[Pants-of-dog]

Elizabeth was the head of state during most of the Malayan Emergency, an anti-colonial uprising in Malaysia. During her reign, UK forces killed civilians, destroyed livestock and crops, and herded innocents into concentration camps.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayan_Emergency

[Tainari88]

What a stupid thing to say. Of course the news of the queen’s death has superseded discussion of rising energy prices for the time being.




It is. That should be obvious.

But it won’t be for long. That, too, should be obvious.

I find Tainari’s attitude mind boggling. For someone who is too ashamed of her own country to tell us what it is, she’s certainly obsessed with mine. Always has been. Why? Jealousy. It’s all I can think of.

She’s never even visited and has culled all her information from bloggers and Twitter judging by her posts, which are very ill informed.

Condolences have been pouring in from all over the world and queens death is front page news in virtually every country.
Get used to it. Or try to ignore it.

Snapdragon, the reality is you never bothered to read the tons of threads and posts I have done on Puerto Rico in this forum. There are a lot. Hurricane Maria being one of them. Almost anyone who is a regular poster on here would not say what you say about me. I never denied being Puerto Rican out of being ashamed of who I am. Why should I? I want an independent country and have written extensively about Puerto Rican politics on here.

That you stated that I should feel ashamed is another indication of your ignorance. I don't hide a damn thing. I say in my profile. I am Puerto Rican. I am also a great lover of history and studying history. Including many nations and not just my own. That is what everyone should do. Part of being some Empire is the luxury of being provincial. Only worried about what your part of the world is doing. People pay attention to the USA because it is a world power. I spent many years not only studying the world powers but tiny nations and small nations.

You learn a lot about the world dealing with world powers and small nations with small populations. Be balanced. Not ignorant. That is my advice to you.

The Jamaicans protested the royal visit. Why? The Queen has not done much to alleviate poverty in Jamaica. I speak with people from Belize and worked with them a lot. They don't like the British either. The people in Belize live in poverty as well. If you take over their land and make them part of the commonwealth but only allow people who live in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to have unemployment insurance, free health care, free government funded schools and all the benefits of a welfare state that has the majority of British citizens paying taxes and a criminal justice system with labor standards like minimum wage laws, but then turn around and allow the commonwealth nations like Jamaica to not have anything. Belize to work for one pound an hour at jobs? What does that say about British benevolence?

I have never been ashamed of being Puerto Rican Snapdragon. You might want me to be ashamed. But the reality is that deep down inside you don't know jack shit about most nations and don't care. And believe a bunch of crap about the legitimacy of class systems.

They mostly are extremely damaging to the people who are forced to be subservient to other classes. They exist all over the world. The untouchables in India, the working class people in the UK and the peasants in the UK who don't own land or property and are always on the dole, etc. The Indian and Natives of Austraila, Nigeria and many other nations who are relegated to people who no one respects.

I am proud to be my mother's daughter. My mother was a great woman. She had many accomplishments. And she taught me to never respect people trying to instill shame in who I am as a Puerto Rican. They tried to do that to her in New York City and they failed. She became a leader and a fine world human rights advocate.

I see through your facade Snapdragon. You are truly ignorant in your comments. You know you are. So you try to deflect with lies about me. The people who have read me for years know that you are wrong and invalid in your accusations.

Ness31 does not know me at all. Many don't. But many do know me. And the ones that do know that being ashamed of being Puerto Rican is not what I have ever been. Not once in all the years I have been on here. That is the truth.

[Godstud]

@Pants-of-dog The Queen was not the Prime Minister, who makes the political decisions for the state. She's no more responsible for the Malayan Emergency as she is for indigenous abuses by the Canadian and Australian governments. You're just looking for a scape-goat.

[Pants-of-dog]

If the argument is that she was merely a symbol and had no power, note that she (as a symbol) did nothing to prevent these atrocities and did everything to support them.

[snapdragon]

I apologise, tainari, if you have explained you are Puerto Rican and you’re quite right I dont read your posts much as I don’t have time and they’re usually nothing to do with me.

When asked your nationality in this particular topic, you refused to clarify.

I do read the posts that are of interest to me, however, and you criticise the U.K. a lot, despite knowing very little about the country.

In fact you started this very topic just to have a rant based on a lot of nonsense

It’s quite easy to find out these things.

If Jamaica wishes to be an independent country, then there are steps that must be taken. The monarchy cannot interfere in any way.

Good luck with your wish to make Puerto Rico independent from the USA. I don’t know how popular that is with the people who actually live there, but it’s nothing to do with the U.K. and nothing to do with me personally.

[snapdragon]

If the argument is that she was merely a symbol and had no power, note that she (as a symbol) did nothing to prevent these atrocities and did everything to support them.

.

The queen could never do or say anything that was wholly a government matter.
That hasn’t changed.

How many more times, POD?

Jamaica, for example, is seeking reparations from the British government and wanted to get the queen involved, which she had no constitutional right to do.

The monarch cannot get involved in government matters.

[Tainari88]

I apologise, tainari, if you have explained you are Puerto Rican and you’re quite right I dont read your posts much as I don’t have time and they’re usually nothing to do with me.

When asked your nationality in this particular topic, you refused to clarify.

I do read the posts that are of interest to me, however, and you criticise the U.K. a lot, despite knowing very little about the country.

In fact you started this very topic just to have a rant based on a lot of nonsense

It’s quite easy to find out these things.

If Jamaica wishes to be an independent country, then there are steps that must be taken. The monarchy cannot interfere in any way.

Good luck with your wish to make Puerto Rico independent from the USA. I don’t know how popular that is with the people who actually live there, but it’s nothing to do with the U.K. and nothing to do with me personally.

No, Snapdragon this forum is for international politics. Not for people who are from another nationality and should only relegate themselves to their neck of the woods. If that were true most of the people commenting on the USA consistently on here should never comment.

You got a nasty habit of covering your lack of interest in many things with ´mind your own business´sentences. That is not an argument at all. It is intolerance for basic criticism. I don't write on here to get along with people. I write here to argue valid points on topics.

I don't care about people who argue without being truthful. You make up shit as you go along. That is horrible. And incredibly damaging to yourself. It does not matter what point of view politically you endorse. Do it from a place of effort, knowledge and reading. Not from lies. Lying to cover up your lack of effort does no one any service in debate. It tears down your credibility.

I do comment about the UK. I comment about a lot of nations and their politics. The simple reason is if you are interested in international politics then you should be interested in many nationalities, ethnicities and peoples.

If you study human behavior and human beings you should study all the cultures humans have. There are over 200 countries in the world. It helps to learn about their lives and their geography and everything else. For no other reason than to figure out what makes human beings human beings.

My son the 11 year old had to pick a nation to study. He had to do research on that nation. He picked Vietnam. I did not suggest a thing to him. He went and researched. Vietnam has about 98 million plus people. It is ancient place. The land looks like an S. It is tropical and sub tropical. I recognize a lot of the traditional food ingredients. Because I also grew up in the tropics. The nation of Vietnam grows a lot of coffee due to the French introducing it. They won a war against France. They won a war against the United States. They reformed their economy and are on track to be according to sources similar to first world conditions by 2050. One more generation. After a destroyed nation in 1975.

Their national anthem is about sticking it out and resisting until the end. Talking about a path to freedom built on human corpses of their enemies. The ones trying to take over their land and make them slaves in their own land. That is all about colonialism Snapdragon.

Did I know they had 98 million people? No. They have more people in that old Asian nation than they do in the UK. Yet who knows the details really? Not in this type of place. People should start studying Asia closely. It is an interesting part of the world with a very old history.

Don't get stuck in your own head and in your own country's history. You never grow in knowledge. My son grows in knowledge. That is very important.

Being stuck in British only stuff is not what international politics should be about snapdragon.

[Drlee]

If the argument is that she was merely a symbol and had no power, note that she (as a symbol) did nothing to prevent these atrocities and did everything to support them.

Sometimes the answer to an idiotic and/or ignorant post is just:

BULLSHIT!

[Pants-of-dog]

If anyone wishes to disprove my claim that QE2 was head of state during such atrocities as the Mau Mau Rebeliion, and that she did nothing to prevent these human rights abuses or otherwise hold people accountable, they need only provide a quote of her criticising any of these things.

[ness31]

Yeah, I’m a bit pissed off this became the dominant thread too. But that’s democracy for you.

Leave it be Snapdragon. It can’t be expected that everyone mourn the Queens passing. I’m sure even the Queen understood that

[ness31]

Philip was right about Anne and Charles though, they were born into the wrong bodies! Charles shows up to the Vigil wearing a skirt and Anne’s in full regalia with some lovely tailored pants. Who says the Monarchy isn’t keeping up with the times?

[Fasces]

lol, you’ve certainly simplified it Fasces

What’s all that woke shit about peoples “lived experiences” etc?

Don't understand why you're all complicating it. You think any of this family give a fuck about whether or not you mourn them? They're a bunch of racist inbred classist asshats, and there's nothing we can do because they have a critical mass of supporters for some reason. Lizzie won't die upset that some of us spit on her grave, she'll go down smiling.

[Fasces]

If the argument is that she was merely a symbol and had no power, note that she (as a symbol) did nothing to prevent these atrocities and did everything to support them.

It's not even that. She, according to Godstud, is a useful and important and key part of the British political system, a structural keystone necessary for British democracy... but at the same time has zero blood on her hands from the state she's integral in upholding.

She should have threatened to abdicate or, better yet, use her powers, which she does have (doesn't exercise is not the same as does not have, and if the British abolished her position in response to her using them, then that makes her point all the better) to formally apologize and make amends for the British Empire. The very least she could have done is close the British Museum and return the stolen artifacts. If the bimbo is just a symbolic head of state, that act has plenty of symbolism for her.

[Godstud]

If the argument is that she was merely a symbol and had no power, note that she (as a symbol) did nothing to prevent these atrocities and did everything to support them.

The Queen's responsibility is to preserve the Democracy and not make state decisions. This applies to CANADA, as well. I find it hard to believe that you don't even understand the basics of a Constitutional Monarchy. no, she's not responsible for an atrocity any more than your father was responsible for it.

@Fasces, The Queen's job is to maintain a Democracy and not make state decisions. You, in this regard, are (to put it imply) WRONG, and your pissant posting is this thread is crude, at best.

[Fasces]

The Queen has the constitutional power to dismiss governments, and call elections. She has the constitutional authority as the head of the British Armed forces to refuse to deploy abroad to participate in neo-colonial enterprises such as the invasion of Iraq or Libya. The monarch retains, to this day, full executive authority over the British state.

Would they lose their powers in an instant if they tried? Sure.

But they're not trying - they're happy to be complicit in a bloody system, a system committing atrocities during the reign of Queen Elizabeth (Bengali Famine, the 1953 Iran coup, the Mau Mau incident, child deportation, and countless others - when did the Queen ever do a thing? Where's the Christmas speech denouncing the policies of Her Majesty's Government? She had plenty of influence when it came to protecting Prince Andrew from prosecution for pedophilia yet none when it comes to giving justice to victims of the British empire in Kenya?

I'm not saying she's even the most guilty of these crimes within the British state, but she's not just some Corgi-breeding grandma, boohoo, so sad.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

She did nothing. Its fair to criticize her.

Now... if you want an impartial head of state that can mediate between branches of government? There's plenty of Presidents out there playing that role - hell, I love the Irish guy. I don't need some archaic classist system of German aristocrat pedophiles pretending they're anointed by God wondering whether the royal baby will be too black and, worst of all, which exist literally above the law, to play it.

[Unthinking Majority]

I don't understand what the role of the Queen/King is.

Head of state. I believe the POTUS is both head of government and head of state.

[Unthinking Majority]

The Queen has the constitutional power to dismiss governments, and call elections. She has the constitutional authority as the head of the British Armed forces to refuse to deploy abroad to participate in neo-colonial enterprises such as the invasion of Iraq or Libya. The monarch retains, to this day, full executive authority over the British state.

The monarch doesn't have that constitutional power, by common law. Dismissing elections and calling elections is done on the advice of Parliament, not by the whims of the Queen.

She did nothing. Its fair to criticize her.

A head of state's job is to do virtually nothing. It's a ceremonial role mostly.

[Unthinking Majority]

Indigenous people disagree.

She was one of the architects of current colonialism, and one of its main beneficiaries. She was also quite aware of the problems facing Indigenous people and did nothing about them despite her position.

While many Indigenous people mourn her death, many other Indigenous people around the world (not just in Canada) are celebrating.

Architects? She has no political power whatsoever. She's a rubber stamp. The monarchy can't interfere in political matters, it would be a constitutional crisis. They are apolitical.

[Unthinking Majority]

If the argument is that she was merely a symbol and had no power, note that she (as a symbol) did nothing to prevent these atrocities and did everything to support them.

The Queen has a ceremonial role in government, as the head of state. They must remain politically neutral. They aren't allowed to speak out about anything political, or strike down laws by a democratically elected government. Charles is getting out of all his charities because he has to remain without any appearance of conflict of interest.

[Fasces]

The monarch doesn't have that constitutional power, by common law. Dismissing elections and calling elections is done on the advice of Parliament, not by the whims of the Queen.

She has the powers. It is by custom that she chooses to not use them - this is not the same as not having them.

She's a rubber stamp. The monarchy can't interfere in political matters, it would be a constitutional crisis.

Which is something you admit perfectly well here - why would it be a constitutional crisis? Because she has these powers, on paper, that it is customary/expected for her not to use, but which are still, legally, hers.

I fully expect that Parliament would pass laws removing these powers entirely if anyone attempted to use them, and I doubt an effort to use them would be seen as legitimate. Nonetheless, government policies are within the UK monarch's role of influence. The UK monarch has a bully pulpit and can be a powerful advocate.

Lizzie was silent, and complicit. She's a cute old woman and I love her corgies, but the offense some here take to not everyone liking her and not falling over themselves to be nice is weird.

A head of state's job is to do virtually nothing. It's a ceremonial role mostly.

Then nothing is lost through its abolition - except maybe monarchs not using $12,000,000 in taxpayer funds to bail out their pedophile children.

All monarchies should be abolished, mind - I'm not particularly against the British monarchy. The Spanish Borbouns can head on out too. Hereditary, aristocratic monarchy is bad on principle. People are fundamentally equal, no one's blood is special, and fuck the divine right of kings.