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Comment by snthd | Hacker News Reader

>As an example, I'm not an anti-monarch but I was extremely angry about how the police handled anti-monarch protestors during the coronation.

The monarchy is classism personified.

Do you not think that by not being anti-monarchy you're tacitly OK with a class based society, and that's a part of where the conformism comes from - class identity?

Bear in mind the various loyalty swearing that goes on - MPs, Armed Forces, Police, is loyalty sworn first and foremost to the Monarch - implicitly a person at the top of a heirarchy of class.

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> Do you not think that by not being anti-monarchy you're tacitly OK with a class based society, and that's a part of where the conformism comes from - class identity?

No. Newborn babies aren't anti-monarchy either. Are they part of the problem? This rhetoric of "silence is violence" is deeply polarizing.

> Newborn babies aren't anti-monarchy either.

Actually they are since monarchy is at odds with the basic human rights we are all born with.

We aren't born with rights unless there are people living at the time of our birth willing to fight for those rights. I mean, monarchy exists with supporters today despite being against the basic human rights you assert we are all born with.

Speed limits on roads exist; if someone's speeding, it's a question of enforcement.

Similarly, we're born with human rights as ratified in the UN Declaration of Human Rights. To your point, they're moot if not enforced -- I get that. But it's easier to enforce what exists than to fight for the original law.

We could be born with human rights as ratified by the Flying Spaghetti Monster and it would be just as meaningless. Enforcement is equally meaningless if there is no recognition of authority.

Why does the UN get to dictate human rights and not some other body? Did those human rights exist before the UN or not?

> Bear in mind the various loyalty swearing that goes on - MPs, Armed Forces, Police, is loyalty sworn first and foremost to the Monarch - implicitly a person at the top of a heirarchy of class.

After the New Model Army chopped off a previous monarch's head (they purged parliament and the remaining MPs passed legislation that found King Charles I guilty of treason) I can see why subsequent monarchs were somewhat keen to have an oath of Loyalty.

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