[RL] We have a king

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wolph42
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[RL] We have a king

Post by wolph42 »

And for the first time in 123 years we have a king again. Our queen abdicated this morning. Thought I should share this. And no this is no rpg it's RL, so yes it's still possible :wink:

Cheers.

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Re: [RL] We have a king

Post by RPTroll »

Congrats on the new Monarch. (sounds really weird saying that from the U.S.)
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wolph42
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Re: [RL] We have a king

Post by wolph42 »

RPTroll wrote:Congrats on the new Monarch. (sounds really weird saying that from the U.S.)
Yes.. Quite a lot western countries don't have a monarch anymore,
Which makes this all the more fun to mention. That and the last abdication is 33 years ago.

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Re: [RL] We have a king

Post by JML »

Congrats to Nederland :D

But in fact there's still quite a few in Europe: Great Britain of course, Spain, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, Sweden… not to mention the really small ones: Monaco, Andorre, Liechtenstein, Vatican :shock:

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wolph42
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Re: [RL] We have a king

Post by wolph42 »

the Vatican? is the pope a 'Monarch' ?

anyway, that is out of a total of 50 countries in Europe... as I said 'quite a few'

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Re: [RL] We have a king

Post by JamzTheMan »

Long live the King!
-Jamz
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Re: [RL] We have a king

Post by JML »

wolph42 wrote:the Vatican? is the pope a 'Monarch' ?
This surprised me also but from an etymologic point of view, monarchy is the power of one individual above others, so yes, as Vatican is an independent state, the pope is its monarch.
wolph42 wrote:anyway, that is out of a total of 50 countries in Europe... as I said 'quite a few'
Well 12 monarchies in 44 european countries that's a bit more than 25%, which doesn't look this few to me, even if it's clearly not a majority.

Anyway, congrats again :)

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Re: [RL] We have a king

Post by Bone White »

JML wrote:from an etymologic point of view, monarchy is the power of one individual above others, so yes, as Vatican is an independent state, the pope is its monarch.
I guess that makes Kim Jong-un a Monarch too, or any dictator?

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Re: [RL] We have a king

Post by JML »

The subject is much more complex than we usually think, but the main confusion comes from the fact that we believe that a government type belongs to only one category, which is not the case.

Most european monarchies are parliamentarian monarchies which makes them also de facto democracies. That's not a 0/1 or true/false classification. You've got all shades of grey, and in fact colours are mixing :wink:

There's even elected monarch like the pope or like the gauls' kings were.

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Bone White
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Re: [RL] We have a king

Post by Bone White »

That's true. I usually hear England as being referred to as a "Constitutional Monarchy".


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Re: [RL] We have a king

Post by JML »

I'd have thought the Frenchman would have been the one to suggest it :mrgreen:

That's fortunately not this bad, even if I strongly disagree on some points.

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Re: [RL] We have a king

Post by Xaelvaen »

Well, specifically speaking, Monarchy refers to a hereditary position of power and authority. By definition, a Monarch must also serve as simply the head of a different branch of government such as a militocracy or democracy. Its actually autocracy that most people think of when they think of King or Queen, which is absolute power unlimited and is typically hereditary. By these definitions, the President of the U.S. of A. is a Monarch if his father ruled before him. Of course, its all a bunch of semantic rubbish anyway - they'll call themselves whatever they want XD
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Re: [RL] We have a king

Post by JML »

Common misconceptions regarding a matter upon which even experts disagree :roll:

As most of the words defining political systems, monarchy has greek roots, meaning something along "the rule of one". As for most of these words its sense varied during history and has cultural slants. It is often confused with royalty which is only one form it can take. You can take a look there — Government, Monarchy — if you want to be convinced the subject is complex.
Xaelvaen wrote:Well, specifically speaking, Monarchy refers to a hereditary position of power and authority. […] By these definitions, the President of the U.S. of A. is a Monarch if his father ruled before him.
Sorry but there has been and there's still elective monarchies so hereditary position is just one possibility and doesn't define monarchy. And the Bush case in the USA had nothing to do with inherited power except from a polemical point of view :wink:
Xaelvaen wrote:By definition, a Monarch must also serve as simply the head of a different branch of government such as a militocracy or democracy.
Sorry again, but that's once more a narrow perspective on what monarchy is. You're speaking of constitutional monarchy when there has been and there's still absolute monarchies.
Xaelvaen wrote:Its actually autocracy that most people think of when they think of King or Queen, which is absolute power unlimited and is typically hereditary.
You seem to think words like autocracy and monarchy are exclusives. They aren't. Most of these words describe different aspects of actual governments which implies that you usually need several of them to characterize a country's government.
Xaelvaen wrote:Of course, its all a bunch of semantic rubbish anyway - they'll call themselves whatever they want XD
You'd better know what words are meaning if you don't want to be fooled by what politicians are telling you :wink:
Last edited by JML on Fri May 31, 2013 5:22 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: [RL] We have a king

Post by Azhrei »

tangent alert
JML wrote:
Xaelvaen wrote:Of course, its all a bunch of semantic rubbish anyway - they'll call themselves whatever they want XD
You'd better know what words are meaning if you don't want to be fooled by what politicians are telling you :wink:
Heh. That reminded me of a quote:

In 'Alice in Wonderland, Humpty Dumpty says:
"When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."

I never thought of politicians as Humpty Dumpty clones but it's an amusing thought. ;)

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