soreff (03/06/83)
Granted, monarchies are basically ornaments, and granted, the economic conditions of most nations is lousy (particularly during the current depression). I'm not sure that cutting out the few remaining monarchies would save enough money to make a great deal of difference. If you want to look for disposable ornaments in government, why not look at things like military bands and fancier-than-needed government office buildings? I've heard that the US, for instance, spends more on military bands than on the National Endowment for the Humanities. -Jeffrey Soreff (hplabs!hplabsb!soreff)
bred (03/07/83)
The following justifications for a monarchy are hereby presented:
1. Without Princess Diana, many British industries (wedding gowns,
hairdressing, mug-china-silverware making) would go under. Does
anyone have a comparison of profits from the Lady Di industry vs.
expenses for the maintenance of the British Royal Family?
2. Without a monarchy, Monaco would lose some of its appeal and all
of its newspaper space. How often do you read about San Marino?
3. Since President Reagan is head of state as well as head of
government, he needs someone of equal rank to go horseback
riding with him. Why not Queen Elizabeth?
4. Koo Stark needs the publicity.
John Bredehoft, Reed College, ...!teklabs!reed!bredbis (03/09/83)
Without being sure, I am under the impression that, in the case of England: 1) The monarchy is "free" - the royal family assigns all its private revenues to the state and then lives on a state allowance, the latter costing the country less than the assigned income. 2) The monarchy generates more tourist dollars than are consumed by its maintenance. 3) The English just *love* the royal family and have no desire at all to do away with them. You could also make a fairly good case on behalf of the practical benefits of having the head of state embodied in a different individual than the head of the government. As one example: gifts of state made to the head of state are just that; they are not personal gifts made to the head of the government. In the United States it is possible that the President may interpret a diamond whatever given by the Wadis of Nifertu as a personal gift and take it away with him when he leaves office (declaring it on his income tax, of course). In reality, of course, the jewels belong to the country. Andrew Shaw ABIHO x4715 houxq!bis (possible) hocpc!ams (unlikely)
ka (03/10/83)
It's not clear that we are talking about cruelty here. I would assume from the orginal article that mealtime for the animals was delayed for a couple of hours so that the animals would be awake, rather than sleep- ing off their meals. Since animals living in the wild are not fed by the clock, I doubt that an hour or two variation in their mealtime bothers most animals. Kenneth Almquist
minow (03/11/83)
In the Scandinavian Constitutional monarchies, the king or queen carries out the symbolic functions of the government, leaving elected officials free to perform the actual decision making. This has several advantages over our system whereby one official must perform both duties: people can be opposed to the current government without seeming unpatriotic. Because elected office -- in the Scandinavian monarchies -- has few symbolic trappings, it is certainly less expensive than the American system. For example, Tage Erlander, who was prime minister of Sweden for about 20 years, lived in a perfectly ordinary apartment building without armed guards and bullet-proof limosines. (I dated a woman who lived in the same building for a while.) His wife was a high-school teacher, and she generally drove him to work in the mornings. Unfortunately, we have had a few recent presidents who wanted the best of both worlds -- the political power along with the comic-opera fancy dress guards and military music. What is worse is that any criticism of their political views is seen, by them, as a crime against their royal being. Martin Minow decvax!minow