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Comment by vbezhenar | Hacker News Reader

Is it only me who thinks it's crazy that in modern world some guy with birth right have the authority over entire western country?

So much for democracy.

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He doesn't have any authority, in practice. It has been that way since 1414. The second the monarchy tried to exert control over politics would be the second it was abolished.

"The Queen has more power over British law than we ever thought" [1][2]

[1] - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/08/queen-...

[2] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26081208

That's an opinion article.

Charles exerted lots of control behind the scenes while he was Prince of Wales, lobbying, receiving lobbyists, getting inside information, accepting huge donations, etc.

Influence is not the same as authority. I'm sure he has influence - but then so do lots of people. And at least as public figure he has a degree of visibility. Governments don't exist in a vacuum.

This is true, and yet there are plenty of other unelected people with far more influence than him. The US also has lots of rich, powerful and unelected people who exert vastly more political influence than the average citizen. That's not to say that I approve of Charles's lobbying activities, but he's hardly the worst example.

Also people were arrested for protesting his ascent to the throne.

They were later "de-arrested," but the intended message is pretty clear.

There's no 'intended message' to be found there, just some isolated incidents of dumb police officers arresting people for silly reasons (as acknowledged by their subsequent 'de-arrest').

Police arresting political dissidents in the name of an ostensibly powerless monarch is just one of those quirky things that happens in real democracies. Nothing to be concerned about.

Police can arrest people at their discretion. If these people were actually being prosecuted, I'd see your point. Otherwise, yes, it was wrong to arrest them, but you can find people being arrested for stupid reasons in any country. It doesn't require any kind of establishment conspiracy for that to happen. If you are raising a legitimate issue here, it's the broad powers of arrest that police have, not anything to do with Britain being a monarchy rather than a republic.

did you perhaps mean 1914? i’m not a historian but i DID watch Hamilton a few times and it really seemed like King George had quite a lot of power and authority…

I often wonder if George was merely the figurehead for colonial frustrations. After all, Parliament precipitated the revolution by insisting that they had the power to tax the colonies.

It is hard to put an exact date on it - but 1414 is the first time the King acquiesced that parliament had to give approval for new laws.

Particularly since Elisabeth I came long after that date. It’s definitely not 1414.

I'd say it's 1688: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorious_Revolution

Other possible choices are 1708 (last example of the monarch refusing royal consent to an act of parliament, Queen Anne on the Scottish Militia Bill), or 1834 (last example of the monarch dismissing their government, William IV sacking the Whigs; he had to have them back in 1835 as the Tories he installed couldn't command a majority of the Commons).

Or you can point to things like the Kerr Sacking (in Australia, but using (vice-)regal power) and say it's not quite done yet, though in decline for centuries...

He does not. Kings have not done this kind of thing out of their own initiative for at least a century or so.

That would be crazy, but it isn't true

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