishmen never put up with it and neither will I. My ancestors paid in blood for every freedom we have and I would never soil their sacrifice with any even symbolic nod towards any king or queen or royals of any kind.
We do not have inherited power, we have inherited wealth.
Garbage! Of course you do. You may not like it, but it's inevitable. Wealth brings power.
Wealth that is earned, fairly or not, but it is earned.
If wealth is inherited, how is it earned? Obviously it was earned by someone in the past, but not by the person who inherits it, who may or may not be a good custodian of it.
wealth is always subject to the consent of our free people.
You mean the government of the people has the right to simply take it off those who are undeserving of it? Isn't that the politics of envy? I thought we were in favor of fair tax on these boards?
The queen and the royals, by accident of birth, claim dominance over the Brit Parliament and Brit people.
They claim nothing of the kind. The Queen is a constitutional monarch. There is no doubt as to who is actually in charge.
Free Irishmen never put up with it and neither will I.
And they'll force that freedom on everyone else. If people demur, they can just be bombed into agreeing. And given the economic disaster that Eire is, you could ask "Hey, missing Lizzie yet?"
My ancestors paid in blood for every freedom we have and I would never soil their sacrifice with any even symbolic nod towards any king or queen or royals of any kind.
Given the nature of the current encumbent, how's electing your head of State working out?
They claim no such thing. A civil war was fought 350 years ago to establish once and for all the principle that Parliament, not the monarch, is sovereign.
Any power that is derived from that wealth is always subject to the consent of our free people.
The status of the British monarch as constitutional head of state is likewise entirely suibject to the consent of our free people, expressed through Parliament. The monarchy could be abolished at any time should the free people, governing through Parliament, so decide.
The 'my government' stuff is just one of those little anachronistic rituals which we have to keep going to keep American tourists happy...has absolutely nothing to do with the realities of power.
Well put; Irishmen are citizens, not subjects.