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Comment by bbg2401 | Hacker News Reader

Is it only the British monarchy you have an issue with? How do you feel about the monarchies of Belgium, the Netherlands, Japan, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and the many others?

I presume you are from the US? It seems a substantial number of US citizens believe the British monarchy to be an outlier and the only one worthy of comment.

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I don't think it's something to blame Americans for. The reason the English monarchy gets so much more attention is for two main reasons (I'm not sure which is more important):

1. English language and media being more widespread than e.g. Danish

2. The commonwealth - the English monarch is also the (figure)head of the commonwealth which is another ten or so countries spread across the globe.

There are other reasons too - perhaps tourism plays a big part. If you visit London then you'll almost certainly go to Buckingham palace to see the stupid palace guards and all that pomp. Millions of people do it every year and are told the Queen/King is living right there. Especially if you're a child that puts them into an important position in your imagination.

I don't think this amount of pompous touristy bullshit surrounds any other modern monarch.

And finally, a large swath of English people either love or hate the monarch, while a large swarth of Irish also hate them, both of which fuel attention. Most other European monarchs are just sort of... there, to my understanding.

> the stupid palace guards and all that pomp

> I don't think this amount of pompous touristy bullshit surrounds any other modern monarch.

Ahem.

Hans Majestet Kongens Garde (Norway): https://www.royalcourt.no/artikkel.html?tid=29281

Den Kongelige Livgarde (Denmark): https://www.kongehuset.dk/en/palaces-and-the-royal-yacht/cha...

Livgardet (Sweden): https://www.forsvarsmakten.se/en/activities/events/the-royal...

Guardia Real (Spain): https://www.esmadrid.com/en/whats-on/changing-guard-royal-pa...

What is the purpose of an army? To defend their nation. What is the essence of a monarchic nation? ... Armies in monarchies tend to have these type of honour guards and traditions, even if their typical audience is tourists. Armies in republics also love a bit of pomp and circumstance and will gladly show off their troops marching, their aerial acrobatics, their latest hardware, etc.

> Armies in republics also love a bit of pomp and circumstance

Also mostly stupid and hilariously anachronistic, in my opinion. The videos of Indian and Pakistani border guards showing off to each other comes particularly to mind.

I’d rather they show off to each other than shoot at each other. Anything that reinforces their fundamental similarities has to count as a good thing.

> Armies in republics also love a bit of pomp and circumstance and will gladly show off their troops

France does. But then it is often said we elect a monarch, not a president.

Lots of countries do this, not only France. Military parades are an easy way to remember and commemorate the fallen in battles, and to remind the civilian population of the magnificent army protecting them.

But to your other point, yep, the French Fifth Republic has a very strong President figure (not a monarch on a few important distinctions like succession, but still). And after the failures of the Third and Fourth Republics that showed that compromise is complicated to achieve and without a strong position somewhere there is just pure chaos and instability, it was the only way forward.

Your two main reasons are actually the same reason: it's because Britain conquered the world, had the largest empire in history, and billions of people still live in countries that are or were ruled by the British* monarchy within living memory.

People pay attention to the King because he's part of their history, not just the UK's.

*Not just "English"

Other countries have constitutional monarchies. The UK still has an absolute monarchy, they just agree not to use any of the powers. They need a real constitution first to have a constitutional monarchy. (Instead they pretend a bunch of random historical documents are a constitution. At least one of them is a letter to the editor of a newspaper written under a pseudonym.)

Japan's monarchy was a Meiji invention; he had no power before that and has no power now. He's more like the opposite, a prisoner we specifically wrote into the constitution to have no human rights.

> UK still has an absolute monarchy, they just agree not to use any of the powers

This is true to the extent that North Korea is a republic.

> The UK still has an absolute monarchy

Hey, could you do us all a favour and update Wikipedia[0] to reflect your research on this matter? Sadly it still lists the government as a unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom

British people will also tell you they have good food, a working healthcare system, and that people care about their monarchy, but you don't have to listen to them about any of it. We're just humoring them.

To have a constitutional government, you should first have a constitution.

> you should first have a constitution

Sure they do. The constitution doesen't have to be a single document.

Which is not necessarily a bad thing. The American constitution has basically become immutable at this point while meaningful reform is still possible in Britain.

I'd say Canada has a better system; there's at least a parliamentary act passed saying what's in the constitution, and the people who wrote it are still around to explain themselves. (Australia loses points because they forgot to have a bill of rights.)

The US changes its constitution by just having the Supreme Court make things up. As you can see from the Lochner era, this has rarely worked well.

There are uncodefied parts of the Canadian constitution too. The codefied parts begin with a sentence that's essentially "copy/paste the UK constitution here". The Supreme Court of Canada has also said they can add unwritten parts of the constitution and the written parts aren't exhaustive.

I always been told they do, it's just not written down

As I said, some of it is "officially" written down in an unsigned newspaper letter to the editor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascelles_Principles

Notably the article doesn't even know if the letter is still the law or not.

> Following passage of the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022, which repealed the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, these principles are thought to have been revived.

> To have a constitutional government, you should first have a constitution.

Here’s another page that could probably use the fruits of your research:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_K...

Do you believe this one too?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_People's_R...

Not to claim it's the same situation, but there's a difference between things that are officially true and things you should actually respect. You shouldn't respect most of the US judicial system either.

> but there's a difference between things that are officially true and things you should actually respect

Could you relate that back to your initial claim that "the UK still has an absolute monarchy", which appears to be both officially untrue and untrue in practice?

Well, I'd respect it more if the monarch had a few less of these powers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_prerogative_in_the_Unite...

Especially

https://ukconstitutionallaw.org/2013/01/26/tom-adams-royal-c... + https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/08/royals-vette...

They don't even make the monarch get a driver's licence or pay taxes because laws don't apply to them. (Instead they voluntarily pay taxes and don't speed.)

Maybe they could try writing some of that down in a constitution.

Britain does have a constitution

Good thing that Britain has a constitution then.

One that was made up as those in power went along and has never really been codified

Britain has great food, just look for a Pakistani place ...

> British people will also tell you they have good food

If you've ever eaten Indian curry (of the tikka masala variety in particular), chances are, its recipe was British in origin.

While traditional British food might not appear particularly appealing to the discerning palate, Great Britain is home to many a culinary innovation.

Well unlike in some other places the English monarchy hasn't generally been absolute since the high middle ages. The struggle between parliamentarism and the crown last for 400-500 years. So yeah there is no single all encompassing document because there was no single revolutionary event which would have necessitated it.

Britain always led the fight against absolutism in Europe (well more or less anyway..) so most of these constitutions that were designed to curtail the power of the monarch during the revolutions of the 1800s merely brought other countries inline with where Britain already was.

US is in a similar state.It was one of the first "democratic" states so its system if full of out of date anachronisms like the electoral college, the second amendment and near absolute freedom of speech (well yeah some are bad and some are good..).

> Japan's monarchy was a Meiji invention; he had no power before that and has no power now. He's more like the opposite, a prisoner we specifically wrote into the constitution to have no human rights.

Japanese emperors have (had) lots of indirect power (akin to Charles lobbying). E.g. during WW2 Hirohito participated in some very high level decision making (and should have been hanged for it).

Yes, that's post-Meiji and before we rewrote their constitution. Before Meiji westernization it was on and off and he was a bit more like the chief priest than a ruler.

The letter - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascelles_Principles

It is true that there is a convention not to actually exercise many powers as a King, leaving them to the government. But it wouldn't be an absolute monarchy anyway, in fact it's one of the first examples where the monarch could not do as he wished, and had to call Parliament. So it's a parliamentary monarchy.

The UK and other Commonwealth countries are constitutional monarchies. You don't need a piece of paper called the "constitution" to be one or have a constitution. The UK essentially invented the modern constitutional monarchy where the monarch essentially is just a ceremonial figurehead. Prior to the end of WWII the Emperor of Japan had far more personal power under the Meiji constitution than the British monarch of the same time or today.

Towing and asserting the official line doesn't make it true.

The British monarch has all those powers on paper. They never agreed to relinquish them. Then, random commoners (with no authority) keep asserting that the monarch has no powers, or no intention to use/abuse those powers. Nobody seems to agree which ones are not supposed to be used ever, which ones are supposed to be used sparingly, and which ones are OK to use recreationally. Then, occasionally somebody discovers some secret privilege the monarch has, and the people have to decide on the spot whether that's OK or not.

Compared with the actual constitutional monarchy, where there are actual rules spelled out clearly. The Brits are masters of wordplay, but "unwritten constitution" is really unironically "trust us, we're making this up as we go along".

A written constitution isn’t even worth the paper it’s written on unless the people and institutions of the country are in the habit of actually following it. Britain follows their unwritten constitution, established through centuries of tradition, better than many countries follow their written constitutions.

Did you miss the part where TFA is about the British sovereign specifically? That's why I commented on it, but yes, I think they're all bonkers, though I do think the British Royal family (and British media) play up the pomp around their royals more than in most other countries.

Also, isn't the British Monarchy the only one Americans have had cause to take up arms against, multiple times? (To the point where we still do annual re-enactments of some of the events?)

No, the US has fought against plenty of monarchies plenty of times, e.g. the Spanish American War, WWI, etc.

British monarchy certainly seems to have an outsized presence in media.

I think that it may be primarily in American media (or perhaps English-language media?) Other monarchies certainly get their news moments in English-language media and presumably are more discussed in other subsets of the media.

They did rule half the world within living memory; that tends to be the kind of thing that cements you in the public psyche.

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