Not better – simply born into responsibility, money and power. All our life chances are somewhat determined by that same right of passage – birth. Fact is we are all different from one another by ‘dint of birth’. Some of us get power, some of us get a whole load of money (and use it to become a President) and some of us get nothing at all.

The Royals number amongst the tiniest of injustices in this world. If I had any confidence that the Government would take the money paid to the Royals and build hospitals, schools, improve public transport or any number of things that would be of real benefit to our country, I might care a whole lot more about the issue. But they’d probably just give it to the bankers or use it to fund more wars.

I think one of the Americans rituals that the English do not understand is the pledge of allegiance to the flag.

And again, a separate elected head of state would remove problems with the conflation of symbolic and actual power without endorsing the anti-democratic notion of hereditary succession, which is predicated on the idea that some people are simply and absolutely better than others as a result of their parentage.

*I don’t let this colour my understanding of hereditary positions in other areas, though.

So it’s a more or less symbolic offense to modernist dignity that doesn’t meaningfully impact the public purse in a negative way. Not exactly material to send people to the barricades, is it?

In terms of the estates, they still have those. A very large proportion of land in Britain is owned by a Windsor, and has never been sold off for anything. Furthermore, the royal family receive a lot of money that isn’t even in their (meagre) job description. See, for instance, this: http://www.republic.org.uk/What%20we%20do/Republic%20Campaigns/Royal%20Finances%20Campaign/index.php

They aren’t costing us billions, of course. But they are wealthy people who don’t do anything, own a lot of land, and receive money from taxpayers simply for being born. I don’t think there’s a rational justification for that.

I just don’t buy that it is either parasitic or an anachronism. I do think the upcoming wedding is silly, but I also hate weddings in general. And no, I don’t kick puppies in my spare time.

I’ll be in Oxford this Friday. It will undoubtedly be packed full of the only two types of people in the world who love this stuff: Anglophile foreign students who like the pomp and nonsense but wouldn’t have it in their own country, and upper crust public school kids who are brought up to love it. I shall have to find some republicans to hang around, or I will be accused of puppy-kicking at some point.

But the monarchy certainly is parasitic, considering that their role is confined to one person but more than one person receives a stipend, and the role that the Queen has could be done by almost anyone. I have no problem with pomp, and while I personally find it a little pointless, I can see that pageantry is an important thing for a lot of people. However, giving positions on descent is wrong and irrational in the modern world. The USA manages to have a lot of ritual – in fact, I’d say it has a lot more than the UK, certainly at lower levels – without descent-based social structures. It’s the hereditary nature of it that I object to.

Since we’re paying money to people who are already rich and don’t do anything to earn that money

I guess I take the more anthropological view point that there is more to ceremony than playing dress-up. As someone who can’t be bothered to iron his shirt I personally find the curling the pinkie stuff risible, but the diplomatic functions are important in the extreme. And while I feel that the Royal Family is overpaid by British taxpayers in a way not dissimilar to American taxpayers’ underwriting (via tax breaks) of professional sports franchises, I also know that Elizabeth doesn’t own the Crown Jewels in the same sense that Art Modell owns the Ravens.

I don’t want to romanticize the Royal Family or take this thread off track. I just don’t buy that it is either parasitic or an anachronism. I do think the upcoming wedding is silly, but I also hate weddings in general. And no, I don’t kick puppies in my spare time.

As paradoxical as it may sound, eight years with George W. as my head of state lead me to develop a new respect for monarchs.

I see your point, but consider the following: George Bush did not get given millions of dollars/pounds in taxes for his personal use, and neither did his family. He may have used the system to give money to friends and family in tax breaks instead, but that’s quite a different thing. It’s certainly not mandated! Citizens of the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha realms pay a lot in taxes for the upkeep of people who, let us remind ourselves, do absolutely nothing. The Queen opens parliament; that is her major constitutional role, and it is entirely symbolic.

As for the division of head of state and head of government – I think that’s quite a good idea as well, except that I think both should be elected. France, Israel, &c – plenty of modern nations manage to do that. Hereditary monarchy is inherently anti-democratic, and it is predicated on the idea that some people are different from everyone else by dint of birth. That is not rational, and while it may be forever out of reach, I would like the system with control over social facts relevant to me to be as rational as possible. That isn’t a ridiculous notion.

Since we’re paying money to people who are already rich and don’t do anything to earn that money, but are simply born into it, I’d rather have a democratic system, even if that allowed for the occasional arseburger like Bush. The solution to problems like him isn’t structural, I don’t think, and abuses of the system happen over here too, including the fairly recent scandal over MP’s expenses.

[The royal wedding] allows the monarch and her relatives to believe that they have some kind of mandate for the continued existence of their institution

While etiquette in general makes me roll my eyes and I thus find things like this royal wedding beyond silly, I do think the citizens of the Commonwealth realms should think twice before bashing an institution that not only allows for the separation of the duties of their head of state and head of government but also for the individual filling it to accumulate knowledge, experience, and relationships through her or his years of service. As paradoxical as it may sound, eight years with George W. as my head of state lead me to develop a new respect for monarchs.

I’m more interested in what this ritual is about. It clearly isn’t the same as a wedding by a real monarch – one responsible for the fecundity of the realm. Sitting just a few miles away from Windsor, I don’t see any signs of what’s going on other than in the media. The insiders may think about it as some sort of a ritual of rejuvenation but for most loyal subjects it’s really just an excuse to get a day off work and no more a part of the rites of social cohesion than the latest soap on TV.

For those of us not laboring under a millennia of an oppressive class system, what’s not to like?

While I agree that a marriage like this is fascinating from the perspective of kinship studies (not often that you get to see a real European hypergamic marriage, is it?), I’m afraid that, as a republican living in a realm ruled by the house of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, I have to request that you refuse to endorse the royal wedding, whether by watching it on television or otherwise. It allows the monarch and her relatives to believe that they have some kind of mandate for the continued existence of their institution, for the continuation of an established church, and so on. It would be nice if one day, all Britons (/Australians/New Guineans/Canadians, etc) could aspire to the highest office in their nations, which would be democratically-elected, secular, and backed by a strong constitution, instead of being hereditary (cognatic), constitutionally-jumbled, and the head of an established church.

You know, the royal family can, if they wish, trace their ancestry back to Woden, as was the fashion for the earliest Anglo-Saxon monarchs. A seemingly-unbroken line of descent from a pagan god – not something they mention much, of course.

That aside, I should think the wedding will be rather dull. Protest will be restricted to the Mall, and I doubt anyone will be eating communally like they reportedly did for Charles and Di. As for symbolic action, try this one on for size: the Archbishop of Canterbury, second highest figure in the established church, will be seated on a row of other religious heads, next to a relatively-unknown rabbi, to give the impression of secularism.