Posted on 09/11/2022 6:55:14 AM PDT by Nextrush
My brother and I loved to play with my father's sword. The fact that my mother was quite unworried by this tells you a lot about the world we then lived in.
It was a real weapon, made by Messrs Wilkinson, a beautiful patterned blade and a very sharp point. But the thing which fascinated me about it most was the hilt, several ridges of rough grey sharkskin...
Now, the Royal Navy to which my father belonged had by then given up the use of naked steel blades, though only just. As recently as February 1940 sailors from the Destroyer HMS Cossack had used actual cutlasses to fight their way below decks when they boarded the German ship Altmark...
But I used to have a picture (it is lost now) of my father wearing this sword, while clad in the heavily braided high-collared ceremonial uniform of the 1930s. In this dark, stiff photograph he was standing, looking rather worried, a few feet from Their Majesties King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, on the quarterdeck of a cruiser.
The occasion was plainly one of almost religious solemnity. For an ordinary person of the time, the King was only slightly less terrifying than meeting God...
And for me this symbolises a general forgetful ignorance of the huge invisible web of obligations, duties, codes and understandings which Monarchy provides and imposes, and which are fading from sight.
Right up to the start of the Queen's reign, all of this was widely accepted in all classes. Now it is not.
The new King lacks the popularity and the respect. Can he survive? Will he, his people, help him to do so?...
We have had much discussion in the last few days of how people have felt about the death of our beloved Queen Elizabeth...
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Charles doesn’t have the gravitas of his mother nor does he have, at this stage in his life, time to change this perception.
The Queen is dead. Long live King “Tampon”
Peter Hitchens is always a joy to read.
King Charles will not protect the freedoms of Brits. He is a shill for the WEF.
I guess Hitchens gives Charles the benefit of the doubt.
I tend to see things your way.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.
Reverence of the kind we increasingly give to politicians should be reserved for the Head of State, who is like the king on the chessboard, mainly important because he prevents anyone else from occupying his space.
I believe that he uses the term, “republican”, to mean more of an anti-monarchist.
Both Britain’s and America’s systems had institutions in place to protect individual Liberty. These have been eroded over the centuries by collectivists in search of power.
The UK has a monarch, while the closest thing in the USA is the President, who has a somewhat similar role as symbolic representative of the entire people.
IMHO, now President is being diminished. The pomp remains, but the President is becoming merely a cheapened political tool of political parties, and the especially, the permanent bureaucracy - America's praetorian guard.
It may be too much to go into, here, but I was thinking more of the US Senate, in the States. I don’t think that the US President is, in any way, a monarch, though an inordinate amount of the Constitution, dedicated to reimagineering his selection has removed the Presidency’s protection of Liberty.
Hitchens does a good job explaining the monarchy, of which the US system has no equivalent. It allows for a “separation of powers” between people’s natural awe and deference, and those who rule over them.
America simply pretended that people had no such natural awe and deference, so now we look up to people who jump around and throw a ball.
Remove a strong belief in a Christian God for awe and deference, and add in 24/7 entertainment, media spectacle and outrage - and yes indeed, hollywood, the NFL, and politicians, will fill the void.
I'm sure Elizabeth was a fine woman, and I respect her.
However, over the years your kings and queens have not been "defenders of the people's freedom." Quite the opposite, in many cases.
We fought a revolutionary war against King George to gain our freedom, and we never looked back.
Keep your royal family, your castles, your pomp and circumstance. We will continue to watch the show from afar.
What hypocrisy. What we have now is worse than a Constitutional Monarchy.
The Politicians, the Deep State have made a mockery of the Constitution and Country, unbridled corruption and yet no Laws are enforced. The billing of the Treasury and sheer greed makes the Royal Family look like Pikers.
I would gladly trade Joe Biden and the corrupt politicians for a Queen Elizabeth who truly embodied devotion to country and honor.
While you might disagree there is thing called respect and she deserves that if nothing else.
He should step down in favor of William.
He won’t do it.
He’s a douche.
Hitchens what an idiot. “Classes’’. No man is free if he belongs to a ‘’class’’ and is ruled over by someone who’s blood is supposed to be ‘’royal’’.
There is no doubt that Britain and the US do NOT have the same system.
Hitchens, I thought, did a good job of explaining the role of the monarchy in the British system.
In both systems, individual Liberty is under constant assault. Institutions created by men defend it. No piece of paper, can.
There’s no 2A in the UK.
From reports of criminalized speech, there doesn’ seem to be a 1A either. Makes perfect sense for a country without the right to keep and bear.
It makes perfect sense for an elite group, in this case a monarchy to maintain power, being a ‘’subject’’ is a form of enslavement. As to the right to keep and bare as Jefferson said “An honest statesman need not fear an armed populace’’.
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