Saturday, May 31, 2008

Cusack on the Crown

Writing at Taki's Magazine, Andrew Cusack eloquently laments the fact that HM Queen Elizabeth II will probably sanction the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, a piece of legislation which certainly seems to be contrary in principle to any serious concept of a Christian Monarchy, which the United Kingdom nominally still is. While Mr. Cusack makes good points, it remains my position that HM cannot and should not be blamed for consistently acting within the constraints of modern constitutional monarchy, according to which the sovereign is expected to automatically sign any bill passed by the legislature. We have seen in Europe and elsewhere what has happened to monarchs who have strayed outside the "democratic" box. It should also be noted that none of the modern examples of British or Commonwealth royal intervention cited by Mr. Cusack involved an attempted royal veto of any legislation approved by the elected government, and even King Baudouin's defiant gesture on abortion was obviously not effective. While a relatively activist style of monarchy has been fairly successful in the Principality of Liechtenstein, the last European King who clashed with his government was Constantine II of Greece--now in exile for the past 40 years.

Traditionalists who long for a more active Crown should think of modern royalty as prisoners in a golden cage, in which case it is up to us to rescue them. We can start by trying to combat the false belief that only those who have won elections are entitled to have any real influence in government. But for the time being, that is the way Britain works, and it is the MPs who voted for this bill, and the ordinary people who voted for them, not the Queen, who should be held responsible for it. I doubt that even all of those opposed to this Bill would wish for it to be defeated via royal veto, so deeply ingrained is the democratic mindset even among "conservatives."

5 comments:

Blayne said...

Doesn't matter, it is still her government and if she's morally opposed she should not sign it. Is she also not the queen of the unborn? She may be the last voice they actually have while some nutcase scientists play God...

God Save The Queen, may she take some power and not sign with apathy as she does everything else...

Theodore Harvey said...

I don't think you absorbed anything I wrote. How do you know she is "apathetic," rather than simply realistic as I've explained? And what "doesn't matter"? The continued survival of the monarchy? If so, then I beg to differ.

Yes HM is "the queen of the unborn"--but then she is also the queen of the millions of British people who are secular and who believe that abortion etc. should be legal. This is what pro-lifers don't seem to understand. Now I am against abortion but I am not a "pro-lifer" for whom nothing else matters. Frankly there are other things Parliament has done during the present Queen's reign that bother me even more than this bill, but I don't expect HM to have vetoed them either. Again, it's not up to her. If British people don't like what their current MPs are doing, they can vote for different ones. I'm not saying I'm thrilled with that system but that's the way it is. No contemporary monarch can be expected to "take power" until the dominance of democratic secular ideology over the minds of the general public is broken.

As I've said about King Juan Carlos, what are today's sovereigns supposed to do? Kill everyone who doesn't agree with traditional Christian values? I am sympathetic to conservative Christian monarchists, but you guys need to understand that there are millions of people today who don't want things to be the way you want them to be, but are still willing to support constitutional monarchies, and constitutional monarchs have to consider their points of view too.

Theodore Harvey said...

I'm not sure that conservative Christian monarchists living in the United States always fully comprehend just how secular Europe has become. Opposition to abortion, and other "pro-life" causes, is still a fairly mainstream conservative position in the US. This is simply not the case in most European countries. For the Queen to suddenly "take a stand" on this kind of issue would be seen as aligning herself with what in the context of modern Britain are essentially fringe politics, against the majority of the public who as far as I can tell are not particularly outraged by this bill and are more concerned with matters such as transportation, health care, education, and crime. Frankly there are other issues (like the EU and immigration) where royal intervention might be more popular--not that I would demand even that.

Blayne said...

Then I shall petition her in a letter for what ever good or nothing it may do.

And I see nothing to say the majority of Brits support this bill, just the House of Commons which under Fascist Labour has done whatever it pleases to Britain.

I do not believe in making excuses when in this situation the right choice is actually clear. "Saviour Siblings"??? Good Lord man, there has to be a precedent and you'd be happy if Britain got even worse and orgies took place in the street as long as there was a sovereign.

Father Vinnie said...

Any queen who exists merely as a figurehead is no queen at all. I know she is, in a sense, trapped in a golden cage; your metaphor is a very good one. But she is in effect nothing but a queen in absentia. Better to go out in a blaze of regal glory than to eternally suffer the boring and predictable anarchies of her "subjects." God help the queen!