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From: jmg@sftig.UUCP (J.McGhee)
Newsgroups: net.legal,net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: British Institutions of government
Message-ID: <686@sftig.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 17-Feb-86 14:08:11 EST
Article-I.D.: sftig.686
Posted: Mon Feb 17 14:08:11 1986
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>>	Frank Adams has repeatedly asserted the claim that England's
>>"constitutional monarchy" is a democracy. To answer this I quote someone who
>>has lived under British Rule throughout his life. In his book (published by
>>Mercier Press) "An End to Silence", Reverend Desmond Wilson states:
>>...
>
> If I believed Reverend Wilson I would be unsure that I had ever lived in a 
> democracy.

	At least he's got you started thinking about your government. As I
stated in my article about forms of government, the U.S. is not a democracy
but a republic and other national governments similarly are not democracies
because of the logistical problems of setting up a democracy before the age
of computers. There might be a case for Canada being a republic, but this
requires further study.

> I'm Canadian. The Queen is Canada's sovereign, represented by the
> Governor-General.

	Would you please expand on this statement? What are the duties, rights
and privileges of the "sovereign". What real power does the sovereign or her
representative have in making the decisions of government? How do these rights
compare with the rights of the average Canadian citizen? When there is a
difference of opinion on matters of government, whose will prevails under
various scenarios?

> Canada has a Senate modeled after the House of Lords - but our Senate isn't
> even hereditary, it consists mainly of people appointed by the last
> government.

	Doesn't the appointment of members of the Senate by the Prime Minister
give too much power to a restricted club of professional politicians?

> And yet people go to the polls, and even manage to defeat the Liberal party
> at times.
> 
> There are some psychological advantages to a democracy ruled by a 
> constitutional monarch. The monarch gives the masses who need a god-figure
> somebody to worship who doesn't have any real political power. 

	Are we talking about:

		1. voodoo
		2. Big Brothers mind control
		3. modern government
		4. all of the above

	Please don't drag people's psychiatric problems into national
government. There are enough problems there already.

> Q: would Richard Nixon have survived Watergate if he'd been a more
> charismatic figure?

	Who cares?

> Perhaps - to a frighteningly large number of Americans the President can
> do no wrong.

	Too true, Too true!

> The monarch siphons off this element, and slightly improves the rationality
> of politics.

	I really doubt this statement, do you have any evidence to back it
up or are you just verbalizing some vague glimmerings in your mind? When the
Queen awards the Order of the British Empire to the commanding officer of the
Royal Parachute Regiment for their actions in killing 14 unarmed and innocent
civilians on "Bloody Sunday" in Derry on January 30, 1972 which were described
by the coroner as acts of murder; when the Queens consort, Prince Phillip,
wearing a beret and camoflage battle fatigues, pays a personal visit to an
UDR (Ulster Defense Regiment) unit whose members have been officially found
to be involved in a string of sectarian murders in their off-duty hours;
how does this improve the rationality of politics?


					J. M. McGhee