I have the same. Not army though, but from schools.

Ha, ha! Summerschool in Kilkhampton...

Many years ago I was selected to be guard of honour for queen Willamina? I stood in the pouring rain for an hour in my trench coat only to see her pass us by, in her car, at twenty miles an hour. The squady language did her proud.

VideCorSpoon;
Yes i think i heard somewhere that Americans were originally going to call their head an Emperor.

Always found monarchies pretty interesting, especially English ones. As to the specific meaning of monarchies, that all depends on the specific country you take into account. English constitutional history has developed a very rich and complex framework of the relationship between the monarchy and the representative bodies of parliament (house of lords, commons). Interesting tidbit, the foundation of English governance rests in the Germanic-styled witenagemot, which comprised of a king and his court, but also an electorship which designated the king. English monarchies were originally democratic. That all changed with Alfred the Great, but going back to the likes of Offa and Ethelbert.

But anyway, when the convention parliament in 1689 issued the "declaration of rights" and subsequently the "bill of rights" where parliament offered the crown to William and Mary after the revolution following the abuses of James II, they set the relationship between the monarchy and the people where executive administration would be conducted in conformity with the will of the representatives of the nation. But under the Bill of rights, the monarchy was limited to the respect to the extent of its power? namely, that if the crown exercised its power, it immediately lost it. This is the reason I mention this bit of history, because the crown itself at least in England is merely a representative and not an ultimate source of power.

So this lends to the meaning of monarchy (in the case of current Great Britain), which is that the Monarch is if anything a representative. I suppose as a representative of what is the big question? Of the people? That would be the parliament and more specifically the house of commons. The house of lords? That seems to be if anything a representative of the aristocracy, and is for the most part as far as English constitutional history is concerned defunct. Maybe the monarchy is a national symbol, which would link yesterday and today, and still provide some relevancy for the crown to exist in a democratic society. Even the Romans [even during the Kaiser(or Caesar? however you want it) dictatorships] and Greeks had Kings which functioned as symbols (although in the case of the Romans, it was purely religious, the Greeks in quite a few other roles).

What makes an uncrowned country better than a crowned one? Not necessarily a thing I would think. If anything, the existence of a monarchy is a benefit to a people because it is in a sense a living embodiment of history and identity for those who share in the nationalistic ideals of that country. It is in a sense a rally point that could very well come in handy at the direst of times. I remember something from Queen Elizabeth II (during the Lady Dianna crisis) who said that the key to the affinity between her rule and the people was her own vulnerability. Essentially, the more vulnerable she seemed, the more the people rallied to her position.

Would I (as an American) have one? Personally, I think it would be a neat idea. Heck? we have a president who functions in much the same role as a King or Queen. You cannot get around this need for a people to have an identifiable ruler/representative. Interestingly enough, there was a huge debate during the formative years of the united states where the president would have been called "his highness the president" and other stuff like that. Heck, the US was so so close to having a parliamentary system like Britain. It not easy to break the monarchist tendency especially when our history is so intertwined in the system.

But what is the meaning of Monarchy today and is it all about yesterdays.

I feel that in the years to come this may (should) become much more of a debated topic.
And we may indeed see some change in political structures necessary moving back towards more of a Monarchical basis.

Because the "democracy' experiment is truly starting to exhibit some of it's potential weaknesses. Particularly that in order to have a well running democracy, you depend on an educated & informed voter base. You also depend on candidates be specially trained and skilled in the ways of ruling and law making.

Many of the current democracies (including the US) lack this now and the results are evident.

In the long run, it may prove more practical to educate & train a select SMALL group of leaders in the issues & skills necessary to govern wisely. The lessons learned from failing democracies can be used as basis for building protection from abuse of that power granted.

The workings of the world have become far too complex now for the average citizen without special training to grasp and make intelligent choices on.
I count myself even partially in that position. Not as much incapable as unwilling. It would consume far too much of my time to become properly knowledgeable of all the facets of wisely ruling in a global arena.
Better to grab a couple promising and willing students and let it consume their lives. I'll trust them until I have reason not to.

The old Monarchies had this structure in place. Rulers were literally trained from birth with the nuances required to someday assume the leadership.

GS

USA does have enough people, is militairy organized, still has it's territories and has an American ID. U just miss some kingdoms (fr. Hawai etc.) to make the step to an Empire. 2Bad|In Europe we have a president now, but we call him chairman.

I feel that in the years to come this may (should) become much more of a debated topic.
And we may indeed see some change in political structures necessary moving back towards more of a Monarchical basis.

Because the "democracy' experiment is truly starting to exhibit some of it's potential weaknesses. Particularly that in order to have a well running democracy, you depend on an educated & informed voter base. You also depend on candidates be specially trained and skilled in the ways of ruling and law making.

Many of the current democracies (including the US) lack this now and the results are evident.

In the long run, it may prove more practical to educate & train a select SMALL group of leaders in the issues & skills necessary to govern wisely. The lessons learned from failing democracies can be used as basis for building protection from abuse of that power granted.

The workings of the world have become far too complex now for the average citizen without special training to grasp and make intelligent choices on.
I count myself even partially in that position. Not as much incapable as unwilling. It would consume far too much of my time to become properly knowledgeable of all the facets of wisely ruling in a global arena.

Better to grab a couple promising and willing students and let it consume their lives. I'll trust them until I have reason not to.

The old Monarchies had this structure in place. Rulers were literally trained from birth with the nuances required to someday assume the leadership.

This seems potentially problematic. Again, you really don't want to get into an oligarchy or some type of aristocratic boule type system.

And some of them turned out to be total dicks, like James II (who was actually said to be more "enlightened" than many other princes of the day), Henery the 8th, Charles XII of Sweden, and on and on and on.

Maybe - maybe not.
If we want to continue democracy I believe a test should be devised to certify competency before being allowed to vote.

And of course we have no "disks" in our current system ? Problem is we seem to have so many it's impossible to get rid of them all. Because there's an equal number of "dick" ignorant (in the pure sense of the term) willing to leave them there.

If we only had 3 or 4 to deal with - how much easier the solution.

Why is it that you love your queen?

Why do you love your mother ?

Last night our ministers resigned over Irak/Afghanistan.

Luckily we have the Queen as Head of Goverment.

It's a pity she is off skiing in Lech.

The rest of the royals are to the Olympics.:detective:

Now that would have been something. I don't think the framers would have gone so far as the title of emperor though since they were flat out against the notion of even having a king or anything like that (plus the whole inheritance thing would not have flown). But really thinking about it, during the United States own expansion west and colonial expansion in the 19th/20th centuries, I really wonder if, supposing we had a predisposition to a monarchic system, there would have been some imperial title given to the president. Queen Victoria for example accepted the title of Empress of India (although I don't think she was too fond of the title but it was out of necessity) even though it was contrary to her status. And the British empire was imperial, and in some ways the United States superficially look imperialistic (though all protectorates were autonomous?even today? but that's a "how-thin-can-you-slice-it differentiation). I think as far as the president of the United States would get is "Mr."

---------- Post added 02-17-2010 at 04:15 PM ----------

Thought this might be interesting to everyone as well;

Absolute monarchies (supreme power lay with the monarch):
Brunei, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Swaziland, and Vatican City.

Constitutional monarchies (monarch functions as head of state under constitutional provision):
Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Belize, Cambodia, Canada, Denmark, Japan, Jordan, Lesotho, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Morocco, New Zealand, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, United Kingdom, and Vatican City.

How can Vatican City be an absolute & constitutional monarchy? I think you mean the Holy See in one of the cases.

In the Holy Roman Empire a candidate for the title Emperor Elect had to have 4 grandparents who were count(ess) at the least. So there was generations of experience for the young Emperor.

So should they sit at home and eat cake?