Great to have stronger ties with India. Shame it’s still Modi, but I’m sure this will outlast him. Hopefully this doesn’t do effectively the same thing as the US trade deal does (I don’t think so at the outset!).

Good luck to the strikers!

lol, this conversation has gone a long way

You’re arguing the king is a non-entity, but a king is inevitable? Most people in most places throughout history have lived without one. If you want to look at “civilizations,” the Roman Republic and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy come to mind immediately.

And come on, are you serious? The King endorses genocide and imperialist looting by wearing “his” regalia. All the royal symbols are stolen from the people slaughtered by the monarchy. He could return all the symbols and keep all the wealth…would cost him nothing…good PR even! (I’d still say all of the wealth is stolen and should be given away to help people in the places his ancestors colonized…but luckily he’s saved me the trouble by showing he doesn’t care enough to even give up the symbols)

Mark Carney isn’t the right comparison. The office of Prime Minister is the right comparison to the monarchy, and it’s (at least theoretically) representative.

It’s not the family I care about, it’s the institution. This is like arguing that the KKK hasn’t lynched anyone lately…so can we really hold the institution responsible for the crimes of the people in its past? Like…it’s an institution. OF COURSE we can hold it responsible for the things it does. Every Windsor has the right and ability (and obligation) to abdicate. Children of KKK members also have the right and ability and obligation to leave the organization. I don’t think that’s really an appropriate comparison, the scale of the monarchy’s atrocities is beyond compare. I assume we don’t need to get into ennumerating the crimes of the monarchy, but if you don’t know that we’re talking about a 9-figure scale, we can talk about that more.

If the king abdicated I would applaud him. If he gave away every penny of the royal family’s wealth and then abdicated I’d bow before him, kiss his feet, beg the honor to host him in my home, if he was deprived I’d do my best to feed and house and clothe him myself. I’d be so proud of him, proud that a fellow human being should have that moral fortitude and courage. It’s not him or his bloodline that counts (except to the institution), it’s the institution that’s the problem. FWIW I’d gladly have Harry over for dinner, even though he’s done some half-assed-in-between thing. Good enough for me, given that he’s not the monarch. I don’t hate him because of his Windsor blood. Anyway the king would never do that, so whatever.

I’m not totally clear…you’re acting as if the king does have power, and provides some kind of a-political stability…but earlier you were saying he has no power? If you want him to have no power…why leave him with power? Just take it away. Make the Prime Minister a truly elected position, and have the prime minister actually appoint the Governor General…it’ll work the same as always, but we escape relying on norms, leaving a constitutional crisis sitting there like a chekov’s gun. I still really don’t understand how you don’t see that latent crisis as a problem. You seem to be saying it couldn’t possibly happen (it happened in australia, and again I don’t think we’d ever know the crown was involved if not for the palace letters) and if it’s not impossible it’s easy to handle (it wasn’t easy in australia - they literally just let the monarch dissolve their democratically elected parliament and appoint someone she liked as prime minister. There were massive protests but in the end everyone moved on…you’d say they were weak-willed I guess? Are we weak willed for not immediately pulling the plug upon seeing that?). PLUS we get to separate ourselves from one of the most horrifically murderous institutions in human history? PLUS 64% of Canadians want to abolish the monarchy so it’s inherently desirable? What’s not to love?

It would not take any work to remove the King…at least a lot less work than declaring a GST holiday or whatever. That takes real work. I can write the law right now: “the Queen of Canada is deemed to be a natural person that is not any existing natural person, and is deemed to exercise authority granted to her under statutes of Canada in accordance with a written request of the Prime Minister, published in the Canada Gazette” Boom, done! This would let all other laws in Canada work precisely as they already do, without amendment. The only thing that would change is who the prime minister addresses his “suggestions” to. I wouldn’t mind doing the same thing to the governor general, but that might be a bit more complicated in the handoff between prime ministers, so maybe we just leave it as-is. There is an existing proposal before the HOC that’s a bit more complicated, but whatever.

And look, I’m obviously not saying America is any better, the U.S. is a fascist hellscape despite not having a king, and despite having a relatively robust constitution (things are better here but I don’t think it’s because we don’t have a robust constitution). I’m not sure if you think I’m saying America is any better…

All I’m saying is, Canada would be better than it is.

And won’t that make you feel like a MAN!? HELL yeah!

In case anyone wants to see it: https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet 9/EFTA01211330.pdf

lol no way bro. There’s nothing more productive that an overengineered overpriced overpowered tool of destruction!

slaps roof of f-15 this baby here can fit so much omnicide in it.

As I said, I think the “jungle vs civilization” analogy is a little weird. I don’t think laws create civilization. But I do think laws matter for fascists. If they didn’t they wouldn’t need to pack the supreme court. Project 2025 wouldn’t be so focused on laws and the judiciary. They’re not meaningless…at the edge of the jungle? I guess? in this analogy?

So, when you talk about people being weak willed, you’re saying that a fascist coming to power is a kind of personal moral failing of the individuals in a society. I think that’s pretty absurd, and takes all responsibility away from the systems that shape people’s “willpower,” as well as their understanding of what is and is not overreach. If that’s true then there’s just nothing to be done? Just let the fascists have all the places with people who have weak wills? lol

Okay, so I don’t know why you will not engage with a hypothetical as a means of seeing the problem I’m talking about. Obviously the king isn’t going to upset the balance of power in the Commonwealth for his vacation home in quebec…if you can’t generalize that to something more important (such as, in Australia, the cold war), then there’s no point in talking about hypothetical situations…the point is to generalize from them. But that’s fine, it doesn’t really matter.

And for what it’s worth, his cushy life isn’t going anywhere whether the commonwealth crumbles or not. The king of england could cease to be the king of canada and it wouldn’t cost him anything (except, I guess, a vacation home in quebec he never uses). I’d be thrilled if the UK decides to guillotine them, but they won’t and I guess I have to make peace with that.

I’m not proposing replacing the king, I’m proposing kicking the king out. Just don’t have a king. If we must have a king, I would prefer to have a Canadian monarch and to stop legitimizing the genocidiers, looters, and pedophiles in the house of windsor…but I don’t see that we need a king. We could still just have a governor general appointed by the PM…make the system actually and definitely work the way you say it works (and I agree it works 99% of the time…but why the fuck are we leaving 1% on the table just to glorify those assholes? Like…we know it doesn’t work that way 100% of the time given the handful of examples I’ve shared).

Honestly though, why? Like…I haven’t seen you say anything in favor of having a king, or of having this king in particular?

But hey, on the plus side, that means US tax dollars will have to be spent replacing these planes and that will increase GDP!

I’m not sure I like this jungle analogy, but in the analogy, I guess my point is that some laws “expand” civilization and “shrink” the jungle. They reduce the accessibility of “lawlessness” on the part of the government. You’re right, they can always still get there, but they make the jungle further away, make it harder to get there.

It’s simply not true that we’d know if the GG was being influenced by the monarch. If the GG decided to use reserve powers (or consider using them and decide not to, like they did in 2008) we would have no way of knowing whether the King of England was behind it or not. And if your thought is “it doesn’t matter we’d remove any GG or LG that tries to use any power at all” you’re obviously incorrect about that :P

I’m not saying a law, like the proposed one to abolish the HRT, would be passed in secret. I’m saying the political pressure would be secret. Of course the law must be passed publicly, and you’d have all kinds of yelling on both sides about it. In the alternative, if parliament passed something and the GG refused to give royal assent, likewise that would be very public. The influence on the GG, however, would not be!

I would love to imagine that any constitutional crisis would be resolved immediately in favor of democracy and not on the basis of the underlying issue but I think that’s very hopeful. I’m not sure how to make it more clear…I could come up with more hypothetical situations to demonstrate where the king could exercise undemocratic influence, but I don’t know why that would help! I’ll try one more and then I’ll leave it if this doesn’t help explain what I’m talking about:

Let’s imagine a parliament with a thin liberal majority, but it’s expected to flip soon due to some unpopular decisions. Parliament narrowly passes a law that the residence at the Citadel of Quebec is going to become a public museum operated by the federal government. The Conservatives hate this because they consider it a waste of taxpayer dollars. The King privately opposes it because he quite likes having a vacation home in Quebec (and the GG actually uses it, so maybe she feels the same way). The GG doesn’t give royal assent, but says it’s for some technical deficiency, expecting an election to remove the issue…or alternatively simply says outright that the Conservatives are correct and the government can’t afford it…or somesuch mildly-plausible excuse that the milquetoast canadian middle class will accept (I only suppose the thin liberal majority in order to make this plausible excuse, but you could certainly imagine others if the liberal hold on parliament was strong). If the GG does not give royal assent…you think we’d go into a constitutional crisis? I don’t think anyone would think it’s worthwhile (which, of course, means that such a law wouldn’t pass…which is its own kind of influence being exercised passively by the Crown!).

Thanks for the interesting chat; i hope it’s nice for you. I am tearing my hair a little, but in a fun way.

By this logic, why have laws at all? Why not just have an absolute monarch and trust “the people will stand up” if power is misused? Laws aren’t magic, they’re often used to perpetuate awful things, but they do shape what people see as overreach. The reason cops who kill don’t get lynched is because people believe the legal system will eventually punish them.

I also don’t think the US being a republic makes no difference. Trump isn’t a king, and has struggled to get this far. He’s faced injunctions that actually stopped some harms. In Canada, it would be 100x easier. Parliament can just say “notwithstanding the Charter” and ignore all rights, and courts could not stop it (unlike in the US, where they could, but SCOTUS won’t because it’s been packed with lunatics).

One interesting proposal related to your ideas from constitutional scholars about how to do away with the relationship to the british royal family (looters, genociders, and pedophiles that they are) is to simply deem the King of Canada to be an individual…effectively making the King a fictional entity. That would actually make sure he has no power, eh?

I see your point that “if we all agree he has no power, any exercise will clearly be a problem” … except the monarchy is in constant contact with the governor general. You won’t know why the GG makes her choices. The monarchy has vast “reserve” powers (which as the name implies, are generally kept in reserve…like a Chekov’s gun). Australia’s governor-general dismissed their PM in 1975 using those powers. In Canada, the last clear example of undemocratic BS was 1961 when the LG of Saskatchewan refused consent to a passed law. But we have a perfect example in 2008: do you think the GG didn’t check with her boss about proroguing to save a minority PM from a no-confidence vote? That was a real exercise of real power by an appointee of the crown.

Or consider this situation: https://donshafer1.substack.com/p/the-day-37-british-columbia-mlas . Imagine the King has business interests in BC and would benefit from this financially. He calls the GG, who calls the LG of BC to say “get this moving.” If the LG (or GG) went public, she’d lose her job. So she’d quietly do it. And if it leaked? Conservatives would say “we must stay connected to the crown…tradition!.. and who wants these human rights laws anyway?” Plenty of Liberals would fold too, saying “well, technically, the king actually does have the right to pick whoever he wants, and we shouldn’t shake things up too much…maybe we could just get the king to agree to take it back and appoint her again? no? maybe another lady…an indigenous one? no? how about a white lesbian, would that do? okay, perfect, we’ll call that a win!”

Your grandfather was very brave ❤️ It’s sad that ordinary people are sometimes forced to choose between bravery and monstrosity. But there it is.

And frankly, us military members are not forced. They can just…have a normal life instead.

The grocery’s job doesn’t rely upon the imperial pillaging of other places to make economic sense. “Non combat roles” in the military do. The military doctor’s job is to get the boys back out doing more slaughter. That’s the point. If they didn’t do that they wouldn’t be doing their job. Other doctors, that’s not the point…it could be some distant effect, sure, but for a military doctor it’s direct. Other doctors see patients who are not involved in imperialist slaughter of innocents. Military doctors do not.

This is like Von Braun saying “I was only an SS officer developing military weapons for the science! I wasn’t like…info it, you know, you can’t hold it against me.” Accountants for the Nazis should have quit, and it’s okay to say they’re awful people and complicit in the holocost. Anyone who works for the US military is complicit in the imperialist crimes of that organization. I’m sorry if that’s you or people you love. If it is, you should do something about it.

I think he’s not a moron, and so he doesn’t actually think it’s good for the US to attack Iran. Of course it’s measured, he wouldn’t say “rah rah, go trump go” if he didn’t think he should. But he thinks he should because of cowardice.

Yeah this is my thought too…like if you’re so scared that you can’t say what you think is right, fine…but keep your damn trap shut and quit licking boots.

I think I must not be making my point clearly.

You say “if the king oversteps” and my point about law and norms and all that is that they shape perception about whether a particular thing is overstepping. Lawyers don’t usually protect us from tyranny, lawyers usually enforce tyranny; it’s just the kind of tyranny that is commonly accepted. And that acceptance matters…because people think it does, sure.

I think you have a very idealistic understanding of what we call democracy these days…if a 60/40 split happened like I talked about earlier came up, you think there would be mass mobilization? You think Canadians have stronger political convictions than folks in the US? I dont…Canadians seem to love to not care about Canadian politics…disinterest in politics seems to be a point of pride to differentiate themselves from those annoying Americans. And it’s way worse than 60/40 there and just look at the place. It’s a mess.

You say you think the king should have no power and everyone knows it but the commander in chief of your military is a direct personal appointee who serves at their pleasure.

A crisis doesn’t occur without a context…it would be about something, and certainly something that one side thinks it can win on. I think you imagine any constitutional crisis would be immediately and unanimously handled in a democratic manner by everyone involved, no matter their interest in the underlying matter that lead to the crisis…we’d just all be on-side and do the right thing…I think that is extraordinarily naive!

So much for his Davos speech, eh?

Tragic =(

Why?

I know the article is ringing the alarm bell, but I just gotta say I hate the way folks use the phrase “few bad apples” these days. It’s a shortening of the saying “a few bad apples spoil the bunch” meaning even if it was “just a few bad apples” we still ought to fire everyone and start again lol

Great article. Not sure it belongs on this community but whatever