RIP Queen of England

I believe I have mentioned before how little I care about this and how little I understand the mania behind royals watching. It might be related to Disney Princess syndrome.

So everyone in the captive press is going out reading the same three Wiki articles on how royal succession works so they can all seem like experts. The bottom line is: It’s a closed club. No new members are allowed. You will never be invited to join, even if you marry into it.

So Charles gets to be King. There was some doubt about the outcome of that since the Queen was looking like she would outlive him. We can say with certainty that Charles is not going to sit the thrown as long as dear old mum. And he will accomplish even less.

As we look at the accomplishments of the Queen for her 70 year reign, we see lots of accolades for things that happened while she was alive, not that she had any role in that. Example: The fall of communism.

She isn’t getting nearly enough credit for the entire collapse of the British empire during her reign nor for her country being over run by invaders. One wonders how long it will be before a Sing, Mohammed, or Patel is the reigning monarch.

She is credited for raising over a billion pounds for charity. Not her own money. That would have been notable. No. Like other celebrities, she just lends her name recognition, fame, royal authority and imprimatur and then other people donate their money to her favorite charities. Like Princess Di got credit for ending AIDS and eliminating land mines.

This is a great opportunity for the British people to decide that their flirtation with monarchy has run its course and they are ready to try something else.

I would comment about how important such a role could possibly be when they allow a doddering old woman to sit the thrown for so long, but then our country selected Biden.

It does bring up the question of what is the best way to select an HMFIC. Obviously, the neutered monarchy in Britain is a shallow Disney version of itself. Even calling them a figurehead is overstating their importance. Not only could they be replaced by robots, they could all be replaced by statues of better monarchs. But the question remains. Is heredity any better or worse than the other methods of selecting a chief? The principle harm of such a system is that it is closed and no one from the outside may hope to achieve it regardless of merit. That encourages men of merit to go all war of roses on their asses and replace the whole families. Fortunately for the current “family”, the current monarchy is powerless enough that no one wants in the club bad enough to kill for it. Further, with the extent of the current family, one would have to kill a whole bunch to clear the decks. Just not worth all that effort.