RE: Imagine America if Trump declared himself King forever! Now think about Britain...
I agree that Britain, as well as all other monarchies, should be a republic. And psychologically, it may help a bit to have the technically highest office in the land elected, no doubt about it.
Where I think you're wrong though, is that the Queen still has real power because she "can veto bills". Sure, the protocol says a bill is only law when the Queen signed it. But when was the last time she or any other monarch actually used that power?
Something similar happened in Denmark in 1920, where the king dismissed the government because he didn't like their foreign policy. Even though the Danish Constitution of 1866, at that point it was 54 years old, explicitely gave him that power, because of tradition, that became very clear around 1900, the parliament was to be in full control of the country.
After that, there was a Constitutional crisis, which resulted in the king backing down in fear of the entire monarchy being overthrown, and from that point on the king of Denmark never took political action without the full support of parliament again
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Crisis_of_1920
So if the Queen only does what parliament says, like sign the bills parliament wants etc, then that means she doesn't have real power. If she went against them, parliament would likely overthrow her within a week, like in Denmark.
Easter Crisis of 1920
The Easter Crisis of 1920 was a constitutional crisis and a significant event in the development of constitutional monarchy in Denmark during the Easter in March–April that year. It began with the dismissal of the elected government by the reigning monarch, King Christian X, a reserve power which was granted to him by the Danish constitution.
There are a variety of examples of leaked documents from the alleged royals in recent years showing examples of where they have adamantly stepped in behind the scenes to prevent things happening in parliament. The people are not informed of this usually.
Examples? And how do you know if "the people aren't informed usually"?
I'd say any influence they have is similar to the influence that celebrities have, which is just PR. But royals don't even campaign politically, so what else, aside from talking privately, can they do?
The constitutional documents make abundantly clear (as I recall) that the monarch has the ability to be more than a figurehead. One example, from memory, of the alleged royals being very involved with affecting policy is here.
My Great Uncle was a Lord while he was alive and a personal friend of 'the queen' - while I don't pretend to know all the details of that, I do know that what gets viewed on paper publicly and what actually occurs behind the scenes are wildly different.
The parliament is the Monarch's parliament - this is not hidden. They don't need to campaign because they literally control it all! Social hierarchy and the associated greed and stupidity that go along with it mean that most people would rather try to benefit from it all than question it - once they get closer.
Ok, it is a fair point that royals shouldn't have top-secret informstion just because they're royals. That would be yet another good reason to finally make Britain a Constitutional republic. As I said, I entirely agree with that goal, but they don't secretely control pokicy or something. If they did, why then do the Tories still do Tory policies while Labour does Labour policies? Wouldn't the UK have had the same policies for the last 70 years or so, over the Queen's life?
The general direction of politics hardly ever changes - this is well known. Regardless of which team gets to be the puppets for the present duration, the outcomes rarely really change much - only the slogans and surface direction of some policies. Plans and policies change regardless of who is running things. I am not saying that this family/group has ultimate control over everything - but they have massively more than most people have been led to believe.
Even if you don't think the alleged royals have much involvement, there is still the house of lords who prevent legislation passing and they are basically the close friends of the monarch.
You make a good point, by saying that the politics of both Tories and Labour PMs have barely differed from each other over the last few decades. I'd say the reason for that is that corporations have immense influence in the world, even without directly bribing politicians. When a corporation tells a Tory or Labour MP "I'll move such and such many jobs to yoir constituency if you vote for that bill I want", then that will be a factor the MP will have to deal with. And on the national level, corporations can do tons of stuff to extort the government, as well of course
How do I know that? It's not much different in countries that don't have a monarch. In Germany, the two major "opposing people's parties" actually regularly form coalitions together, that's how close they are politicy-wise. In the US Democrats and Republicans repeatedly come together for "bipartisan" legislation to boost military spending, start wars, give corporations tax breaks, give wall street bailouts and then allow them to gamble even more.
That's all things that corporations and other powerful economic players want. And in the current version of capitalism in those countries, they have enormeous influence over politicians, and thus over policy
These systems have been designed virtually since the beginning to be entirely fake - it's amazing how many observers haven't realised yet. I strongly suggest checking out the post i linked to in the first paragraph of the OP.
I read that article now, and to some degree I agree with the concept, as I already mentioned, but I don't think the group of powerful people is quite as tiny.
What this article envisions is basically a "politburo" of like half a dozen people, who secretely control the world, mostly beause they already control it, like a dictator who's in charge because he's in charge.
That's not how I think it works. I think it's a conspiracy without a conspiracy. Meaning powerful individuals everywhere, usually because they're wealthy, can influence politics through donating to elections, or by directly bribing politicians by promising to "employ" them afterwards for lots of money. Those powerful billionaires and corporations don't have to get into a smokefilled room and make evil plans, they already get more than they demand just by bribing those politicians separately.
Alright, now that we basically agree on the issue: How can we fix it?
My plan is that every politicians can only own 1 million dollars when he enters politics, all else either has to be given to charity or is seized by the state. In office he can't take any money from anyone but the state, which also funds all elections (through democracy vouchers), and once he leaves office he can only make up to 50'000$ a year, all above that is taxed at 100%. What do you think?
@politikhos
The blue and red teams are just a distraction to keep everyone in place, they don't actually have different policies, they both push through laws in the same overall direction, albeit with perhaps a few slight differences. It's a facade.
The real power lies elsewhere...
I disagree as to what these common goals Democrats and Republicans have in common, but agree that they're basically controlled by the same people. And that is powerful billionaires and corporations
They give politicians money for their campaigns, which means if a politician goes against them, he loses the necessary money to get reelected. Once the politician is out of office, he is "employed" by those corporation, for which he gets millions of dollars a year. Both of that is quite literally just bribes. And whethter a particular politician is in it for the money or only for the power: Either way he can basically only stay or get in power with the help of those powerful individuals and corporations.
The only way for a politician to circumvent this, and stay independent, is to not take money from corporations or billionaires, and instead only take donations from the people.
What I want to do is to get an Amendent to the Constitution, banning politicians from taking money from corporations or get more than 200$ from anyone, for example billionaires (ban PACs and Super-PACs and lower donation threshold). Additionally, we could introduce a program matching individual donations, so that for every dollar a candidate receives, he gets another one from the state
What do you think about that?
I think that's a good start regarding donations, however we already have something like that( public declaration of political party monies received) in England and it hasn't solved the fact that the entire world is being pushed in the general direction of what I said below.
I think we need to start asking questions of our politicians of long term strategies, not bickering over shit that doesn't really matter.
Rothschilds and other wealthy families probably think about stuff on long time frames, perhaps 100 years into the future, so why don't our politicians?
Ask yourself the question, at the same time try to forget what politicians say...."Since I have been alive has any party actually reduced government, reduced taxes, empowered traditional families, stopped bombing tribal people, reduced debt, reduced gambling, reduced alcoholism or reduced surveillance".
In my lifetime the answer is no.
For example the current direction both teams are pushing on us is....
More government
More taxes
More imigration
Gay empowerment
Trans enpowerment
Female empowerment
Destruction of tribal people worldwide
Forgot a couple. ..
More debt
More gambling
More alcohol
More surveillance