Thommy H:
Yesterday I just thought it was stupid, but more or less inoffensive. Now I’m angry.
G.2:
I'm not anti-Royal: I'm anti-stuff-that's-completely-irrelevant-and-shouldn't-be-funded-with-public-money-when-the-NHS-is-being-asked-to-make-massive-cuts-without-compromising-services.So that would make you anti STCISFPM'NHS'BAMMCWCS. :)
Thommy H
nitroglysarine:
Yesterday I just thought it was stupid, but more or less inoffensive. Now I'm angry.Here is a link to friends-of-friends who were arrested, they were the zombies, sat in starbucks not even protesting:- linky
Thommy H
Can't a zombie have a coffee break?
cornixt:
The royals are pretty much diplomats that foreigners love to visit the UK for. More than a few business deals have been made due to their influence. It’s living history. They are harmless, have no power, and cost almost nothing - in fact they bring in more cash than they cost by a long way.
I don’t really care about them though, they are just more celebrities that I don’t know.
Willmark:
Great question.
From what I understand they pay a massive amount to the government and then they in essence get a stipend back. One wonders if you convert that to a percent of tax paid? I’ve seen as high as 90%… if so that’s a hell of a lot of cash back to the people.
Either way it’s interesting but as an American it doesnt effect me one way or the other.
nitroglysarine:
I think the whole idea of a monarchy in the 21st century is a joke, them having no power at all is stupid so they are truly pointless, and paying ANY amount without choice, nope not in the modern day.
But that my republic rant over.
I rather a few likes on my comment on fb yesterday simply with the statement ‘nothing important happened today’
To quote a suitable statement 
Thommy H:
They are harmlessUnless you happen to be peacefully protesting against them in a public place on a government-mandated day of celebration, when it's apparently fine for plain clothes policemen to jump on you and drag you off into a police van, then release you a few hours later without charge.
As I said, I'm not anti-Monarchy in general. Just because something is pointless and costs money doesn't mean you should get rid of it - by that argument we'd demolish all our castles, burn all our art and abolish theatre. Sometimes it's just fine to have nice things. And I respect the Queen, because she's a dignified, intelligent person whose spent long years being the perfect balance between statesperson and symbol, finding a role for a monarch in changing times. She's a person that British people should be pleased to call one of their own. But...Prince William and Kate Middleton have done nothing. They might, at some point in the future, become great people. Honestly, they seem pretty normal and pleasant. They have every chance of being as much a credit to the Royal Family and the nation as the Queen, but that's all theoretical and way in the future. At the moment, they're just famous. And nice, famous people get married all the time without it needing to be funded by the taxpayer, or causing a day of what seems to be enforced public celebration.
They're just people. Rich people, who are members of a dynasty of wealthy landowners. They have to earn my respect and admiration like anybody else - they don't get it just because of who they are. That is anathema to all right-thinking people.
Willmark:
Again. As an American it doesn’t impact me at all.
I’d say service in the military for Prince William doesn’t qualify as having done “nothing.” in a sense he’s no different then his grandmother. Long before she was the Queen she was famous for simply being born who she was. I’m not going go judge William at this point in his life.
As far as taxes go two solutions to it:
1) Let them keep their own cash from their lands.
2) Abolish it and divy up the assets.
Neither one is going to work out well in the long run.
As far as famous: I’ll take your royalty in the sense of fame any day of the week (twice on Sunday) over the absolute scumbags we have in the US. Almost any of the trash in Hollywood, the music industry and a large swath of the athletes in most professional sports. At least your “celebrities” are decent people for the most part (I realize that they are more then celebs; again I’m equating it to fame.) what’s the worst they have done in that arena? High profile divorces? None of my business quite frankly. I’ve meet many celebs (many at a wedding) and aside from one I wouldn’t care to meet any of them again.
In short I get where you are coming from, but compared to the crap that is the US celebrities… You don’t know how well you have it. Famous people will always exist, people will always be rich, far richer then I’ll ever hope to be. At the same time I’m not obsessing about what others have and I don’t.
nitroglysarine:
Well, i’m a fan of 2.
Hashut’s Blessing:
From what I’ve found, they apparently brought in approximately £500m (probably a combination of tourism and souvenirs etc), but they’re salary is about £3m.
nitroglysarine:
However you add in the police cost of policing (yes there is overtime, bollards etc…)
Transport, maintaining the royal palaces, staff.
I’d doubt 3m a year is a true representation of the cost.
Thommy H:
I'd say service in the military for Prince William doesn't qualify as having done "nothing."There's lot of people in the armed forces. Lots of brave people that have done brave things. Doesn't mean their weddings get paid for out of my taxes (at least, not directly - they had to work to earn the money to pay for it themselves). As I've said, I've nothing against the new Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (my home city...great...) - they seem like fine people - but there are plenty of fine people in the world who don't get public money and adoration just because of who they are. That's the issue here. It's not that I wish them harm, I just don't see why I should have to care and why everyone looks at me askance when I say, "no, of course I didn't watch the Royal Wedding" as if it's some sort of betrayal of Britain.
My country has many, many things to be proud of. Britain has given the world the greatest scientific minds in history, the industrial revolution, incomparable literature and music, advances in every field of human achievement imaginable in a volume massively disproportional to our size and population. We are rightly numbered amongst the most powerful nations on Earth, ruled over an Empire larger than any in history and have overwhelmingly tended to side with the cause of decency and freedom throughout our turbulent history - and we're a tiny, damp little island in the corner of Europe. Of all the many achievements you can lay at the feet of Britain, the particular dynasty that rules over it isn't even in the top 100. Or the top 1,000. In fact, it's not even an "achievement" at all: they're just the descendants of the people that happen to have crawled over the bodies of enough poor people throughout history to have now emerged on top. Their simple existence is nothing to be proud of, or to celebrate. They're just some people who got born luckier than almost everyone else.
That's (one of) my issue(s). People are waving flags like morons for this, and there are so, so many better things they could be doing that for. Wave your flags for Darwin, or Newton, or Keats, or Wilde, or Shakespeare, or Dickens, or Austen, or Turner, or Lennon, or Wordsworth, or Churchill, or [insert any of a thousand names of great Britons throughout history] not for this pack of inbreds who have achieved nothing except endure various pointless dynastic struggles that claimed the lives of your ancestors.
I don't mind the Royals, I just don't see why it's somehow unpatriotic that I don't care when one of them gets hitched to his tart.
In short I get where you are coming from by compared to the crap that is the US celebrities... You don't know how well you have it.Can't I just have neither? Is it too much to ask that the people we admire and exalt actually do something worthwhile? That they're decent, honest people we can respect regardless of their notoriety? I know, I know: I'm living in a dream world.
nitroglysarine:
Can't I just have neither? Is it too much to ask that the people we admire and exalt actually do something worthwhile? That they're decent, honest people we can respect regardless of their notoriety? I know, I know: I'm living in a dream world.Can I join you in it?
Thommy H
Thommy H:
From what I've found, they apparently brought in approximately £500m (probably a combination of tourism and souvenirs etc)But here's the thing: it's not like they manufacture the souvenirs or show people 'round the castles themselves, is it? That industry they allegedly generate still has to be produced by everyone else. We have to pay for the factories that churn this tat out and the salaries of those that work there. We have to maintain the stately homes they live in for two weeks a year so we can show people around them the other fifty. So their £3m salary isn't the only cost.
zobo1942:
Isn’t this a political thread?
nitroglysarine:
Arguably the royals now have no political power really, so not really.
Its more of a cultural thread.
Thommy H:
Isn't this a political thread?A bit - but I don't think anyone's actually arguing about anything. I'm not mad at anyone here: my rant is directed into the aether, or possibly at the simpletons that appear to have become the dominant demographic in my nation while I was sleeping.
Willmark:
It’s borderline.
I knew it would probably veer this way. So far nothing too over the top. If it goes that way we’ll deal with it then.
A political thread would be a certain terrorist leader’s death… which the entire Staff is watching for. I’d like to say we’d let such a thread happen, but safe to say it will end badly. And a warning to anyone… Take it somewhere else to discuss that. I was a fireman from 1991-2003, to say I’d have little to no tolerance for people justifying 9/11 would be an understatement.
Anonymouse:
Personally I feel there’s something rather weird in the notion that one should not have mental qualifications, or certain talents, or a sharp mind to be head of a country and be paid very very handsomely (Too handsomely, one might argue). One merely has to be born. I don’t know if that’s the right approach for choosing a head of state.
nitroglysarine:
Hear-hear!
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