printNEW COLUMN is “Bar Meghan Markle From The Great Lady’s Funeral.” It’s a feature on WND, Unz Review, and The New American.
It’s no secret I favor monarchy over mob rule, namely democracy aka mobocracy.
“From pundits on our side of the pond, however, the monarchy regularly draws nasty barbs. Trashing the British monarchy appears to be their way of asserting American exceptionalism. I wager that were the conservative, periwigged Englishmen who founded America to pounce back on to the ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ TV set—the only place they’d be welcomed, given their ‘Ultra MAGA’ bent—the founders, too, would favor the monarchy over the current American mobocracy.”
… consider the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and the tawdry, quintessentially American saga they had inflicted on the queen. That the British monarchy stands for the last vestiges of ancient English tradition is not in dispute. But what do the Americanized Harry Windsor, formerly known as Prince Harry, and Meghan Markle represent? …
MORE on WND, Unz Review, and The New American.
A different measure of her Majesty was taken by British paleolibertarian and friend Sean Gabb. In 2012, Dr. Gabb dubbed Elizabeth II “Elizabeth the Useless.”
Brilliant piece, facts all new to me in “Sixty Years a Rubber Stamp” By Sean Gabb:
“The Queen has not sustained our national identity. … she has allowed many people to overlook the structures of absolute and unaccountable power that have grown up during her reign. She has fronted a revolution to dispossess us of our country and of our rights within it.”
“The Queen should have resisted the Offensive Weapons Bill and the Firearms Bill, that effectively abolished our right to keep and bear arms for defence. She should have resisted the Bills that abolished most civil juries and that allowed majority verdicts in criminal trials.”
“She should have resisted the numerous private agreements that made our country into an American satrapy. She should have insisted, every time she met her Prime Minister, on keeping the spirit of our old Constitution. There have been many times since 1972 when she should have acted. …”
“… she has acted only twice in my lifetime to force changes of policy. In 1979, she bullied Margaret Thatcher to go back on her election promise not to hand Rhodesia over to a bunch of black Marxists. In 1987, she bullied Thatcher again to … sanction South Africa. … MORE.
What are we to expect from Charles III?
Nothing, says Dr. Gabb, today.
He is old and stupid and possibly malevolent. Nor do I expect anything of William V, assuming he is ever allowed to succeed. George V was unfortunate in his progeny, and its quality has been dropping ever since. If all else had been sound, monarchs of low intellectual quality might not have been a problem – though I suspect it would always have had damaging effects given that our constitution is monarchical and in need of some ability at the top. But they were stupid at a time when intelligent monarchs were an essential safeguard against a political class that, since about 1940, has never risen above the worthless.
Ilana, as always, makes good points in her column, especially with regard to the Bush girls. I was just pondering with a friend of mine that QEII may be the most famous person who’s died in our lifetimes. Indeed, I’m pretty old to be just now starting on my second British monarch (& 1st king!). I liked the queen, at least as far as her being the most visible face of monarchy in our lifetime. And as we all know from reading Hoppe, monarchy is far better than democracy.
Sean Gabb makes great points in both of his columns. The Royals let down John Bull when he most needed them. The Windsors are the latest in the descent since the Glorious Revolution of 1688, when Mary & her Dutch husband William of Orange usurped Mary’s Catholic dad James II. An ignominious beginning for the Hanovers, who would eventually re-brand themselves as the Windsors, after the original surname became a little tainted.
By the way, nice to see John Lydon, once known as Johnny Rotten, do a straight-up version of the original “God Save the Queen,” in tribute to the lady he’d always liked. For years, he’d dreaded the prospect of the British media dredging up the “God Save the Queen” that his band the Sex Pistols created back in the seventies, as a sort of mockery. Hearing that John Lydon liked the Queen was as delightful as hearing that Mick Jagger liked Margaret Thatcher, or that Eric Clapton was good friends with his MP Enoch Powell.
Ilana, enjoyed your article. It brought back a memory. Having met the Queen and the then Prince and having had brief conversations with both almost 40 years ago I clearly remember how gracious both were but how warm and genuinely attentive the Queen was. The Prince certainly appeared attentive but it was as though he was somewhere or nowhere else.
The idea of a monarchy as preferable to our current kakocracy is something that popped into my head late last year. I have not given it any serious thought but it keeps knocking around my noggin. Since faking reality is the standard of much of our political life when the inescapable consequences of our folly smack us would a monarchy in similar peril be in a better position to come out of the psychosis without war? I doubt it. The end of the European monarchies was war. But then war is one of the constants of our species behavior. Perhaps it is inevitable.