A Small {r} Republican’s Argument for Monarchy
Imagine teaching an infant to be a lumberjack. I don’t presume to know all of the skills that a lumberjack would need, but we can just deal with a few which are intuitive. A lumberjack must be able to navigate rugged terrain, in any sort of weather, and handle heavy and dangerous equipment like axes, hammers, and chain saws. We have pretty much ruled out infants from this recruit class, right? Infants are not autonomous. They lack strength, and if the once in a 40,000 year infant did have the strength, he or she likely would not have the judgment to handle dangerous equipment.
This is a very good analogy for expecting human societies to embrace democracy. Don’t get me wrong, I am a strong proponent of democracy, but, it is like Winston Churchill said, “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” The main problem with democracy is that it is a system to organize human civilizations, and humans are about as ready to handle democracy as infant are to become lumberjacks.
One of the main problems with our constitutional republic, based upon an idea, is that most people are not good with theory and principle. We debate the meaning of our foundational principles, like life, liberty, and justice to stultifying and disastrous effects. Our current state of affairs in the US has us essentially decaying into authoritarianism because the informed populace required for our constitutional republic has not evolved to the point where it can adequately sustain democracy.
One tiny example is the manner in which many, a sufficient number, of Americans understood the second amendment. I have argued with countless individuals that the Constitution does not include within it, a provision to make war against itself. A sufficient number believed such an absurdity to allow a losing President, with designs on becoming an American Caesar, to be duped into making war against their government…as a patriotic act. This act of manipulation by a would-be authoritarian is only possible because Americans have a hard time grasping the principles of American democracy.
The argument for a monarchy is that much of its symbols were developed for an illiterate populace, and presented in such forms that, they can not be disputed, or perverted. A person, as the embodiment of the nation, is simplified to the most basic state. In the UK, the members of parliament handle policy, and the royal family parades as what a British person should be, separate from policy responsibility.
My personal preference is a democracy, with an informed populace, who handle their civic responsibilities and vote regularly. I want that for the US, and the rest of the world. I see myself as a free individual, acting within the law, in pursuit of my subjective happiness. But, let’s face it. America is not up to that. America is too busy voting for musical acts on reality tv shows, or following conspiracy theory fantasies like “Q”, rather than caring about who their Secretary of State is. I used to think monarchies were just an absurd anachronism. I don’t think so any longer. Monarchies are how people understand their respective countries. Constitutions are not.
09/14/2022 @ 1:56 am
Most of the people in this country are abjectly and absolutely clueless as to how a constitutional democratic republic is designed to function as a practical matter.
09/17/2022 @ 2:09 am
Ron: not thoughtful and harsh!
[sic] “…between 2000 and 2017 the percentage of U.S. citizens under the age of 25 without high school diplomas decreased to 10% from 16% ….”
That the meglomania and malicious manipulations of what was a ‘Grand Old Party’ nowadays attempt to fascistically usurp our sacred franchise no doubt is a clear and present danger.
Order is order!
Law is law!
09/18/2022 @ 1:16 am
Bitey,
You’re one of the few people who still has the capacity to surprise me. This is an interesting case, about the readiness of the population. In 2009 we learned that America was ready to elect a Black President but not ready to have one, a lesson that continued to affirmed for the next eight years.
You’re right that constitutions are not. In the UK’s case, the problem they run into is that even with a monarchy the population still had to deal with Brexit, a proposition that won because the public believed a campaign promise written on the side of a bus that the winning party claimed later was just rhetoric, much to the disgust of their supporters.
In the US the problem is different because, unlike in Europe and Asia, here the Constitution is central to our identity because we have no nationally dominant ethnicity – in fact, aside from the mostly powerless Native American population, ethnicity has nothing to do with being American at all. Something has to unite us, the thing that formed us, and that was the structure of whom we became. This is what’s so awful about January 6. If a January 6 had happened overseas it would have struck at the government but not at the identity of the country. If France’s government changes France is still full of French people. Americans are different in that we as a nation are defined by our government rather than by our ethnicity. Not only has America never existed as a country without Americans voting, voting is why we became an independent nation. Taxation without what? Representation, just like the DC license plate says. (It is my favorite license plate for that reason, and it is 100% right.)
But no, we’re not ready. I fear we’re less ready than we once were.
09/18/2022 @ 4:57 am
You’re right, of course, Kosher. One could not logically propose a movement to monarchy from our constitutionally republic. I meant for this to provoke thought. I do accept our definition of “we the people”, although I am disappointed in our effort to “form a more perfect union…” aspect. We seem to keep failing at that. We were founded on shaky ethical grounds, and our lack of development fails in precisely the way that an established ethnicity, religion, gender, etc provide definition for monarchies. We are bumping along an intellectual gutter by failing to maintain the rigor needed to be the form of government and society that our constitution says that we are. We are essentially every bit the stratified society that the UK is, only that we say that we are not. “More perfect union” was written into the preamble almost two centuries before we put men on the Moon. Since then, we placed computers in everyone’s pockets which vastly impact economics and politics, yet we still cannot advance our “union”. How long does one wait until they conclude that humans are just not capable. As a kid, I thought it would happen in my lifetime. I feel betrayed and foolish now.
09/18/2022 @ 2:20 pm
Bitney: July 4th 1776 was 246 years, 2 months and 13 days ago — too many have died. I’d a plausible eidetic memory — early grammar school — but then usually after the Friday Night Fights — my beloved old boy would insist that we ‘slap-sparr’ as he loved my fancy footwork. Once upon a time I’d the capacity to replicate a kaleidoscopic glimpse on typing paper. I was a ‘big shot’ at recess casting my weekend portfolio to the dirty breeze. Just poor kids the playground and snow forts frequenty got belligerent. As well I’d walked the U.S.A twice with the thumb out — who doesn’t love the road. So (music with my friends!) is PERFECTION the enemy of the GOOD? Bless ‘ya guys! It is another bagpipe Sunday. Manic Monday 11:49 within reach! Like fine print and dryer lint. Hey let’s repair the water in Flint, MI
0 MY!
09/19/2022 @ 9:39 am
The Preamble to the Constitution is not ‘the law of the land’.
There has been no attempt to codify it in any legitimate or substantive way…
Perhaps there should be an effort to do so…
On the other hand such an effort may do little more than showcase and make starker the already deep divisions that exist in the American body politic and society which ostensibly been constructed on an idea and an ideal.
We’ve put men on the moon and computers in our pockets but most Americans don’t seem to be ready, willing, or able to put the American idea and ideal into their heads.
Too many Americans prefer to live and work in in a nonconstitutional social, political, and legal ‘twilight zone ‘ which is predicated on ‘alternative facts, conspiracy theories, falsehoods, and outright lies…
Bitey:
Feeling betrayed and foolish is an understatement without adding that we’ve been brought to the brink of despair by coming to the realization that most Americans are either too ignorant or too stupid for democratic self governance…
And, we’re mad about it…
09/20/2022 @ 9:00 pm
It is a mission statement.
09/20/2022 @ 11:22 pm
A mission that is far from being accomplished and may never be, should the MAGA Trump cultists get their way.
What confounds and infuriates those of us who continue to push and struggle for the accomplishment of the ‘mission’ and the success of the ‘experiment’ is virtually half of the population of this country is clueless and indifferent to the fact that it is ‘their’ democracy and ‘their’ own freedom that they have placed at at risk…
They are completely unaware that if the demagogues and charlatans win, we ALL lose…
09/21/2022 @ 4:55 pm
‘…a sign from above…’
— Charlie Pride
09/22/2022 @ 4:19 pm
We all lose in a lot of ways. We’ve seen studies, I think from Cornell and Northwestern, that say that policy priorities of the wealthy become law and policy priorities of everyone else don’t.
I got curious and decided to run some numbers. I looked up two things: Population growth since the Nixon administration and GDP growth since the Nixon administration. Given that the middle class standard of living hasn’t improved since then, I wondered what the comparative numbers would look like. They are…illuminating. Frighteningly so.
GDP was multiplied by about 13. Population was multiplied about 1.5.
So we’ve got a 50% increase in population and a 1200% increase in national wealth and the majority of the population doesn’t see an improvement. Where did all that money go?
We know where it went. And one of the big consequences of it going there is that in terms of political power the middle class lost ground.
It didn’t lead me to hope for a monarchy, but at one point in the Trump administration it did lead me to hope for a military coup. I trusted the military to value the Constitution more than I trusted the President. Given where the Republicans are going, I think I was right.
09/22/2022 @ 6:23 pm
Right.
Let me refine my concept of a monarchy. The monarch might just as easily, for these purposes, be a totem pole. The problem with a constitution as I see it, vis a vis the level of intellectual depth of the population, is that we don’t maintain to the sufficient depth to float the concepts necessary for American style democracy. Was the institution of slavery America’s original sin, or is originalism the answer to our complex questions with regard to change or ‘progress’?
The ethics of these questions could be handled by your average 6th grader. The challenge for us is, the average citizen thinks on the level of a 3rd grader. So, without the adult minds to defend it and propagate it, democracy is vulnerable to charlatans and morons. We would do better with a 50ft piece of carved wood, which has symbols that mean something specific than we are doing with written documents which are folded, spindled, and mutilated into the lack of justice that allows the economic results that you described. So, I hope you see, this is not an argument for royalty. The ‘monarch’ could just as easily be a piece of wood, which has no material needs, wants, or ego.
09/25/2022 @ 3:38 pm
Like the Constitution is treated. Like a sort of idol without people getting the point.
09/25/2022 @ 4:15 pm
Yes, that is the impression that I get.
It’s interesting that in the “Planet of the Apes” series of films from the late 60s and early 70s, the third film has an underground civilization that worships a nuclear missile in a silo, and the constitution as religious relics, without knowing what the constitution actually says. They chant the name of their god as “Ooo-suh”, not comprehending the initials U.S.A. We seem to be that much closer to that dystopian fantasy.
09/27/2022 @ 3:04 pm
No doubt a concerted google: ~COMMAND ERROR~ would be more placatory than our proverbial index finger
(Z-pattern=speed-sonic-speed) re-read of John Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’ {…}.
Likewise ‘perhaps’ is more subliminal than ‘no doubt’.
JP (often fail) Hart
09/26/2022 @ 2:56 pm
Bitey,
The nuclear missile in a silo use precisely the imagery that came to mind re the 50 foot piece of wood with symbols on it…