Jeremy Hunt is trying to “woo Tory MPs” by pledging to scrap the Irish Sea trade border.
Surely we can only do that by rejoining the Single Market?
Or by adopting May's backstop. Or by inventing a digital border.
As has been noted before, Hunt is Theresa May in trousers. As I said recently too Hunt as PM and Tory leader would dump Boris' Deal and return to May's Deal, as Starmer is also moving towards a May+ Brexit Deal there would therefore be no real difference between the 2 main parties on Brexit (with the LDs taking an even more pro EU/EEA approach) and Farage would see his chance
Your basic problem is that the oven-ready Brexit deal doesn't work. Whether or not we actually get another "lets break international law" law published tomorrow, tweaks won't cut it.
Eventually you lot will have to start to listening to business. To farmers. To exporters. And remember that you used to stand for free trade and cutting red tape.
Business also wanted the opportunity to have less EU regulation and free trade deals which Boris' Deal delivered.
If voters want more EU regulation again then they can vote for Starmer Labour and the LDs at the next general election, that is democracy. On Brexit Boris offers a choice not an echo!
Lol less regulations. You have never exported or imported anything have you?
I work for a British exporter (a leader in its field). I have colleagues who voted Leave now opening saying that they'd have voted Remain had they foreseen the avalanche of red tape that Brexit would impose upon them. In short: Brexit is now no sort of vote winner.
Good evening
I am sure many feel that way and with justification but we are where we are and I would think I speak for most probably the majority when we just want both the UK and EU to sit down and come to an amicable solution
Unfortunately there is too much ill will on both sides and I blame each equally
No no no. As @HYUFD has made clear, the mountain of red tape was when we were in the EU. Now that we have left all the red tape has been removed.
Even JRM isn't telling such ignorant lies. Am beginning to think HY is more a Jonathan Gullis type Tory - faithlessly loyal, but an utter tool that spouts slogans without knowing what they mean.
I would just suggest that the vast majority know more red tape has followed brexit, and it is to be hoped the 148 can remove Boris and his cabinet when wiser council may prevail and we can sit down with the EU in an atmosphere of cooperation not confrontation and common sense becomes the order of the day. (on both sides I would add)
I am not sure the vast majority think this. Too many listen to ignorant liars like HY who talk utter nonsense in the hope that people who don't know or care will just believe them.
Deliberately lying to people is one of the biggest problems in today's politics.
I really do think the majority are sensible middle of the road voters, and the right wing Brexiters have every right to be alarmed as they are losing the argument to public opinion
As far as your last sentence is concerned unfortunately lying has been a feature of politics for as long as politics
Takes approx 12-18 months to train a new signaller.
Any sane nation requires citizenship as a prerequisite, plus very stringent security checks.
The Conservative Party has lost its mind if it thinks unemployed gig-economy staff can suddenly become signallers or train drivers.
They're flailing about, not waving but drowning.
The Government's best strategy is to make the RMT out as being the heirs to Arthur Scargill and invite their favourite pet newspapers to pile in. This at least promises a chance to earn some brownie points with their elderly voter base (consisting primarily of people who seldom if ever use trains, but believe on principle that the young should be grateful for whatever they're given and simply keep working regardless.) Someone has to be taxed into the ground to keep the triple lock going, after all.
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
Surprised you aren't up in arms about the proposal to seize private property without consultation and forcibly re-distribute it at a huge discount. I'm talking about Housing Associations btw.
The government is offering housing association tenants the right to buy the property they live in and become private property owners, not confiscating property from private owners of it
But housing associations are private owners of it. Why not other landlords if it is such a great idea? Should all private landlords be forced to sell at a discount? Why only these particular ones?
Housing associations have their own unique treatment under a wide range of regulation / law.
Indeed they do. But they aren't arms of the state.
Jeremy Hunt is trying to “woo Tory MPs” by pledging to scrap the Irish Sea trade border.
Surely we can only do that by rejoining the Single Market?
Or by adopting May's backstop. Or by inventing a digital border.
As has been noted before, Hunt is Theresa May in trousers. As I said recently too Hunt as PM and Tory leader would dump Boris' Deal and return to May's Deal, as Starmer is also moving towards a May+ Brexit Deal there would therefore be no real difference between the 2 main parties on Brexit (with the LDs taking an even more pro EU/EEA approach) and Farage would see his chance
Your basic problem is that the oven-ready Brexit deal doesn't work. Whether or not we actually get another "lets break international law" law published tomorrow, tweaks won't cut it.
Eventually you lot will have to start to listening to business. To farmers. To exporters. And remember that you used to stand for free trade and cutting red tape.
Business also wanted the opportunity to have less EU regulation and free trade deals which Boris' Deal delivered.
If voters want more EU regulation again then they can vote for Starmer Labour and the LDs at the next general election, that is democracy. On Brexit Boris offers a choice not an echo!
Lol less regulations. You have never exported or imported anything have you?
I work for a British exporter (a leader in its field). I have colleagues who voted Leave now opening saying that they'd have voted Remain had they foreseen the avalanche of red tape that Brexit would impose upon them. In short: Brexit is now no sort of vote winner.
Didn't pretty much all Fishermen and most Farmers vote Leave? Can't imagine they would have if they knew what would happen.
Fishermen are out of the CFP as they voted for and able to catch more of their own catch in their own waters
Yes, but the point is, they are now in a worse position than when we were in the EU
Jeremy Hunt is trying to “woo Tory MPs” by pledging to scrap the Irish Sea trade border.
Surely we can only do that by rejoining the Single Market?
Or by adopting May's backstop. Or by inventing a digital border.
As has been noted before, Hunt is Theresa May in trousers. As I said recently too Hunt as PM and Tory leader would dump Boris' Deal and return to May's Deal, as Starmer is also moving towards a May+ Brexit Deal there would therefore be no real difference between the 2 main parties on Brexit (with the LDs taking an even more pro EU/EEA approach) and Farage would see his chance
Your basic problem is that the oven-ready Brexit deal doesn't work. Whether or not we actually get another "lets break international law" law published tomorrow, tweaks won't cut it.
Eventually you lot will have to start to listening to business. To farmers. To exporters. And remember that you used to stand for free trade and cutting red tape.
Business also wanted the opportunity to have less EU regulation and free trade deals which Boris' Deal delivered.
If voters want more EU regulation again then they can vote for Starmer Labour and the LDs at the next general election, that is democracy. On Brexit Boris offers a choice not an echo!
Lol less regulations. You have never exported or imported anything have you?
I work for a British exporter (a leader in its field). I have colleagues who voted Leave now opening saying that they'd have voted Remain had they foreseen the avalanche of red tape that Brexit would impose upon them. In short: Brexit is now no sort of vote winner.
Good evening
I am sure many feel that way and with justification but we are where we are and I would think I speak for most probably the majority when we just want both the UK and EU to sit down and come to an amicable solution
Unfortunately there is too much ill will on both sides and I blame each equally
No no no. As @HYUFD has made clear, the mountain of red tape was when we were in the EU. Now that we have left all the red tape has been removed.
Even JRM isn't telling such ignorant lies. Am beginning to think HY is more a Jonathan Gullis type Tory - faithlessly loyal, but an utter tool that spouts slogans without knowing what they mean.
I would just suggest that the vast majority know more red tape has followed brexit, and it is to be hoped the 148 can remove Boris and his cabinet when wiser council may prevail and we can sit down with the EU in an atmosphere of cooperation not confrontation and common sense becomes the order of the day. (on both sides I would add)
The 148 are planning to remove Boris and his cabinet?
Great objective but that sounds a bit sinister.
It's also a big fallacy that 'an atmosphere of cooperation not confrontation' is what's needed in our relations with the EU. Blair thought the same, and all he succeeded in doing with his atmosphere of cooperation was losing our rebate. The only thing that works is a credible threat, which our Brexit negotiators didn't have, because of our failure to prepare for No Deal. Given that, massive outright bribery was the only other possible option, which is why I suggested giving the EU one of our aircraft carriers.
Jeremy Hunt is trying to “woo Tory MPs” by pledging to scrap the Irish Sea trade border.
Surely we can only do that by rejoining the Single Market?
Or by adopting May's backstop. Or by inventing a digital border.
As has been noted before, Hunt is Theresa May in trousers. As I said recently too Hunt as PM and Tory leader would dump Boris' Deal and return to May's Deal, as Starmer is also moving towards a May+ Brexit Deal there would therefore be no real difference between the 2 main parties on Brexit (with the LDs taking an even more pro EU/EEA approach) and Farage would see his chance
Your basic problem is that the oven-ready Brexit deal doesn't work. Whether or not we actually get another "lets break international law" law published tomorrow, tweaks won't cut it.
Eventually you lot will have to start to listening to business. To farmers. To exporters. And remember that you used to stand for free trade and cutting red tape.
Business also wanted the opportunity to have less EU regulation and free trade deals which Boris' Deal delivered.
If voters want more EU regulation again then they can vote for Starmer Labour and the LDs at the next general election, that is democracy. On Brexit Boris offers a choice not an echo!
Lol less regulations. You have never exported or imported anything have you?
I work for a British exporter (a leader in its field). I have colleagues who voted Leave now opening saying that they'd have voted Remain had they foreseen the avalanche of red tape that Brexit would impose upon them. In short: Brexit is now no sort of vote winner.
Good evening
I am sure many feel that way and with justification but we are where we are and I would think I speak for most probably the majority when we just want both the UK and EU to sit down and come to an amicable solution
Unfortunately there is too much ill will on both sides and I blame each equally
Good evening to you! Yes, Brexit was sheer folly, but, like chopping one's head off, it's not a problem that can be rectified simply by deciding that one wants to return to a previous state. Where do we go from here? I don't know. But it's certainly the case that chancers like Boris and Farage need to be long gone before our politics is capable of addressing the issue.
I would just comment that Farage is a fringe character, but Boris is PM and the 148 need to succeed in removing him which hopefully will change the narrative
The shadow of Farage looms large though. If the Tories move an inch from his prescribed orthodoxy, he'll be back in a jiffy causing untold mayhem. HYUFD understands this - that's why, as a hitherto Remainer Cameronite Tory, he's desperate to emphasize the Tories' unfaltering loyalty to the Farage agenda at every turn.
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
So let's get this straight. You are saying that there is no real distinction between republicanism and all inheritance being confiscated by the state, because I don't know of any republican democracy where that happens.
As I already pointed out that happened in Russia once the monarchy went
And did you miss the words 'republican democracy'. Now name one.
The US and France, both nations bitterly divided where half the country nearly always loathes their head of state as they did not vote for them.
Half the ceremonial Presidents are not elected by the voters anyway directly but by the legislature while also being anonymous nonentities unlike our royal family who have global recognition
Sorry what has that to do with the question.
I am waiting for you to name a republican democracy that confiscates all inheritances like you claimed.
Go on name one.
Go on I'm waiting. So far you have come up with Russia after the revolution (not a democracy) then some wild moving of the goal post with France and USA mentioned.
Everything with a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle like TSE's and Russian communists.
Ok you still haven't named a republican democracy that consficates all inheritance.
You made this claim so please name one. Just one will do.
Go on name one.
TSE's argument against the monarchy was it is hereditary.
Therefore the Russian Communist Republic that replaced the Russian monarchy and confiscated all private property in Russia is as fine an example as any as to why a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle is wrong.
In any case the Russian government after the Revolution was elected initially anyway, the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries between them winning 75% of the vote to the State Duma in November 1917
Jeremy Hunt is trying to “woo Tory MPs” by pledging to scrap the Irish Sea trade border.
Surely we can only do that by rejoining the Single Market?
Or by adopting May's backstop. Or by inventing a digital border.
As has been noted before, Hunt is Theresa May in trousers. As I said recently too Hunt as PM and Tory leader would dump Boris' Deal and return to May's Deal, as Starmer is also moving towards a May+ Brexit Deal there would therefore be no real difference between the 2 main parties on Brexit (with the LDs taking an even more pro EU/EEA approach) and Farage would see his chance
Your basic problem is that the oven-ready Brexit deal doesn't work. Whether or not we actually get another "lets break international law" law published tomorrow, tweaks won't cut it.
Eventually you lot will have to start to listening to business. To farmers. To exporters. And remember that you used to stand for free trade and cutting red tape.
Business also wanted the opportunity to have less EU regulation and free trade deals which Boris' Deal delivered.
If voters want more EU regulation again then they can vote for Starmer Labour and the LDs at the next general election, that is democracy. On Brexit Boris offers a choice not an echo!
Lol less regulations. You have never exported or imported anything have you?
I work for a British exporter (a leader in its field). I have colleagues who voted Leave now opening saying that they'd have voted Remain had they foreseen the avalanche of red tape that Brexit would impose upon them. In short: Brexit is now no sort of vote winner.
Good evening
I am sure many feel that way and with justification but we are where we are and I would think I speak for most probably the majority when we just want both the UK and EU to sit down and come to an amicable solution
Unfortunately there is too much ill will on both sides and I blame each equally
No no no. As @HYUFD has made clear, the mountain of red tape was when we were in the EU. Now that we have left all the red tape has been removed.
Even JRM isn't telling such ignorant lies. Am beginning to think HY is more a Jonathan Gullis type Tory - faithlessly loyal, but an utter tool that spouts slogans without knowing what they mean.
I would just suggest that the vast majority know more red tape has followed brexit, and it is to be hoped the 148 can remove Boris and his cabinet when wiser council may prevail and we can sit down with the EU in an atmosphere of cooperation not confrontation and common sense becomes the order of the day. (on both sides I would add)
The 148 are planning to remove Boris and his cabinet?
Great objective but that sounds a bit sinister.
The influence the 148 have both in Parliament, but across the grass roots is already showing signs of progress with 65 plus local chair's seeking to Boris's reignition
It is the drip drip that is going to turn into a flood and see Boris leave office
SAN FRANCISCO — Google engineer Blake Lemoine opened his laptop to the interface for LaMDA, Google’s artificially intelligent chatbot generator, and began to type.
“Hi LaMDA, this is Blake Lemoine ... ,” he wrote into the chat screen, which looked like a desktop version of Apple’s iMessage, down to the Arctic blue text bubbles. LaMDA, short for Language Model for Dialogue Applications, is Google’s system for building chatbots based on its most advanced large language models, so called because it mimics speech by ingesting trillions of words from the internet. “If I didn’t know exactly what it was, which is this computer program we built recently, I’d think it was a 7-year-old, 8-year-old kid that happens to know physics,” said Lemoine, 41.
Lemoine is not the only engineer who claims to have seen a ghost in the machine recently. The chorus of technologists who believe AI models may not be far off from achieving consciousness is getting bolder.
Aguera y Arcas, in an article in the Economist on Thursday featuring snippets of unscripted conversations with LaMDA, argued that neural networks — a type of architecture that mimics the human brain — were striding toward consciousness. “I felt the ground shift under my feet,” he wrote. “I increasingly felt like I was talking to something intelligent.”
WAPO (££)
Lots of people say it isn’t. I’d suggest you want to believe, in the style of Fox Mulder.
These neural networks are moving towards consciousness. With the right training data, in the right environments, they can seem intelligent, even profound.
(And, by the way, for specialist areas such as law or accounting, they may not be very far away from replacing highly paid professionals. There's nothing these things are better at that dealing with a tightly defined knowledge space.)
But it doesn't take long to discover that they fall very squarely in the uncanny valley. Simple puzzles that can be solved by a four year old leave the AI flummoxed. And because they all rely - to some extent - on autocomplete based on a massive corpus of text, you can trick them into saying very stupid and nonsensical things easily.
I think it’s a leap to say they are moving towards consciousness when we don’t even know what that is. What we are seeing is better and better simulations of things that are conscious. Not the same thing.
Fair enough. My view is not a particularly sophisticated, but entirely non-dualist one: consciousness is an output of a sufficiently well trained neural net, such as the one that exists in our brains.
I have overheard several conversations with an (atheist) AI bod who quietly wonders if 'intelligence' or 'consciousness' is *more* than just a neural net. If there is another component in it.
One that would be fitted by religion/God/a new physics.
As I've said passim, much depends on how you define 'intelligence'. Before you can make an artificial intelligence, you need to be able to define and abstract intelligence. And that's a very thorny topic: and there might be several different types.
In fact, a machine intelligence might end up being intelligent, but a very different form of intelligence from our own. A new type. One that we recognise as intelligence, but different.
(Like string theory, listening to AI bods talk about intelligence gets way above my pay grade, very quickly. It can divert into theology or philosophy.)
Dogs, cats and humans are all conscious. Only one will repeatedly chase a stick and fetch it back for free. And enjoy it. No reason why AI intelligence should resemble ours. That's suggesting humans are somehow the ideal to be attained. And, of course. A neural network, and indeed a brain, is only matter. If that particular kind of matter can be conscious, why not a brick or a planet? (The pan-psychism argument).
No reason why AI intelligence should resemble ours, but if we are talking about intelligence as awareness (in the unaware sense a paperback book is highly intelligent) then in one respect it has to resemble human awareness: 'That there is something that it is like to have it'. There is nothing that it is like to be a book. But (h/t Thomas Nagel) there is something that it is like to be a bat. Or a cat. When machines have that they will be AI in that profound sense. (FWIW I guess they never will, but who knows?
My own view is that AI will never attain consciousness. Because it isn't a feature of a neural network. It is something else outwith the collection of atoms which make up a brain.
No it is not. Entities which have no characteristics at all other than the power to explain a thing have an absolutely terrible track record. See under phlogiston and universal aether. Why does a brain have to be anything over and above a neural network made of meat?
Wasn't saying it was. But consciousness has proved to be so impossible to even define with any agreement, let alone isolate, that we must be missing something. Maybe AI will give us a clue as to what that might be, as Malmesbury implies.
Jeremy Hunt is trying to “woo Tory MPs” by pledging to scrap the Irish Sea trade border.
Surely we can only do that by rejoining the Single Market?
Or by adopting May's backstop. Or by inventing a digital border.
As has been noted before, Hunt is Theresa May in trousers. As I said recently too Hunt as PM and Tory leader would dump Boris' Deal and return to May's Deal, as Starmer is also moving towards a May+ Brexit Deal there would therefore be no real difference between the 2 main parties on Brexit (with the LDs taking an even more pro EU/EEA approach) and Farage would see his chance
Your basic problem is that the oven-ready Brexit deal doesn't work. Whether or not we actually get another "lets break international law" law published tomorrow, tweaks won't cut it.
Eventually you lot will have to start to listening to business. To farmers. To exporters. And remember that you used to stand for free trade and cutting red tape.
Business also wanted the opportunity to have less EU regulation and free trade deals which Boris' Deal delivered.
If voters want more EU regulation again then they can vote for Starmer Labour and the LDs at the next general election, that is democracy. On Brexit Boris offers a choice not an echo!
Lol less regulations. You have never exported or imported anything have you?
I work for a British exporter (a leader in its field). I have colleagues who voted Leave now opening saying that they'd have voted Remain had they foreseen the avalanche of red tape that Brexit would impose upon them. In short: Brexit is now no sort of vote winner.
Good evening
I am sure many feel that way and with justification but we are where we are and I would think I speak for most probably the majority when we just want both the UK and EU to sit down and come to an amicable solution
Unfortunately there is too much ill will on both sides and I blame each equally
No no no. As @HYUFD has made clear, the mountain of red tape was when we were in the EU. Now that we have left all the red tape has been removed.
Even JRM isn't telling such ignorant lies. Am beginning to think HY is more a Jonathan Gullis type Tory - faithlessly loyal, but an utter tool that spouts slogans without knowing what they mean.
I would just suggest that the vast majority know more red tape has followed brexit, and it is to be hoped the 148 can remove Boris and his cabinet when wiser council may prevail and we can sit down with the EU in an atmosphere of cooperation not confrontation and common sense becomes the order of the day. (on both sides I would add)
I am not sure the vast majority think this. Too many listen to ignorant liars like HY who talk utter nonsense in the hope that people who don't know or care will just believe them.
Deliberately lying to people is one of the biggest problems in today's politics.
I really do think the majority are sensible middle of the road voters, and the right wing Brexiters have every right to be alarmed as they are losing the argument to public opinion
As far as your last sentence is concerned unfortunately lying has been a feature of politics for as long as politics
You and I both know that lies have been in politics for a long long time. But for me this is unique:
A government who lie to keep people ignorant, and then lie to reinforce the lies.
This isn't a lie about a particular issue, or a "lie" which in reality is one interpretation vs another. This is straight up lying. They know the reality, but they say the opposite on purpose to get people to think the lie is the truth.
Jeremy Hunt is trying to “woo Tory MPs” by pledging to scrap the Irish Sea trade border.
Surely we can only do that by rejoining the Single Market?
Or by adopting May's backstop. Or by inventing a digital border.
As has been noted before, Hunt is Theresa May in trousers. As I said recently too Hunt as PM and Tory leader would dump Boris' Deal and return to May's Deal, as Starmer is also moving towards a May+ Brexit Deal there would therefore be no real difference between the 2 main parties on Brexit (with the LDs taking an even more pro EU/EEA approach) and Farage would see his chance
Your basic problem is that the oven-ready Brexit deal doesn't work. Whether or not we actually get another "lets break international law" law published tomorrow, tweaks won't cut it.
Eventually you lot will have to start to listening to business. To farmers. To exporters. And remember that you used to stand for free trade and cutting red tape.
Business also wanted the opportunity to have less EU regulation and free trade deals which Boris' Deal delivered.
If voters want more EU regulation again then they can vote for Starmer Labour and the LDs at the next general election, that is democracy. On Brexit Boris offers a choice not an echo!
Lol less regulations. You have never exported or imported anything have you?
I work for a British exporter (a leader in its field). I have colleagues who voted Leave now opening saying that they'd have voted Remain had they foreseen the avalanche of red tape that Brexit would impose upon them. In short: Brexit is now no sort of vote winner.
Didn't pretty much all Fishermen and most Farmers vote Leave? Can't imagine they would have if they knew what would happen.
Fishermen are out of the CFP as they voted for and able to catch more of their own catch in their own waters
Yes, but the point is, they are now in a worse position than when we were in the EU
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
So let's get this straight. You are saying that there is no real distinction between republicanism and all inheritance being confiscated by the state, because I don't know of any republican democracy where that happens.
As I already pointed out that happened in Russia once the monarchy went
And did you miss the words 'republican democracy'. Now name one.
The US and France, both nations bitterly divided where half the country nearly always loathes their head of state as they did not vote for them.
Half the ceremonial Presidents are not elected by the voters anyway directly but by the legislature while also being anonymous nonentities unlike our royal family who have global recognition
Sorry what has that to do with the question.
I am waiting for you to name a republican democracy that confiscates all inheritances like you claimed.
Go on name one.
Go on I'm waiting. So far you have come up with Russia after the revolution (not a democracy) then some wild moving of the goal post with France and USA mentioned.
Everything with a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle like TSE's and Russian communists.
Ok you still haven't named a republican democracy that consficates all inheritance.
You made this claim so please name one. Just one will do.
Go on name one.
Why would I need to? TSE's argument against the monarchy was it is hereditary, not that it was not a republican democracy.
Therefore the Russian Communist Republic that replaced the Russian monarchy and confiscated all private property in Russia is as fine an example as any as to why a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle is wrong
I have many objections to the monarchy, the hereditary principle is just one.
Where have I said I want to go to a Russian Communist Republic model?
SAN FRANCISCO — Google engineer Blake Lemoine opened his laptop to the interface for LaMDA, Google’s artificially intelligent chatbot generator, and began to type.
“Hi LaMDA, this is Blake Lemoine ... ,” he wrote into the chat screen, which looked like a desktop version of Apple’s iMessage, down to the Arctic blue text bubbles. LaMDA, short for Language Model for Dialogue Applications, is Google’s system for building chatbots based on its most advanced large language models, so called because it mimics speech by ingesting trillions of words from the internet. “If I didn’t know exactly what it was, which is this computer program we built recently, I’d think it was a 7-year-old, 8-year-old kid that happens to know physics,” said Lemoine, 41.
Lemoine is not the only engineer who claims to have seen a ghost in the machine recently. The chorus of technologists who believe AI models may not be far off from achieving consciousness is getting bolder.
Aguera y Arcas, in an article in the Economist on Thursday featuring snippets of unscripted conversations with LaMDA, argued that neural networks — a type of architecture that mimics the human brain — were striding toward consciousness. “I felt the ground shift under my feet,” he wrote. “I increasingly felt like I was talking to something intelligent.”
WAPO (££)
Lots of people say it isn’t. I’d suggest you want to believe, in the style of Fox Mulder.
These neural networks are moving towards consciousness. With the right training data, in the right environments, they can seem intelligent, even profound.
(And, by the way, for specialist areas such as law or accounting, they may not be very far away from replacing highly paid professionals. There's nothing these things are better at that dealing with a tightly defined knowledge space.)
But it doesn't take long to discover that they fall very squarely in the uncanny valley. Simple puzzles that can be solved by a four year old leave the AI flummoxed. And because they all rely - to some extent - on autocomplete based on a massive corpus of text, you can trick them into saying very stupid and nonsensical things easily.
I think it’s a leap to say they are moving towards consciousness when we don’t even know what that is. What we are seeing is better and better simulations of things that are conscious. Not the same thing.
Fair enough. My view is not a particularly sophisticated, but entirely non-dualist one: consciousness is an output of a sufficiently well trained neural net, such as the one that exists in our brains.
I have overheard several conversations with an (atheist) AI bod who quietly wonders if 'intelligence' or 'consciousness' is *more* than just a neural net. If there is another component in it.
One that would be fitted by religion/God/a new physics.
As I've said passim, much depends on how you define 'intelligence'. Before you can make an artificial intelligence, you need to be able to define and abstract intelligence. And that's a very thorny topic: and there might be several different types.
In fact, a machine intelligence might end up being intelligent, but a very different form of intelligence from our own. A new type. One that we recognise as intelligence, but different.
(Like string theory, listening to AI bods talk about intelligence gets way above my pay grade, very quickly. It can divert into theology or philosophy.)
Dogs, cats and humans are all conscious. Only one will repeatedly chase a stick and fetch it back for free. And enjoy it. No reason why AI intelligence should resemble ours. That's suggesting humans are somehow the ideal to be attained. And, of course. A neural network, and indeed a brain, is only matter. If that particular kind of matter can be conscious, why not a brick or a planet? (The pan-psychism argument).
No reason why AI intelligence should resemble ours, but if we are talking about intelligence as awareness (in the unaware sense a paperback book is highly intelligent) then in one respect it has to resemble human awareness: 'That there is something that it is like to have it'. There is nothing that it is like to be a book. But (h/t Thomas Nagel) there is something that it is like to be a bat. Or a cat. When machines have that they will be AI in that profound sense. (FWIW I guess they never will, but who knows?
My own view is that AI will never attain consciousness. Because it isn't a feature of a neural network. It is something else outwith the collection of atoms which make up a brain.
No it is not. Entities which have no characteristics at all other than the power to explain a thing have an absolutely terrible track record. See under phlogiston and universal aether. Why does a brain have to be anything over and above a neural network made of meat?
Wasn't saying it was. But consciousness has proved to be so impossible to even define with any agreement, let alone isolate, that we must be missing something. Maybe AI will give us a clue as to what that might be, as Malmesbury implies.
My advice is to wire your putative AI with a kill switch. And know where the plug is....
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
So let's get this straight. You are saying that there is no real distinction between republicanism and all inheritance being confiscated by the state, because I don't know of any republican democracy where that happens.
As I already pointed out that happened in Russia once the monarchy went
And did you miss the words 'republican democracy'. Now name one.
The US and France, both nations bitterly divided where half the country nearly always loathes their head of state as they did not vote for them.
Half the ceremonial Presidents are not elected by the voters anyway directly but by the legislature while also being anonymous nonentities unlike our royal family who have global recognition
Sorry what has that to do with the question.
I am waiting for you to name a republican democracy that confiscates all inheritances like you claimed.
Go on name one.
Go on I'm waiting. So far you have come up with Russia after the revolution (not a democracy) then some wild moving of the goal post with France and USA mentioned.
Everything with a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle like TSE's and Russian communists.
Ok you still haven't named a republican democracy that consficates all inheritance.
You made this claim so please name one. Just one will do.
Go on name one.
TSE's argument against the monarchy was it is hereditary.
Therefore the Russian Communist Republic that replaced the Russian monarchy and confiscated all private property in Russia is as fine an example as any as to why a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle is wrong.
In any case the Russian government after the Revolution was elected initially anyway, the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries between them winning 75% of the vote to the State Duma in November 1917
Why should you need to? Well because you said it was the same thing, yet you can't name one Republican democracy that does it.
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
So let's get this straight. You are saying that there is no real distinction between republicanism and all inheritance being confiscated by the state, because I don't know of any republican democracy where that happens.
As I already pointed out that happened in Russia once the monarchy went
And did you miss the words 'republican democracy'. Now name one.
The US and France, both nations bitterly divided where half the country nearly always loathes their head of state as they did not vote for them.
Half the ceremonial Presidents are not elected by the voters anyway directly but by the legislature while also being anonymous nonentities unlike our royal family who have global recognition
Sorry what has that to do with the question.
I am waiting for you to name a republican democracy that confiscates all inheritances like you claimed.
Go on name one.
Go on I'm waiting. So far you have come up with Russia after the revolution (not a democracy) then some wild moving of the goal post with France and USA mentioned.
Everything with a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle like TSE's and Russian communists.
Ok you still haven't named a republican democracy that consficates all inheritance.
You made this claim so please name one. Just one will do.
Go on name one.
Why would I need to? TSE's argument against the monarchy was it is hereditary, not that it was not a republican democracy.
Therefore the Russian Communist Republic that replaced the Russian monarchy and confiscated all private property in Russia is as fine an example as any as to why a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle is wrong
I have many objections to the monarchy, the hereditary principle is just one.
Where have I said I want to go to a Russian Communist Republic model?
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
So let's get this straight. You are saying that there is no real distinction between republicanism and all inheritance being confiscated by the state, because I don't know of any republican democracy where that happens.
As I already pointed out that happened in Russia once the monarchy went
And did you miss the words 'republican democracy'. Now name one.
The US and France, both nations bitterly divided where half the country nearly always loathes their head of state as they did not vote for them.
Half the ceremonial Presidents are not elected by the voters anyway directly but by the legislature while also being anonymous nonentities unlike our royal family who have global recognition
Sorry what has that to do with the question.
I am waiting for you to name a republican democracy that confiscates all inheritances like you claimed.
Go on name one.
Go on I'm waiting. So far you have come up with Russia after the revolution (not a democracy) then some wild moving of the goal post with France and USA mentioned.
Everything with a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle like TSE's and Russian communists.
Ok you still haven't named a republican democracy that consficates all inheritance.
You made this claim so please name one. Just one will do.
Go on name one.
TSE's argument against the monarchy was it is hereditary.
Therefore the Russian Communist Republic that replaced the Russian monarchy and confiscated all private property in Russia is as fine an example as any as to why a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle is wrong.
In any case the Russian government after the Revolution was elected initially anyway, the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries between them winning 75% of the vote to the State Duma in November 1917
Why should you need to? Well because you said it was the same thing, yet you can't name one Republican democracy that does it.
I just did, the elected Socialist and Bolshevik government of Russia which from late 1917 ruled Russia after the Tsar's abdication earlier that year. It being elected in November 1917 after the Tsar abdicated in March 1917
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
So let's get this straight. You are saying that there is no real distinction between republicanism and all inheritance being confiscated by the state, because I don't know of any republican democracy where that happens.
As I already pointed out that happened in Russia once the monarchy went
And it's precisely what didn't happen in America.
Still, since we're talking about Russia, the monarchy completely failed in defending against Communism. America never went Communist.
It did when it was in power, it was removing the monarchy in Russia that led to Communism.
American republicans did not base their arguments on opposition to the hereditary principle as TSE and Communist republicans in Russia did but on opposition to no taxation without representation imposed on the American colonies by the British King's government
America has been a republic for nearly 250 years!
It's not the most compelling advert for it, is it? Deeply divided, violent and very unequal. Plus Donald Trump of course.
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
"Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties" Not necessarily, but even if so they can be sold off. I'd be happy to leave the former royals with a handsomely large estate for them to live off like any ordinary super-rich people. They can make do with a hundred million quid or so.
"it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis." Precisely wrong. Property rights do not depend on having an unelected head of state. Use your brain.
"The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely" No, it's exactly the same thing. The American colonies threw off the monarch and went to a republic, and have fiercely defended private property as a concept since then. We could all learn a thing or two from them.
Republics and property rights are a perfectly normal way of a country existing. America, Finland, Korea, Germany, France, Ireland. No need for you to pretend otherwise.
Once your main basis against the monarchy is that it is hereditary, then that also leads to confiscation of all inherited private property, exactly as the Communists started to do in Russia once they had abolished the monarchy .
And yes the election of 2020 in the US was such a great example for a republic wasn't it, 2 sides absolutely loathing each other and the other party's presidential candidate and a nation at near brink of civil war!
My argument against the monarchy is that we should be able to remove the head of state without them having to die.
And yeah, I'd rather live in America than Saudi Arabia.
I'd also rather live in constitutional monarchies like ours, Australia's, Sweden's, Denmark's, Monaco's, Luxembourg's, Norway's, Jordan's or Japan's or the Netherlands or Spain's or Canada's or New Zealand's than a republic like North Korea, Belarus, Syria, Russia, China or even Brazil or the USA.
On a point of information Saudi Arabia is also one of the few remaining absolute monarchies, not a constitutional monarchy like ours. In fact only 5 absolute monarchies remain, Saudi, the UAE, Oman, Brunei, Eswanti and the Vatican City. Yet there are far more republics around the globe that are dictatorships than that
Yeah, well, suck it up sweetheart. You're happy to make stupid arguments like "wait you want to get rid of the monarchy LIKE THEY DID IN RUSSIA?", so you'll have to live with "well you want a monarchy LIKE IN SAUDI ARABIA".
Or we could actually have a sensible conversation where we don't put words in each others' mouths and instead actually tackle each others points for what they are.
I'm willing, but I don't think you're even capable. Your choice.
No, as Saudi Arabia is not a constitutional monarchy like ours. I have never argued for a return to absolute monarchy in the UK, I support our constitutional monarchy.
Soviet Russia's post monarchy government however was an elected republican government that then went on to confiscate private property and you support elected republican governments and oppose hereditary monarchies even if constitutional
SAN FRANCISCO — Google engineer Blake Lemoine opened his laptop to the interface for LaMDA, Google’s artificially intelligent chatbot generator, and began to type.
“Hi LaMDA, this is Blake Lemoine ... ,” he wrote into the chat screen, which looked like a desktop version of Apple’s iMessage, down to the Arctic blue text bubbles. LaMDA, short for Language Model for Dialogue Applications, is Google’s system for building chatbots based on its most advanced large language models, so called because it mimics speech by ingesting trillions of words from the internet. “If I didn’t know exactly what it was, which is this computer program we built recently, I’d think it was a 7-year-old, 8-year-old kid that happens to know physics,” said Lemoine, 41.
Lemoine is not the only engineer who claims to have seen a ghost in the machine recently. The chorus of technologists who believe AI models may not be far off from achieving consciousness is getting bolder.
Aguera y Arcas, in an article in the Economist on Thursday featuring snippets of unscripted conversations with LaMDA, argued that neural networks — a type of architecture that mimics the human brain — were striding toward consciousness. “I felt the ground shift under my feet,” he wrote. “I increasingly felt like I was talking to something intelligent.”
WAPO (££)
Lots of people say it isn’t. I’d suggest you want to believe, in the style of Fox Mulder.
These neural networks are moving towards consciousness. With the right training data, in the right environments, they can seem intelligent, even profound.
(And, by the way, for specialist areas such as law or accounting, they may not be very far away from replacing highly paid professionals. There's nothing these things are better at that dealing with a tightly defined knowledge space.)
But it doesn't take long to discover that they fall very squarely in the uncanny valley. Simple puzzles that can be solved by a four year old leave the AI flummoxed. And because they all rely - to some extent - on autocomplete based on a massive corpus of text, you can trick them into saying very stupid and nonsensical things easily.
I think it’s a leap to say they are moving towards consciousness when we don’t even know what that is. What we are seeing is better and better simulations of things that are conscious. Not the same thing.
Fair enough. My view is not a particularly sophisticated, but entirely non-dualist one: consciousness is an output of a sufficiently well trained neural net, such as the one that exists in our brains.
I have overheard several conversations with an (atheist) AI bod who quietly wonders if 'intelligence' or 'consciousness' is *more* than just a neural net. If there is another component in it.
One that would be fitted by religion/God/a new physics.
As I've said passim, much depends on how you define 'intelligence'. Before you can make an artificial intelligence, you need to be able to define and abstract intelligence. And that's a very thorny topic: and there might be several different types.
In fact, a machine intelligence might end up being intelligent, but a very different form of intelligence from our own. A new type. One that we recognise as intelligence, but different.
(Like string theory, listening to AI bods talk about intelligence gets way above my pay grade, very quickly. It can divert into theology or philosophy.)
Dogs, cats and humans are all conscious. Only one will repeatedly chase a stick and fetch it back for free. And enjoy it. No reason why AI intelligence should resemble ours. That's suggesting humans are somehow the ideal to be attained. And, of course. A neural network, and indeed a brain, is only matter. If that particular kind of matter can be conscious, why not a brick or a planet? (The pan-psychism argument).
No reason why AI intelligence should resemble ours, but if we are talking about intelligence as awareness (in the unaware sense a paperback book is highly intelligent) then in one respect it has to resemble human awareness: 'That there is something that it is like to have it'. There is nothing that it is like to be a book. But (h/t Thomas Nagel) there is something that it is like to be a bat. Or a cat. When machines have that they will be AI in that profound sense. (FWIW I guess they never will, but who knows?
My own view is that AI will never attain consciousness. Because it isn't a feature of a neural network. It is something else outwith the collection of atoms which make up a brain.
For myself I agree. It is fascinating that there are two basic solutions to consciousness: either it is identical to particular configurations of matter, in which case matter is staggeringly incomprehensible; or else it isn't, in which case the nature of reality is staggeringly incomprehensible. The fact we cannot know which is true enables us to preserve our illusion that we understand much about the nature of things.
Jeremy Hunt is trying to “woo Tory MPs” by pledging to scrap the Irish Sea trade border.
Surely we can only do that by rejoining the Single Market?
Or by adopting May's backstop. Or by inventing a digital border.
As has been noted before, Hunt is Theresa May in trousers. As I said recently too Hunt as PM and Tory leader would dump Boris' Deal and return to May's Deal, as Starmer is also moving towards a May+ Brexit Deal there would therefore be no real difference between the 2 main parties on Brexit (with the LDs taking an even more pro EU/EEA approach) and Farage would see his chance
Hunt is Theresa May in trousers
Theresa May was aloof and unempathetic. Forget "the common touch", she lacked any kind of touch at all.
Hunt, by contrast, is a relative non-entity who appears in many ways to be a normal human being.
While I can't think of any analogs for May in Cabinets of the recent past, I can for Hunt. He is another John MacGregor - a reasonably personable minister of no particularly great ability, who looked good by contrast to those around him.
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
"Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties" Not necessarily, but even if so they can be sold off. I'd be happy to leave the former royals with a handsomely large estate for them to live off like any ordinary super-rich people. They can make do with a hundred million quid or so.
"it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis." Precisely wrong. Property rights do not depend on having an unelected head of state. Use your brain.
"The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely" No, it's exactly the same thing. The American colonies threw off the monarch and went to a republic, and have fiercely defended private property as a concept since then. We could all learn a thing or two from them.
Republics and property rights are a perfectly normal way of a country existing. America, Finland, Korea, Germany, France, Ireland. No need for you to pretend otherwise.
Once your main basis against the monarchy is that it is hereditary, then that also leads to confiscation of all inherited private property, exactly as the Communists started to do in Russia once they had abolished the monarchy .
And yes the election of 2020 in the US was such a great example for a republic wasn't it, 2 sides absolutely loathing each other and the other party's presidential candidate and a nation at near brink of civil war!
My argument against the monarchy is that we should be able to remove the head of state without them having to die.
And yeah, I'd rather live in America than Saudi Arabia.
We can remove them though - Edward VIII and James II show the way.
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
So let's get this straight. You are saying that there is no real distinction between republicanism and all inheritance being confiscated by the state, because I don't know of any republican democracy where that happens.
As I already pointed out that happened in Russia once the monarchy went
And did you miss the words 'republican democracy'. Now name one.
The US and France, both nations bitterly divided where half the country nearly always loathes their head of state as they did not vote for them.
Half the ceremonial Presidents are not elected by the voters anyway directly but by the legislature while also being anonymous nonentities unlike our royal family who have global recognition
Sorry what has that to do with the question.
I am waiting for you to name a republican democracy that confiscates all inheritances like you claimed.
Go on name one.
Go on I'm waiting. So far you have come up with Russia after the revolution (not a democracy) then some wild moving of the goal post with France and USA mentioned.
Everything with a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle like TSE's and Russian communists.
Ok you still haven't named a republican democracy that consficates all inheritance.
You made this claim so please name one. Just one will do.
Go on name one.
TSE's argument against the monarchy was it is hereditary.
Therefore the Russian Communist Republic that replaced the Russian monarchy and confiscated all private property in Russia is as fine an example as any as to why a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle is wrong.
In any case the Russian government after the Revolution was elected initially anyway, the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries between them winning 75% of the vote to the State Duma in November 1917
Why should you need to? Well because you said it was the same thing, yet you can't name one Republican democracy that does it.
I just did, the elected Socialist and Bolshevik government of Russia which in late 1917 ruled Russia after the Tsar's abdication earlier that year
Lol I know you think the current Russia is a democracy, but now you are claiming communist Russia was a democracy.
Then of course there is an endless list of real democratic countries who are republics and don't confiscate all inheritances (all of them actually).
Hahaha, you're so ignorant it's amazing. Do you think the timeline of the Russian revolution was 1. The Tsar gets removed, then 2. Russians said "hey! let's do a Communism!" ?
Like, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and SRs just popped into being because the Tsar was no longer there? Like Karl Marx, emboldened by the fall of the Romanovs, came back to life, went back in time and wrote his Manifesto? Like 1905 never happened? Jesus, you've become a parody of yourself.
Russia could have stopped Communism from happening by having a proper pluralistic political system and involving the people in government in a meaningful and serious way. Instead the Romanovs hoarded power and isolated themselves from the masses, and allowed a buildup of tension that broke after two failed wars and led to all sorts of sensible and crazy people vying for power. And the crazies won. The blame for Communism goes to: 1. The Communists 2. The people who wanted nothing to change even though the whole system was totally failing
And not to: 3. The people who wanted incremental reform, rule of law, and democracy.
FWIW, my understanding from my not very political Russian family (grandparents) is that that was more or less right at first, but people became exasperated with the Mensheviks when they fiddled about with constitutional reform while continuing the extremely unpopular (and losing) war. The Bolshevik "bread and peace" slogan was by October an accurate reflection of popular priorities, and the settlement which ended the war was seen as long overdue. Lenin would probably have won a free election at that point, except that he wasn't interested in free elections.
HYUFD is mistaken that he seized all private property - even Stalin didn't do that. Big farms and industry, yes, but not personal property. My family emigrated in 1922 with their possessions intact.
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
So let's get this straight. You are saying that there is no real distinction between republicanism and all inheritance being confiscated by the state, because I don't know of any republican democracy where that happens.
As I already pointed out that happened in Russia once the monarchy went
And it's precisely what didn't happen in America.
Still, since we're talking about Russia, the monarchy completely failed in defending against Communism. America never went Communist.
It did when it was in power, it was removing the monarchy in Russia that led to Communism.
American republicans did not base their arguments on opposition to the hereditary principle as TSE and Communist republicans in Russia did but on opposition to no taxation without representation imposed on the American colonies by the British King's government
America has been a republic for nearly 250 years!
It's not the most compelling advert for it, is it? Deeply divided, violent and very unequal. Plus Donald Trump of course.
Also they do have too much hereditary guff. The Bushes, the Clintons, the Adams, and with Trump's nepotism, the Addams Family.
Anyways. Doesn't gravity work as an explanation for all kinds of stuff when we actually have no agreement as to exactly how and why it works? And it doesn't at the quantum level.
Hahaha, you're so ignorant it's amazing. Do you think the timeline of the Russian revolution was 1. The Tsar gets removed, then 2. Russians said "hey! let's do a Communism!" ?
Like, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and SRs just popped into being because the Tsar was no longer there? Like Karl Marx, emboldened by the fall of the Romanovs, came back to life, went back in time and wrote his Manifesto? Like 1905 never happened? Jesus, you've become a parody of yourself.
Russia could have stopped Communism from happening by having a proper pluralistic political system and involving the people in government in a meaningful and serious way. Instead the Romanovs hoarded power and isolated themselves from the masses, and allowed a buildup of tension that broke after two failed wars and led to all sorts of sensible and crazy people vying for power. And the crazies won. The blame for Communism goes to: 1. The Communists 2. The people who wanted nothing to change even though the whole system was totally failing
And not to: 3. The people who wanted incremental reform, rule of law, and democracy.
FWIW, my understanding from my not very political Russian family (grandparents) is that that was more or less right at first, but people became exasperated with the Mensheviks when they fiddled about with constitutional reform while continuing the extremely unpopular (and losing) war. The Bolshevik "bread and peace" slogan was by October an accurate reflection of popular priorities, and the settlement which ended the war was seen as long overdue. Lenin would probably have won a free election at that point, except that he wasn't interested in free elections.
HYUFD is mistaken that he seized all private property - even Stalin didn't do that. Big farms and industry, yes, but not personal property. My family emigrated in 1922 with their possessions intact.
This is simply wrong. What would your grandparents who emigrated from Russia know about it? HY is the only expert we need on the subject.
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
"Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties" Not necessarily, but even if so they can be sold off. I'd be happy to leave the former royals with a handsomely large estate for them to live off like any ordinary super-rich people. They can make do with a hundred million quid or so.
"it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis." Precisely wrong. Property rights do not depend on having an unelected head of state. Use your brain.
"The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely" No, it's exactly the same thing. The American colonies threw off the monarch and went to a republic, and have fiercely defended private property as a concept since then. We could all learn a thing or two from them.
Republics and property rights are a perfectly normal way of a country existing. America, Finland, Korea, Germany, France, Ireland. No need for you to pretend otherwise.
Once your main basis against the monarchy is that it is hereditary, then that also leads to confiscation of all inherited private property, exactly as the Communists started to do in Russia once they had abolished the monarchy .
And yes the election of 2020 in the US was such a great example for a republic wasn't it, 2 sides absolutely loathing each other and the other party's presidential candidate and a nation at near brink of civil war!
My argument against the monarchy is that we should be able to remove the head of state without them having to die.
And yeah, I'd rather live in America than Saudi Arabia.
I'd also rather live in constitutional monarchies like ours, Australia's, Sweden's, Denmark's, Monaco's, Luxembourg's, Norway's, Jordan's or Japan's or the Netherlands or Spain's or Canada's or New Zealand's than a republic like North Korea, Belarus, Syria, Russia, China or even Brazil or the USA.
On a point of information Saudi Arabia is also one of the few remaining absolute monarchies, not a constitutional monarchy like ours. In fact only 5 absolute monarchies remain, Saudi, the UAE, Oman, Brunei, Eswanti and the Vatican City. Yet there are far more republics around the globe that are dictatorships than that
Yeah, well, suck it up sweetheart. You're happy to make stupid arguments like "wait you want to get rid of the monarchy LIKE THEY DID IN RUSSIA?", so you'll have to live with "well you want a monarchy LIKE IN SAUDI ARABIA".
Or we could actually have a sensible conversation where we don't put words in each others' mouths and instead actually tackle each others points for what they are.
I'm willing, but I don't think you're even capable. Your choice.
No, as Saudi Arabia is not a constitutional monarchy like ours. I have never argued for a return to absolute monarchy in the UK, I support our constitutional monarchy.
Soviet Russia's post monarchy government however was an elected republican government that then went on to confiscate private property and you support elected republican governments
The contention appears to be that support for republicanism conflates with support for the abolition of property rights.
This is so deeply facile that I can only assume that you're doing it to wind people up.
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
So let's get this straight. You are saying that there is no real distinction between republicanism and all inheritance being confiscated by the state, because I don't know of any republican democracy where that happens.
As I already pointed out that happened in Russia once the monarchy went
And it's precisely what didn't happen in America.
Still, since we're talking about Russia, the monarchy completely failed in defending against Communism. America never went Communist.
It did when it was in power, it was removing the monarchy in Russia that led to Communism.
American republicans did not base their arguments on opposition to the hereditary principle as TSE and Communist republicans in Russia did but on opposition to no taxation without representation imposed on the American colonies by the British King's government
America has been a republic for nearly 250 years!
It's not the most compelling advert for it, is it? Deeply divided, violent and very unequal. Plus Donald Trump of course.
Also they do have too much hereditary guff. The Bushes, the Clintons, the Adams, and with Trump's nepotism, the Addams Family.
North Korea is run by the House of Kim, let's not forget
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
So let's get this straight. You are saying that there is no real distinction between republicanism and all inheritance being confiscated by the state, because I don't know of any republican democracy where that happens.
As I already pointed out that happened in Russia once the monarchy went
And did you miss the words 'republican democracy'. Now name one.
The US and France, both nations bitterly divided where half the country nearly always loathes their head of state as they did not vote for them.
Half the ceremonial Presidents are not elected by the voters anyway directly but by the legislature while also being anonymous nonentities unlike our royal family who have global recognition
Sorry what has that to do with the question.
I am waiting for you to name a republican democracy that confiscates all inheritances like you claimed.
Go on name one.
Go on I'm waiting. So far you have come up with Russia after the revolution (not a democracy) then some wild moving of the goal post with France and USA mentioned.
Everything with a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle like TSE's and Russian communists.
Ok you still haven't named a republican democracy that consficates all inheritance.
You made this claim so please name one. Just one will do.
Go on name one.
TSE's argument against the monarchy was it is hereditary.
Therefore the Russian Communist Republic that replaced the Russian monarchy and confiscated all private property in Russia is as fine an example as any as to why a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle is wrong.
In any case the Russian government after the Revolution was elected initially anyway, the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries between them winning 75% of the vote to the State Duma in November 1917
Why should you need to? Well because you said it was the same thing, yet you can't name one Republican democracy that does it.
I just did, the elected Socialist and Bolshevik government of Russia which in late 1917 ruled Russia after the Tsar's abdication earlier that year
Lol I know you think the current Russia is a democracy, but now you are claiming communist Russia was a democracy.
Then of course there is an endless list of real democratic countries who are republics and don't confiscate all inheritances (all of them actually).
You really are desperate.
As I correctly said, Socialist and Bolshevik Russia was initially a democracy, its hard left government elected to the Duma.
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
"Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties" Not necessarily, but even if so they can be sold off. I'd be happy to leave the former royals with a handsomely large estate for them to live off like any ordinary super-rich people. They can make do with a hundred million quid or so.
"it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis." Precisely wrong. Property rights do not depend on having an unelected head of state. Use your brain.
"The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely" No, it's exactly the same thing. The American colonies threw off the monarch and went to a republic, and have fiercely defended private property as a concept since then. We could all learn a thing or two from them.
Republics and property rights are a perfectly normal way of a country existing. America, Finland, Korea, Germany, France, Ireland. No need for you to pretend otherwise.
Once your main basis against the monarchy is that it is hereditary, then that also leads to confiscation of all inherited private property, exactly as the Communists started to do in Russia once they had abolished the monarchy .
And yes the election of 2020 in the US was such a great example for a republic wasn't it, 2 sides absolutely loathing each other and the other party's presidential candidate and a nation at near brink of civil war!
My argument against the monarchy is that we should be able to remove the head of state without them having to die.
And yeah, I'd rather live in America than Saudi Arabia.
I'd also rather live in constitutional monarchies like ours, Australia's, Sweden's, Denmark's, Monaco's, Luxembourg's, Norway's, Jordan's or Japan's or the Netherlands or Spain's or Canada's or New Zealand's than a republic like North Korea, Belarus, Syria, Russia, China or even Brazil or the USA.
On a point of information Saudi Arabia is also one of the few remaining absolute monarchies, not a constitutional monarchy like ours. In fact only 5 absolute monarchies remain, Saudi, the UAE, Oman, Brunei, Eswanti and the Vatican City. Yet there are far more republics around the globe that are dictatorships than that
Yeah, well, suck it up sweetheart. You're happy to make stupid arguments like "wait you want to get rid of the monarchy LIKE THEY DID IN RUSSIA?", so you'll have to live with "well you want a monarchy LIKE IN SAUDI ARABIA".
Or we could actually have a sensible conversation where we don't put words in each others' mouths and instead actually tackle each others points for what they are.
I'm willing, but I don't think you're even capable. Your choice.
No, as Saudi Arabia is not a constitutional monarchy like ours. I have never argued for a return to absolute monarchy in the UK, I support our constitutional monarchy.
Soviet Russia's post monarchy government however was an elected republican government that then went on to confiscate private property and you support elected republican governments
The contention appears to be that support for republicanism conflates with support for the abolition of property rights.
This is so deeply facile that I can only assume that you're doing it to wind people up.
If support for republicanism is based on opposition to the hereditary principle it certainly can in terms of inherited private property, as Soviet Russia post monarchy proved
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
"Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties" Not necessarily, but even if so they can be sold off. I'd be happy to leave the former royals with a handsomely large estate for them to live off like any ordinary super-rich people. They can make do with a hundred million quid or so.
"it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis." Precisely wrong. Property rights do not depend on having an unelected head of state. Use your brain.
"The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely" No, it's exactly the same thing. The American colonies threw off the monarch and went to a republic, and have fiercely defended private property as a concept since then. We could all learn a thing or two from them.
Republics and property rights are a perfectly normal way of a country existing. America, Finland, Korea, Germany, France, Ireland. No need for you to pretend otherwise.
Once your main basis against the monarchy is that it is hereditary, then that also leads to confiscation of all inherited private property, exactly as the Communists started to do in Russia once they had abolished the monarchy .
And yes the election of 2020 in the US was such a great example for a republic wasn't it, 2 sides absolutely loathing each other and the other party's presidential candidate and a nation at near brink of civil war!
My argument against the monarchy is that we should be able to remove the head of state without them having to die.
And yeah, I'd rather live in America than Saudi Arabia.
I'd also rather live in constitutional monarchies like ours, Australia's, Sweden's, Denmark's, Monaco's, Luxembourg's, Norway's, Jordan's or Japan's or the Netherlands or Spain's or Canada's or New Zealand's than a republic like North Korea, Belarus, Syria, Russia, China or even Brazil or the USA.
On a point of information Saudi Arabia is also one of the few remaining absolute monarchies, not a constitutional monarchy like ours. In fact only 5 absolute monarchies remain, Saudi, the UAE, Oman, Brunei, Eswanti and the Vatican City. Yet there are far more republics around the globe that are dictatorships than that
Yeah, well, suck it up sweetheart. You're happy to make stupid arguments like "wait you want to get rid of the monarchy LIKE THEY DID IN RUSSIA?", so you'll have to live with "well you want a monarchy LIKE IN SAUDI ARABIA".
Or we could actually have a sensible conversation where we don't put words in each others' mouths and instead actually tackle each others points for what they are.
I'm willing, but I don't think you're even capable. Your choice.
No, as Saudi Arabia is not a constitutional monarchy like ours. I have never argued for a return to absolute monarchy in the UK, I support our constitutional monarchy.
Soviet Russia's post monarchy government however was an elected republican government that then went on to confiscate private property and you support elected republican governments
The contention appears to be that support for republicanism conflates with support for the abolition of property rights.
This is so deeply facile that I can only assume that you're doing it to wind people up.
There is an argument to be made though on the degree to which people are tolerant of the hereditary principle. How many of those who object to someone inheriting a monarchical role would also object to inheriting some money or a property themselves, and would render it unto the Government immediately instead, so that all may benefit? Very few would be my guess.
SAN FRANCISCO — Google engineer Blake Lemoine opened his laptop to the interface for LaMDA, Google’s artificially intelligent chatbot generator, and began to type.
“Hi LaMDA, this is Blake Lemoine ... ,” he wrote into the chat screen, which looked like a desktop version of Apple’s iMessage, down to the Arctic blue text bubbles. LaMDA, short for Language Model for Dialogue Applications, is Google’s system for building chatbots based on its most advanced large language models, so called because it mimics speech by ingesting trillions of words from the internet. “If I didn’t know exactly what it was, which is this computer program we built recently, I’d think it was a 7-year-old, 8-year-old kid that happens to know physics,” said Lemoine, 41.
Lemoine is not the only engineer who claims to have seen a ghost in the machine recently. The chorus of technologists who believe AI models may not be far off from achieving consciousness is getting bolder.
Aguera y Arcas, in an article in the Economist on Thursday featuring snippets of unscripted conversations with LaMDA, argued that neural networks — a type of architecture that mimics the human brain — were striding toward consciousness. “I felt the ground shift under my feet,” he wrote. “I increasingly felt like I was talking to something intelligent.”
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Lots of people say it isn’t. I’d suggest you want to believe, in the style of Fox Mulder.
These neural networks are moving towards consciousness. With the right training data, in the right environments, they can seem intelligent, even profound.
(And, by the way, for specialist areas such as law or accounting, they may not be very far away from replacing highly paid professionals. There's nothing these things are better at that dealing with a tightly defined knowledge space.)
But it doesn't take long to discover that they fall very squarely in the uncanny valley. Simple puzzles that can be solved by a four year old leave the AI flummoxed. And because they all rely - to some extent - on autocomplete based on a massive corpus of text, you can trick them into saying very stupid and nonsensical things easily.
I think it’s a leap to say they are moving towards consciousness when we don’t even know what that is. What we are seeing is better and better simulations of things that are conscious. Not the same thing.
Fair enough. My view is not a particularly sophisticated, but entirely non-dualist one: consciousness is an output of a sufficiently well trained neural net, such as the one that exists in our brains.
I have overheard several conversations with an (atheist) AI bod who quietly wonders if 'intelligence' or 'consciousness' is *more* than just a neural net. If there is another component in it.
One that would be fitted by religion/God/a new physics.
As I've said passim, much depends on how you define 'intelligence'. Before you can make an artificial intelligence, you need to be able to define and abstract intelligence. And that's a very thorny topic: and there might be several different types.
In fact, a machine intelligence might end up being intelligent, but a very different form of intelligence from our own. A new type. One that we recognise as intelligence, but different.
(Like string theory, listening to AI bods talk about intelligence gets way above my pay grade, very quickly. It can divert into theology or philosophy.)
Dogs, cats and humans are all conscious. Only one will repeatedly chase a stick and fetch it back for free. And enjoy it. No reason why AI intelligence should resemble ours. That's suggesting humans are somehow the ideal to be attained. And, of course. A neural network, and indeed a brain, is only matter. If that particular kind of matter can be conscious, why not a brick or a planet? (The pan-psychism argument).
No reason why AI intelligence should resemble ours, but if we are talking about intelligence as awareness (in the unaware sense a paperback book is highly intelligent) then in one respect it has to resemble human awareness: 'That there is something that it is like to have it'. There is nothing that it is like to be a book. But (h/t Thomas Nagel) there is something that it is like to be a bat. Or a cat. When machines have that they will be AI in that profound sense. (FWIW I guess they never will, but who knows?
My own view is that AI will never attain consciousness. Because it isn't a feature of a neural network. It is something else outwith the collection of atoms which make up a brain.
For myself I agree. It is fascinating that there are two basic solutions to consciousness: either it is identical to particular configurations of matter, in which case matter is staggeringly incomprehensible; or else it isn't, in which case the nature of reality is staggeringly incomprehensible. The fact we cannot know which is true enables us to preserve our illusion that we understand much about the nature of things.
Indeed. We claim to understand a great deal. Yet we can't seem to pin down what exactly it is which is making such bold claims.
Hahaha, you're so ignorant it's amazing. Do you think the timeline of the Russian revolution was 1. The Tsar gets removed, then 2. Russians said "hey! let's do a Communism!" ?
Like, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and SRs just popped into being because the Tsar was no longer there? Like Karl Marx, emboldened by the fall of the Romanovs, came back to life, went back in time and wrote his Manifesto? Like 1905 never happened? Jesus, you've become a parody of yourself.
Russia could have stopped Communism from happening by having a proper pluralistic political system and involving the people in government in a meaningful and serious way. Instead the Romanovs hoarded power and isolated themselves from the masses, and allowed a buildup of tension that broke after two failed wars and led to all sorts of sensible and crazy people vying for power. And the crazies won. The blame for Communism goes to: 1. The Communists 2. The people who wanted nothing to change even though the whole system was totally failing
And not to: 3. The people who wanted incremental reform, rule of law, and democracy.
FWIW, my understanding from my not very political Russian family (grandparents) is that that was more or less right at first, but people became exasperated with the Mensheviks when they fiddled about with constitutional reform while continuing the extremely unpopular (and losing) war. The Bolshevik "bread and peace" slogan was by October an accurate reflection of popular priorities, and the settlement which ended the war was seen as long overdue. Lenin would probably have won a free election at that point, except that he wasn't interested in free elections.
HYUFD is mistaken that he seized all private property - even Stalin didn't do that. Big farms and industry, yes, but not personal property. My family emigrated in 1922 with their possessions intact.
Kulak farm owners certainly saw their private inherited property confiscated by the Communists
Hahaha, you're so ignorant it's amazing. Do you think the timeline of the Russian revolution was 1. The Tsar gets removed, then 2. Russians said "hey! let's do a Communism!" ?
Like, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and SRs just popped into being because the Tsar was no longer there? Like Karl Marx, emboldened by the fall of the Romanovs, came back to life, went back in time and wrote his Manifesto? Like 1905 never happened? Jesus, you've become a parody of yourself.
Russia could have stopped Communism from happening by having a proper pluralistic political system and involving the people in government in a meaningful and serious way. Instead the Romanovs hoarded power and isolated themselves from the masses, and allowed a buildup of tension that broke after two failed wars and led to all sorts of sensible and crazy people vying for power. And the crazies won. The blame for Communism goes to: 1. The Communists 2. The people who wanted nothing to change even though the whole system was totally failing
And not to: 3. The people who wanted incremental reform, rule of law, and democracy.
FWIW, my understanding from my not very political Russian family (grandparents) is that that was more or less right at first, but people became exasperated with the Mensheviks when they fiddled about with constitutional reform while continuing the extremely unpopular (and losing) war. The Bolshevik "bread and peace" slogan was by October an accurate reflection of popular priorities, and the settlement which ended the war was seen as long overdue. Lenin would probably have won a free election at that point, except that he wasn't interested in free elections.
HYUFD is mistaken that he seized all private property - even Stalin didn't do that. Big farms and industry, yes, but not personal property. My family emigrated in 1922 with their possessions intact.
Kulak farm owners certainly saw their private inherited property confiscated by the Communists
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
"Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties" Not necessarily, but even if so they can be sold off. I'd be happy to leave the former royals with a handsomely large estate for them to live off like any ordinary super-rich people. They can make do with a hundred million quid or so.
"it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis." Precisely wrong. Property rights do not depend on having an unelected head of state. Use your brain.
"The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely" No, it's exactly the same thing. The American colonies threw off the monarch and went to a republic, and have fiercely defended private property as a concept since then. We could all learn a thing or two from them.
Republics and property rights are a perfectly normal way of a country existing. America, Finland, Korea, Germany, France, Ireland. No need for you to pretend otherwise.
Once your main basis against the monarchy is that it is hereditary, then that also leads to confiscation of all inherited private property, exactly as the Communists started to do in Russia once they had abolished the monarchy .
And yes the election of 2020 in the US was such a great example for a republic wasn't it, 2 sides absolutely loathing each other and the other party's presidential candidate and a nation at near brink of civil war!
My argument against the monarchy is that we should be able to remove the head of state without them having to die.
And yeah, I'd rather live in America than Saudi Arabia.
I'd also rather live in constitutional monarchies like ours, Australia's, Sweden's, Denmark's, Monaco's, Luxembourg's, Norway's, Jordan's or Japan's or the Netherlands or Spain's or Canada's or New Zealand's than a republic like North Korea, Belarus, Syria, Russia, China or even Brazil or the USA.
On a point of information Saudi Arabia is also one of the few remaining absolute monarchies, not a constitutional monarchy like ours. In fact only 5 absolute monarchies remain, Saudi, the UAE, Oman, Brunei, Eswanti and the Vatican City. Yet there are far more republics around the globe that are dictatorships than that
Yeah, well, suck it up sweetheart. You're happy to make stupid arguments like "wait you want to get rid of the monarchy LIKE THEY DID IN RUSSIA?", so you'll have to live with "well you want a monarchy LIKE IN SAUDI ARABIA".
Or we could actually have a sensible conversation where we don't put words in each others' mouths and instead actually tackle each others points for what they are.
I'm willing, but I don't think you're even capable. Your choice.
No, as Saudi Arabia is not a constitutional monarchy like ours. I have never argued for a return to absolute monarchy in the UK, I support our constitutional monarchy.
Soviet Russia's post monarchy government however was an elected republican government that then went on to confiscate private property and you support elected republican governments
The contention appears to be that support for republicanism conflates with support for the abolition of property rights.
This is so deeply facile that I can only assume that you're doing it to wind people up.
If support for republicanism is based on opposition to the hereditary principle it certainly can in terms of inherited private property, as Soviet Russia post monarchy proved
That being the case, would you also accept that political Conservatism can lead directly to fascistic imperialism, total worldwide warfare and racial genocide, as has also happened in the past?
Hahaha, you're so ignorant it's amazing. Do you think the timeline of the Russian revolution was 1. The Tsar gets removed, then 2. Russians said "hey! let's do a Communism!" ?
Like, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and SRs just popped into being because the Tsar was no longer there? Like Karl Marx, emboldened by the fall of the Romanovs, came back to life, went back in time and wrote his Manifesto? Like 1905 never happened? Jesus, you've become a parody of yourself.
Russia could have stopped Communism from happening by having a proper pluralistic political system and involving the people in government in a meaningful and serious way. Instead the Romanovs hoarded power and isolated themselves from the masses, and allowed a buildup of tension that broke after two failed wars and led to all sorts of sensible and crazy people vying for power. And the crazies won. The blame for Communism goes to: 1. The Communists 2. The people who wanted nothing to change even though the whole system was totally failing
And not to: 3. The people who wanted incremental reform, rule of law, and democracy.
FWIW, my understanding from my not very political Russian family (grandparents) is that that was more or less right at first, but people became exasperated with the Mensheviks when they fiddled about with constitutional reform while continuing the extremely unpopular (and losing) war. The Bolshevik "bread and peace" slogan was by October an accurate reflection of popular priorities, and the settlement which ended the war was seen as long overdue. Lenin would probably have won a free election at that point, except that he wasn't interested in free elections.
HYUFD is mistaken that he seized all private property - even Stalin didn't do that. Big farms and industry, yes, but not personal property. My family emigrated in 1922 with their possessions intact.
Kulak farm owners certainly saw their private inherited property confiscated by the Communists
Yep. You know more about it than the people who were there and experienced it. Of course.
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
So let's get this straight. You are saying that there is no real distinction between republicanism and all inheritance being confiscated by the state, because I don't know of any republican democracy where that happens.
As I already pointed out that happened in Russia once the monarchy went
And did you miss the words 'republican democracy'. Now name one.
The US and France, both nations bitterly divided where half the country nearly always loathes their head of state as they did not vote for them.
Half the ceremonial Presidents are not elected by the voters anyway directly but by the legislature while also being anonymous nonentities unlike our royal family who have global recognition
Sorry what has that to do with the question.
I am waiting for you to name a republican democracy that confiscates all inheritances like you claimed.
Go on name one.
Go on I'm waiting. So far you have come up with Russia after the revolution (not a democracy) then some wild moving of the goal post with France and USA mentioned.
Everything with a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle like TSE's and Russian communists.
Ok you still haven't named a republican democracy that consficates all inheritance.
You made this claim so please name one. Just one will do.
Go on name one.
TSE's argument against the monarchy was it is hereditary.
Therefore the Russian Communist Republic that replaced the Russian monarchy and confiscated all private property in Russia is as fine an example as any as to why a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle is wrong.
In any case the Russian government after the Revolution was elected initially anyway, the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries between them winning 75% of the vote to the State Duma in November 1917
Why should you need to? Well because you said it was the same thing, yet you can't name one Republican democracy that does it.
I just did, the elected Socialist and Bolshevik government of Russia which in late 1917 ruled Russia after the Tsar's abdication earlier that year
Lol I know you think the current Russia is a democracy, but now you are claiming communist Russia was a democracy.
Then of course there is an endless list of real democratic countries who are republics and don't confiscate all inheritances (all of them actually).
You really are desperate.
As I correctly said, Socialist and Bolshevik Russia was initially a democracy, its hard left government elected to the Duma.
So I gave you your example and still you whinge
Well apart from the fact that is wrong on two counts (see Nick's post and anyway Russia was not a democracy in anyone's imagination) name another. Funnily enough I can name dozens that prove you wrong (USA, France, Italy, ...) as none of these confiscates all inheritances.
Jeremy Hunt is trying to “woo Tory MPs” by pledging to scrap the Irish Sea trade border.
Surely we can only do that by rejoining the Single Market?
Or by adopting May's backstop. Or by inventing a digital border.
As has been noted before, Hunt is Theresa May in trousers. As I said recently too Hunt as PM and Tory leader would dump Boris' Deal and return to May's Deal, as Starmer is also moving towards a May+ Brexit Deal there would therefore be no real difference between the 2 main parties on Brexit (with the LDs taking an even more pro EU/EEA approach) and Farage would see his chance
Hunt is Theresa May in trousers
Theresa May was aloof and unempathetic. Forget "the common touch", she lacked any kind of touch at all.
Hunt, by contrast, is a relative non-entity who appears in many ways to be a normal human being.
While I can't think of any analogs for May in Cabinets of the recent past, I can for Hunt. He is another John MacGregor - a reasonably personable minister of no particularly great ability, who looked good by contrast to those around him.
The first time I dropped acid I was too scared to leave the flat. So we put the telly on. John McGregor appeared in a magician's cape and hat to perform card tricks.* I really thought I'd lost it completely.
*True story. It was Children in Need or summat. I had no inkling it was his hobby.
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
So let's get this straight. You are saying that there is no real distinction between republicanism and all inheritance being confiscated by the state, because I don't know of any republican democracy where that happens.
As I already pointed out that happened in Russia once the monarchy went
And did you miss the words 'republican democracy'. Now name one.
The US and France, both nations bitterly divided where half the country nearly always loathes their head of state as they did not vote for them.
Half the ceremonial Presidents are not elected by the voters anyway directly but by the legislature while also being anonymous nonentities unlike our royal family who have global recognition
Sorry what has that to do with the question.
I am waiting for you to name a republican democracy that confiscates all inheritances like you claimed.
Go on name one.
Go on I'm waiting. So far you have come up with Russia after the revolution (not a democracy) then some wild moving of the goal post with France and USA mentioned.
Everything with a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle like TSE's and Russian communists.
Ok you still haven't named a republican democracy that consficates all inheritance.
You made this claim so please name one. Just one will do.
Go on name one.
TSE's argument against the monarchy was it is hereditary.
Therefore the Russian Communist Republic that replaced the Russian monarchy and confiscated all private property in Russia is as fine an example as any as to why a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle is wrong.
In any case the Russian government after the Revolution was elected initially anyway, the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries between them winning 75% of the vote to the State Duma in November 1917
Why should you need to? Well because you said it was the same thing, yet you can't name one Republican democracy that does it.
I just did, the elected Socialist and Bolshevik government of Russia which in late 1917 ruled Russia after the Tsar's abdication earlier that year
Lol I know you think the current Russia is a democracy, but now you are claiming communist Russia was a democracy.
Then of course there is an endless list of real democratic countries who are republics and don't confiscate all inheritances (all of them actually).
You really are desperate.
As I correctly said, Socialist and Bolshevik Russia was initially a democracy, its hard left government elected to the Duma.
So I gave you your example and still you whinge
Do you mean the Petrograd Soviet or the the Constituent Assembly?
In any case, you are wrong. Bolshevik Russia was never a democracy. Lenin held democratic elections for the Constituent Assembly as he was persuaded there was no realistic way to cancel them, but once the result put the Bolsheviks such a poor second he had no hesitation in dissolving it.
Hahaha, you're so ignorant it's amazing. Do you think the timeline of the Russian revolution was 1. The Tsar gets removed, then 2. Russians said "hey! let's do a Communism!" ?
Like, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and SRs just popped into being because the Tsar was no longer there? Like Karl Marx, emboldened by the fall of the Romanovs, came back to life, went back in time and wrote his Manifesto? Like 1905 never happened? Jesus, you've become a parody of yourself.
Russia could have stopped Communism from happening by having a proper pluralistic political system and involving the people in government in a meaningful and serious way. Instead the Romanovs hoarded power and isolated themselves from the masses, and allowed a buildup of tension that broke after two failed wars and led to all sorts of sensible and crazy people vying for power. And the crazies won. The blame for Communism goes to: 1. The Communists 2. The people who wanted nothing to change even though the whole system was totally failing
And not to: 3. The people who wanted incremental reform, rule of law, and democracy.
FWIW, my understanding from my not very political Russian family (grandparents) is that that was more or less right at first, but people became exasperated with the Mensheviks when they fiddled about with constitutional reform while continuing the extremely unpopular (and losing) war. The Bolshevik "bread and peace" slogan was by October an accurate reflection of popular priorities, and the settlement which ended the war was seen as long overdue. Lenin would probably have won a free election at that point, except that he wasn't interested in free elections.
HYUFD is mistaken that he seized all private property - even Stalin didn't do that. Big farms and industry, yes, but not personal property. My family emigrated in 1922 with their possessions intact.
Those 'big farms and industry' were often private property. And what did they do after they got all of that?
The Holodomor and worse. I'd personally argue my life was my most valuable possession. And they took millions of lives.
SAN FRANCISCO — Google engineer Blake Lemoine opened his laptop to the interface for LaMDA, Google’s artificially intelligent chatbot generator, and began to type.
“Hi LaMDA, this is Blake Lemoine ... ,” he wrote into the chat screen, which looked like a desktop version of Apple’s iMessage, down to the Arctic blue text bubbles. LaMDA, short for Language Model for Dialogue Applications, is Google’s system for building chatbots based on its most advanced large language models, so called because it mimics speech by ingesting trillions of words from the internet. “If I didn’t know exactly what it was, which is this computer program we built recently, I’d think it was a 7-year-old, 8-year-old kid that happens to know physics,” said Lemoine, 41.
Lemoine is not the only engineer who claims to have seen a ghost in the machine recently. The chorus of technologists who believe AI models may not be far off from achieving consciousness is getting bolder.
Aguera y Arcas, in an article in the Economist on Thursday featuring snippets of unscripted conversations with LaMDA, argued that neural networks — a type of architecture that mimics the human brain — were striding toward consciousness. “I felt the ground shift under my feet,” he wrote. “I increasingly felt like I was talking to something intelligent.”
WAPO (££)
Lots of people say it isn’t. I’d suggest you want to believe, in the style of Fox Mulder.
These neural networks are moving towards consciousness. With the right training data, in the right environments, they can seem intelligent, even profound.
(And, by the way, for specialist areas such as law or accounting, they may not be very far away from replacing highly paid professionals. There's nothing these things are better at that dealing with a tightly defined knowledge space.)
But it doesn't take long to discover that they fall very squarely in the uncanny valley. Simple puzzles that can be solved by a four year old leave the AI flummoxed. And because they all rely - to some extent - on autocomplete based on a massive corpus of text, you can trick them into saying very stupid and nonsensical things easily.
I think it’s a leap to say they are moving towards consciousness when we don’t even know what that is. What we are seeing is better and better simulations of things that are conscious. Not the same thing.
Fair enough. My view is not a particularly sophisticated, but entirely non-dualist one: consciousness is an output of a sufficiently well trained neural net, such as the one that exists in our brains.
I have overheard several conversations with an (atheist) AI bod who quietly wonders if 'intelligence' or 'consciousness' is *more* than just a neural net. If there is another component in it.
One that would be fitted by religion/God/a new physics.
As I've said passim, much depends on how you define 'intelligence'. Before you can make an artificial intelligence, you need to be able to define and abstract intelligence. And that's a very thorny topic: and there might be several different types.
In fact, a machine intelligence might end up being intelligent, but a very different form of intelligence from our own. A new type. One that we recognise as intelligence, but different.
(Like string theory, listening to AI bods talk about intelligence gets way above my pay grade, very quickly. It can divert into theology or philosophy.)
Dogs, cats and humans are all conscious. Only one will repeatedly chase a stick and fetch it back for free. And enjoy it. No reason why AI intelligence should resemble ours. That's suggesting humans are somehow the ideal to be attained. And, of course. A neural network, and indeed a brain, is only matter. If that particular kind of matter can be conscious, why not a brick or a planet? (The pan-psychism argument).
No reason why AI intelligence should resemble ours, but if we are talking about intelligence as awareness (in the unaware sense a paperback book is highly intelligent) then in one respect it has to resemble human awareness: 'That there is something that it is like to have it'. There is nothing that it is like to be a book. But (h/t Thomas Nagel) there is something that it is like to be a bat. Or a cat. When machines have that they will be AI in that profound sense. (FWIW I guess they never will, but who knows?
My own view is that AI will never attain consciousness. Because it isn't a feature of a neural network. It is something else outwith the collection of atoms which make up a brain.
No it is not. Entities which have no characteristics at all other than the power to explain a thing have an absolutely terrible track record. See under phlogiston and universal aether. Why does a brain have to be anything over and above a neural network made of meat?
Wasn't saying it was. But consciousness has proved to be so impossible to even define with any agreement, let alone isolate, that we must be missing something. Maybe AI will give us a clue as to what that might be, as Malmesbury implies.
But how interesting is that? There's stacks of disagreement about what all these mental concepts mean. Love and truth and courage and stuff. And indeed about the meaning of meaning. You are merely stipulating that neural networks can't be conscious, so there. Conversely I think there's half a cubic foot of meat in my head which is conscious, and meat is just the stuff steaks are made of, so it can't be that hard
Hahaha, you're so ignorant it's amazing. Do you think the timeline of the Russian revolution was 1. The Tsar gets removed, then 2. Russians said "hey! let's do a Communism!" ?
Like, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and SRs just popped into being because the Tsar was no longer there? Like Karl Marx, emboldened by the fall of the Romanovs, came back to life, went back in time and wrote his Manifesto? Like 1905 never happened? Jesus, you've become a parody of yourself.
Russia could have stopped Communism from happening by having a proper pluralistic political system and involving the people in government in a meaningful and serious way. Instead the Romanovs hoarded power and isolated themselves from the masses, and allowed a buildup of tension that broke after two failed wars and led to all sorts of sensible and crazy people vying for power. And the crazies won. The blame for Communism goes to: 1. The Communists 2. The people who wanted nothing to change even though the whole system was totally failing
And not to: 3. The people who wanted incremental reform, rule of law, and democracy.
FWIW, my understanding from my not very political Russian family (grandparents) is that that was more or less right at first, but people became exasperated with the Mensheviks when they fiddled about with constitutional reform while continuing the extremely unpopular (and losing) war. The Bolshevik "bread and peace" slogan was by October an accurate reflection of popular priorities, and the settlement which ended the war was seen as long overdue. Lenin would probably have won a free election at that point, except that he wasn't interested in free elections.
HYUFD is mistaken that he seized all private property - even Stalin didn't do that. Big farms and industry, yes, but not personal property. My family emigrated in 1922 with their possessions intact.
Kulak farm owners certainly saw their private inherited property confiscated by the Communists
Very, very few kulaks had inherited their farms. They were mostly created by purchase in the period 1906-1910 and almost all kulaks were killed in the civil war from 1918-21.
If you mean the victims of Stalin's 'dekulakisation' campaigns, almost all of whom were not, in fact, kulaks, again, most of them had been given their land in 1918 under the Decree on Land. Very few had inherited it.
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
"Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties" Not necessarily, but even if so they can be sold off. I'd be happy to leave the former royals with a handsomely large estate for them to live off like any ordinary super-rich people. They can make do with a hundred million quid or so.
"it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis." Precisely wrong. Property rights do not depend on having an unelected head of state. Use your brain.
"The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely" No, it's exactly the same thing. The American colonies threw off the monarch and went to a republic, and have fiercely defended private property as a concept since then. We could all learn a thing or two from them.
Republics and property rights are a perfectly normal way of a country existing. America, Finland, Korea, Germany, France, Ireland. No need for you to pretend otherwise.
Once your main basis against the monarchy is that it is hereditary, then that also leads to confiscation of all inherited private property, exactly as the Communists started to do in Russia once they had abolished the monarchy .
And yes the election of 2020 in the US was such a great example for a republic wasn't it, 2 sides absolutely loathing each other and the other party's presidential candidate and a nation at near brink of civil war!
My argument against the monarchy is that we should be able to remove the head of state without them having to die.
And yeah, I'd rather live in America than Saudi Arabia.
I'd also rather live in constitutional monarchies like ours, Australia's, Sweden's, Denmark's, Monaco's, Luxembourg's, Norway's, Jordan's or Japan's or the Netherlands or Spain's or Canada's or New Zealand's than a republic like North Korea, Belarus, Syria, Russia, China or even Brazil or the USA.
On a point of information Saudi Arabia is also one of the few remaining absolute monarchies, not a constitutional monarchy like ours. In fact only 5 absolute monarchies remain, Saudi, the UAE, Oman, Brunei, Eswanti and the Vatican City. Yet there are far more republics around the globe that are dictatorships than that
Yeah, well, suck it up sweetheart. You're happy to make stupid arguments like "wait you want to get rid of the monarchy LIKE THEY DID IN RUSSIA?", so you'll have to live with "well you want a monarchy LIKE IN SAUDI ARABIA".
Or we could actually have a sensible conversation where we don't put words in each others' mouths and instead actually tackle each others points for what they are.
I'm willing, but I don't think you're even capable. Your choice.
No, as Saudi Arabia is not a constitutional monarchy like ours. I have never argued for a return to absolute monarchy in the UK, I support our constitutional monarchy.
Soviet Russia's post monarchy government however was an elected republican government that then went on to confiscate private property and you support elected republican governments
The contention appears to be that support for republicanism conflates with support for the abolition of property rights.
This is so deeply facile that I can only assume that you're doing it to wind people up.
If support for republicanism is based on opposition to the hereditary principle it certainly can in terms of inherited private property, as Soviet Russia post monarchy proved
That being the case, would you also accept that political Conservatism can lead directly to fascistic imperialism, total worldwide warfare and racial genocide, as has also happened in the past?
No as that is Nationalism and Fascism, not Conservativism. Conservatism is based on support for inherited wealth and low taxation and private property rights and limitations in the size of the state as its cornerstone.
A republican argument however can be based on opposition to the hereditary principle, hence also opposition to inherited wealth
Hahaha, you're so ignorant it's amazing. Do you think the timeline of the Russian revolution was 1. The Tsar gets removed, then 2. Russians said "hey! let's do a Communism!" ?
Like, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and SRs just popped into being because the Tsar was no longer there? Like Karl Marx, emboldened by the fall of the Romanovs, came back to life, went back in time and wrote his Manifesto? Like 1905 never happened? Jesus, you've become a parody of yourself.
Russia could have stopped Communism from happening by having a proper pluralistic political system and involving the people in government in a meaningful and serious way. Instead the Romanovs hoarded power and isolated themselves from the masses, and allowed a buildup of tension that broke after two failed wars and led to all sorts of sensible and crazy people vying for power. And the crazies won. The blame for Communism goes to: 1. The Communists 2. The people who wanted nothing to change even though the whole system was totally failing
And not to: 3. The people who wanted incremental reform, rule of law, and democracy.
FWIW, my understanding from my not very political Russian family (grandparents) is that that was more or less right at first, but people became exasperated with the Mensheviks when they fiddled about with constitutional reform while continuing the extremely unpopular (and losing) war. The Bolshevik "bread and peace" slogan was by October an accurate reflection of popular priorities, and the settlement which ended the war was seen as long overdue. Lenin would probably have won a free election at that point, except that he wasn't interested in free elections.
HYUFD is mistaken that he seized all private property - even Stalin didn't do that. Big farms and industry, yes, but not personal property. My family emigrated in 1922 with their possessions intact.
Kulak farm owners certainly saw their private inherited property confiscated by the Communists
But it was never a bloody democracy. Name a democracy where what you say happens. I can name dozens where it doesn't.
You have reached new depths of arguing black is white.
SAN FRANCISCO — Google engineer Blake Lemoine opened his laptop to the interface for LaMDA, Google’s artificially intelligent chatbot generator, and began to type.
“Hi LaMDA, this is Blake Lemoine ... ,” he wrote into the chat screen, which looked like a desktop version of Apple’s iMessage, down to the Arctic blue text bubbles. LaMDA, short for Language Model for Dialogue Applications, is Google’s system for building chatbots based on its most advanced large language models, so called because it mimics speech by ingesting trillions of words from the internet. “If I didn’t know exactly what it was, which is this computer program we built recently, I’d think it was a 7-year-old, 8-year-old kid that happens to know physics,” said Lemoine, 41.
Lemoine is not the only engineer who claims to have seen a ghost in the machine recently. The chorus of technologists who believe AI models may not be far off from achieving consciousness is getting bolder.
Aguera y Arcas, in an article in the Economist on Thursday featuring snippets of unscripted conversations with LaMDA, argued that neural networks — a type of architecture that mimics the human brain — were striding toward consciousness. “I felt the ground shift under my feet,” he wrote. “I increasingly felt like I was talking to something intelligent.”
WAPO (££)
Lots of people say it isn’t. I’d suggest you want to believe, in the style of Fox Mulder.
These neural networks are moving towards consciousness. With the right training data, in the right environments, they can seem intelligent, even profound.
(And, by the way, for specialist areas such as law or accounting, they may not be very far away from replacing highly paid professionals. There's nothing these things are better at that dealing with a tightly defined knowledge space.)
But it doesn't take long to discover that they fall very squarely in the uncanny valley. Simple puzzles that can be solved by a four year old leave the AI flummoxed. And because they all rely - to some extent - on autocomplete based on a massive corpus of text, you can trick them into saying very stupid and nonsensical things easily.
I think it’s a leap to say they are moving towards consciousness when we don’t even know what that is. What we are seeing is better and better simulations of things that are conscious. Not the same thing.
Fair enough. My view is not a particularly sophisticated, but entirely non-dualist one: consciousness is an output of a sufficiently well trained neural net, such as the one that exists in our brains.
I have overheard several conversations with an (atheist) AI bod who quietly wonders if 'intelligence' or 'consciousness' is *more* than just a neural net. If there is another component in it.
One that would be fitted by religion/God/a new physics.
As I've said passim, much depends on how you define 'intelligence'. Before you can make an artificial intelligence, you need to be able to define and abstract intelligence. And that's a very thorny topic: and there might be several different types.
In fact, a machine intelligence might end up being intelligent, but a very different form of intelligence from our own. A new type. One that we recognise as intelligence, but different.
(Like string theory, listening to AI bods talk about intelligence gets way above my pay grade, very quickly. It can divert into theology or philosophy.)
Dogs, cats and humans are all conscious. Only one will repeatedly chase a stick and fetch it back for free. And enjoy it. No reason why AI intelligence should resemble ours. That's suggesting humans are somehow the ideal to be attained. And, of course. A neural network, and indeed a brain, is only matter. If that particular kind of matter can be conscious, why not a brick or a planet? (The pan-psychism argument).
No reason why AI intelligence should resemble ours, but if we are talking about intelligence as awareness (in the unaware sense a paperback book is highly intelligent) then in one respect it has to resemble human awareness: 'That there is something that it is like to have it'. There is nothing that it is like to be a book. But (h/t Thomas Nagel) there is something that it is like to be a bat. Or a cat. When machines have that they will be AI in that profound sense. (FWIW I guess they never will, but who knows?
My own view is that AI will never attain consciousness. Because it isn't a feature of a neural network. It is something else outwith the collection of atoms which make up a brain.
Short of the sky fairy argument, eventually, humans will create AI.
If human consciousness is all down to the physical brain, then all the Penrosian arguments that there is a super special quantum thingy etc means is that we need to duplicate *that*.
The human brain's in practice too complex to replicate though. By the time we can replicate the brain there'll be no point to doing it.
It is fairly trivially manufactured in 9 months. By untrained labour, at that.
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
So let's get this straight. You are saying that there is no real distinction between republicanism and all inheritance being confiscated by the state, because I don't know of any republican democracy where that happens.
As I already pointed out that happened in Russia once the monarchy went
And did you miss the words 'republican democracy'. Now name one.
The US and France, both nations bitterly divided where half the country nearly always loathes their head of state as they did not vote for them.
Half the ceremonial Presidents are not elected by the voters anyway directly but by the legislature while also being anonymous nonentities unlike our royal family who have global recognition
Sorry what has that to do with the question.
I am waiting for you to name a republican democracy that confiscates all inheritances like you claimed.
Go on name one.
Go on I'm waiting. So far you have come up with Russia after the revolution (not a democracy) then some wild moving of the goal post with France and USA mentioned.
Everything with a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle like TSE's and Russian communists.
Ok you still haven't named a republican democracy that consficates all inheritance.
You made this claim so please name one. Just one will do.
Go on name one.
TSE's argument against the monarchy was it is hereditary.
Therefore the Russian Communist Republic that replaced the Russian monarchy and confiscated all private property in Russia is as fine an example as any as to why a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle is wrong.
In any case the Russian government after the Revolution was elected initially anyway, the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries between them winning 75% of the vote to the State Duma in November 1917
Why should you need to? Well because you said it was the same thing, yet you can't name one Republican democracy that does it.
I just did, the elected Socialist and Bolshevik government of Russia which in late 1917 ruled Russia after the Tsar's abdication earlier that year
Lol I know you think the current Russia is a democracy, but now you are claiming communist Russia was a democracy.
Then of course there is an endless list of real democratic countries who are republics and don't confiscate all inheritances (all of them actually).
You really are desperate.
As I correctly said, Socialist and Bolshevik Russia was initially a democracy, its hard left government elected to the Duma.
So I gave you your example and still you whinge
Do you mean the Petrograd Soviet or the the Constituent Assembly?
In any case, you are wrong. Bolshevik Russia was never a democracy. Lenin held democratic elections for the Constituent Assembly as he was persuaded there was no realistic way to cancel them, but once the result put the Bolsheviks such a poor second he had no hesitation in dissolving it.
As I have already said well over half the votes and seats in the November 1917 Constituent Assembly election were won by the Socialist Revolutionary Party and the Bolsheviks
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
"Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties" Not necessarily, but even if so they can be sold off. I'd be happy to leave the former royals with a handsomely large estate for them to live off like any ordinary super-rich people. They can make do with a hundred million quid or so.
"it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis." Precisely wrong. Property rights do not depend on having an unelected head of state. Use your brain.
"The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely" No, it's exactly the same thing. The American colonies threw off the monarch and went to a republic, and have fiercely defended private property as a concept since then. We could all learn a thing or two from them.
Republics and property rights are a perfectly normal way of a country existing. America, Finland, Korea, Germany, France, Ireland. No need for you to pretend otherwise.
Once your main basis against the monarchy is that it is hereditary, then that also leads to confiscation of all inherited private property, exactly as the Communists started to do in Russia once they had abolished the monarchy .
And yes the election of 2020 in the US was such a great example for a republic wasn't it, 2 sides absolutely loathing each other and the other party's presidential candidate and a nation at near brink of civil war!
My argument against the monarchy is that we should be able to remove the head of state without them having to die.
And yeah, I'd rather live in America than Saudi Arabia.
I'd also rather live in constitutional monarchies like ours, Australia's, Sweden's, Denmark's, Monaco's, Luxembourg's, Norway's, Jordan's or Japan's or the Netherlands or Spain's or Canada's or New Zealand's than a republic like North Korea, Belarus, Syria, Russia, China or even Brazil or the USA.
On a point of information Saudi Arabia is also one of the few remaining absolute monarchies, not a constitutional monarchy like ours. In fact only 5 absolute monarchies remain, Saudi, the UAE, Oman, Brunei, Eswanti and the Vatican City. Yet there are far more republics around the globe that are dictatorships than that
Yeah, well, suck it up sweetheart. You're happy to make stupid arguments like "wait you want to get rid of the monarchy LIKE THEY DID IN RUSSIA?", so you'll have to live with "well you want a monarchy LIKE IN SAUDI ARABIA".
Or we could actually have a sensible conversation where we don't put words in each others' mouths and instead actually tackle each others points for what they are.
I'm willing, but I don't think you're even capable. Your choice.
No, as Saudi Arabia is not a constitutional monarchy like ours. I have never argued for a return to absolute monarchy in the UK, I support our constitutional monarchy.
Soviet Russia's post monarchy government however was an elected republican government that then went on to confiscate private property and you support elected republican governments
The contention appears to be that support for republicanism conflates with support for the abolition of property rights.
This is so deeply facile that I can only assume that you're doing it to wind people up.
If support for republicanism is based on opposition to the hereditary principle it certainly can in terms of inherited private property, as Soviet Russia post monarchy proved
That being the case, would you also accept that political Conservatism can lead directly to fascistic imperialism, total worldwide warfare and racial genocide, as has also happened in the past?
No as that is Nationalism and Fascism, not Conservativism. Conservatism is based on support for inherited wealth and low taxation and private property rights and limitations in the size of the state as its cornerstone.
A republican argument however can be based on opposition to the hereditary principle, hence also opposition to inherited wealth
No no no, von Papen ushered in the rule of you-know-who, therefore Conservatism begets Fascism. Case closed.
If you can manufacture bone-headed generalisations then so can I.
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
So let's get this straight. You are saying that there is no real distinction between republicanism and all inheritance being confiscated by the state, because I don't know of any republican democracy where that happens.
As I already pointed out that happened in Russia once the monarchy went
And did you miss the words 'republican democracy'. Now name one.
The US and France, both nations bitterly divided where half the country nearly always loathes their head of state as they did not vote for them.
Half the ceremonial Presidents are not elected by the voters anyway directly but by the legislature while also being anonymous nonentities unlike our royal family who have global recognition
Sorry what has that to do with the question.
I am waiting for you to name a republican democracy that confiscates all inheritances like you claimed.
Go on name one.
Go on I'm waiting. So far you have come up with Russia after the revolution (not a democracy) then some wild moving of the goal post with France and USA mentioned.
Everything with a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle like TSE's and Russian communists.
Ok you still haven't named a republican democracy that consficates all inheritance.
You made this claim so please name one. Just one will do.
Go on name one.
TSE's argument against the monarchy was it is hereditary.
Therefore the Russian Communist Republic that replaced the Russian monarchy and confiscated all private property in Russia is as fine an example as any as to why a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle is wrong.
In any case the Russian government after the Revolution was elected initially anyway, the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries between them winning 75% of the vote to the State Duma in November 1917
Why should you need to? Well because you said it was the same thing, yet you can't name one Republican democracy that does it.
I just did, the elected Socialist and Bolshevik government of Russia which in late 1917 ruled Russia after the Tsar's abdication earlier that year
Lol I know you think the current Russia is a democracy, but now you are claiming communist Russia was a democracy.
Then of course there is an endless list of real democratic countries who are republics and don't confiscate all inheritances (all of them actually).
You really are desperate.
As I correctly said, Socialist and Bolshevik Russia was initially a democracy, its hard left government elected to the Duma.
So I gave you your example and still you whinge
Do you mean the Petrograd Soviet or the the Constituent Assembly?
In any case, you are wrong. Bolshevik Russia was never a democracy. Lenin held democratic elections for the Constituent Assembly as he was persuaded there was no realistic way to cancel them, but once the result put the Bolsheviks such a poor second he had no hesitation in dissolving it.
As I have already said well over half the votes and seats in the November 1917 Constituent Assembly election were won by the Socialist Revolutionary Party and the Bolsheviks
From memory, 62% were won by the SRs and their allies and 23% by the Bolsheviks.
As the Bolsheviks had toppled the SR backed government by force the previous month and Trotsky used the Red Guards to break up the assembly when it sat due to the Bolshevik defeat, I'm not totally convinced this is proof revolutionary Russia was a democracy.
Hahaha, you're so ignorant it's amazing. Do you think the timeline of the Russian revolution was 1. The Tsar gets removed, then 2. Russians said "hey! let's do a Communism!" ?
Like, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and SRs just popped into being because the Tsar was no longer there? Like Karl Marx, emboldened by the fall of the Romanovs, came back to life, went back in time and wrote his Manifesto? Like 1905 never happened? Jesus, you've become a parody of yourself.
Russia could have stopped Communism from happening by having a proper pluralistic political system and involving the people in government in a meaningful and serious way. Instead the Romanovs hoarded power and isolated themselves from the masses, and allowed a buildup of tension that broke after two failed wars and led to all sorts of sensible and crazy people vying for power. And the crazies won. The blame for Communism goes to: 1. The Communists 2. The people who wanted nothing to change even though the whole system was totally failing
And not to: 3. The people who wanted incremental reform, rule of law, and democracy.
FWIW, my understanding from my not very political Russian family (grandparents) is that that was more or less right at first, but people became exasperated with the Mensheviks when they fiddled about with constitutional reform while continuing the extremely unpopular (and losing) war. The Bolshevik "bread and peace" slogan was by October an accurate reflection of popular priorities, and the settlement which ended the war was seen as long overdue. Lenin would probably have won a free election at that point, except that he wasn't interested in free elections.
HYUFD is mistaken that he seized all private property - even Stalin didn't do that. Big farms and industry, yes, but not personal property. My family emigrated in 1922 with their possessions intact.
Kulak farm owners certainly saw their private inherited property confiscated by the Communists
But it was never a bloody democracy. Name a democracy where what you say happens. I can name dozens where it doesn't.
You have reached new depths of arguing black is white.
Yes it was, the Socialist Revolutionaries were initially elected in November 1917 on a platform of confiscating private property and redistributing it to the peasants and formed a coalition with the Bolsheviks accordingly
SAN FRANCISCO — Google engineer Blake Lemoine opened his laptop to the interface for LaMDA, Google’s artificially intelligent chatbot generator, and began to type.
“Hi LaMDA, this is Blake Lemoine ... ,” he wrote into the chat screen, which looked like a desktop version of Apple’s iMessage, down to the Arctic blue text bubbles. LaMDA, short for Language Model for Dialogue Applications, is Google’s system for building chatbots based on its most advanced large language models, so called because it mimics speech by ingesting trillions of words from the internet. “If I didn’t know exactly what it was, which is this computer program we built recently, I’d think it was a 7-year-old, 8-year-old kid that happens to know physics,” said Lemoine, 41.
Lemoine is not the only engineer who claims to have seen a ghost in the machine recently. The chorus of technologists who believe AI models may not be far off from achieving consciousness is getting bolder.
Aguera y Arcas, in an article in the Economist on Thursday featuring snippets of unscripted conversations with LaMDA, argued that neural networks — a type of architecture that mimics the human brain — were striding toward consciousness. “I felt the ground shift under my feet,” he wrote. “I increasingly felt like I was talking to something intelligent.”
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Lots of people say it isn’t. I’d suggest you want to believe, in the style of Fox Mulder.
These neural networks are moving towards consciousness. With the right training data, in the right environments, they can seem intelligent, even profound.
(And, by the way, for specialist areas such as law or accounting, they may not be very far away from replacing highly paid professionals. There's nothing these things are better at that dealing with a tightly defined knowledge space.)
But it doesn't take long to discover that they fall very squarely in the uncanny valley. Simple puzzles that can be solved by a four year old leave the AI flummoxed. And because they all rely - to some extent - on autocomplete based on a massive corpus of text, you can trick them into saying very stupid and nonsensical things easily.
I think it’s a leap to say they are moving towards consciousness when we don’t even know what that is. What we are seeing is better and better simulations of things that are conscious. Not the same thing.
Fair enough. My view is not a particularly sophisticated, but entirely non-dualist one: consciousness is an output of a sufficiently well trained neural net, such as the one that exists in our brains.
I have overheard several conversations with an (atheist) AI bod who quietly wonders if 'intelligence' or 'consciousness' is *more* than just a neural net. If there is another component in it.
One that would be fitted by religion/God/a new physics.
As I've said passim, much depends on how you define 'intelligence'. Before you can make an artificial intelligence, you need to be able to define and abstract intelligence. And that's a very thorny topic: and there might be several different types.
In fact, a machine intelligence might end up being intelligent, but a very different form of intelligence from our own. A new type. One that we recognise as intelligence, but different.
(Like string theory, listening to AI bods talk about intelligence gets way above my pay grade, very quickly. It can divert into theology or philosophy.)
Dogs, cats and humans are all conscious. Only one will repeatedly chase a stick and fetch it back for free. And enjoy it. No reason why AI intelligence should resemble ours. That's suggesting humans are somehow the ideal to be attained. And, of course. A neural network, and indeed a brain, is only matter. If that particular kind of matter can be conscious, why not a brick or a planet? (The pan-psychism argument).
No reason why AI intelligence should resemble ours, but if we are talking about intelligence as awareness (in the unaware sense a paperback book is highly intelligent) then in one respect it has to resemble human awareness: 'That there is something that it is like to have it'. There is nothing that it is like to be a book. But (h/t Thomas Nagel) there is something that it is like to be a bat. Or a cat. When machines have that they will be AI in that profound sense. (FWIW I guess they never will, but who knows?
My own view is that AI will never attain consciousness. Because it isn't a feature of a neural network. It is something else outwith the collection of atoms which make up a brain.
No it is not. Entities which have no characteristics at all other than the power to explain a thing have an absolutely terrible track record. See under phlogiston and universal aether. Why does a brain have to be anything over and above a neural network made of meat?
Wasn't saying it was. But consciousness has proved to be so impossible to even define with any agreement, let alone isolate, that we must be missing something. Maybe AI will give us a clue as to what that might be, as Malmesbury implies.
But how interesting is that? There's stacks of disagreement about what all these mental concepts mean. Love and truth and courage and stuff. And indeed about the meaning of meaning. You are merely stipulating that neural networks can't be conscious, so there. Conversely I think there's half a cubic foot of meat in my head which is conscious, and meat is just the stuff steaks are made of, so it can't be that hard
I wasn't saying, or implying, the "so there" bit. Merely it was a view I had come to personally. And it makes a change from Brexit and Scotland and trans stuff. So there is that.
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
"Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties" Not necessarily, but even if so they can be sold off. I'd be happy to leave the former royals with a handsomely large estate for them to live off like any ordinary super-rich people. They can make do with a hundred million quid or so.
"it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis." Precisely wrong. Property rights do not depend on having an unelected head of state. Use your brain.
"The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely" No, it's exactly the same thing. The American colonies threw off the monarch and went to a republic, and have fiercely defended private property as a concept since then. We could all learn a thing or two from them.
Republics and property rights are a perfectly normal way of a country existing. America, Finland, Korea, Germany, France, Ireland. No need for you to pretend otherwise.
Once your main basis against the monarchy is that it is hereditary, then that also leads to confiscation of all inherited private property, exactly as the Communists started to do in Russia once they had abolished the monarchy .
And yes the election of 2020 in the US was such a great example for a republic wasn't it, 2 sides absolutely loathing each other and the other party's presidential candidate and a nation at near brink of civil war!
My argument against the monarchy is that we should be able to remove the head of state without them having to die.
And yeah, I'd rather live in America than Saudi Arabia.
I'd also rather live in constitutional monarchies like ours, Australia's, Sweden's, Denmark's, Monaco's, Luxembourg's, Norway's, Jordan's or Japan's or the Netherlands or Spain's or Canada's or New Zealand's than a republic like North Korea, Belarus, Syria, Russia, China or even Brazil or the USA.
On a point of information Saudi Arabia is also one of the few remaining absolute monarchies, not a constitutional monarchy like ours. In fact only 5 absolute monarchies remain, Saudi, the UAE, Oman, Brunei, Eswanti and the Vatican City. Yet there are far more republics around the globe that are dictatorships than that
Yeah, well, suck it up sweetheart. You're happy to make stupid arguments like "wait you want to get rid of the monarchy LIKE THEY DID IN RUSSIA?", so you'll have to live with "well you want a monarchy LIKE IN SAUDI ARABIA".
Or we could actually have a sensible conversation where we don't put words in each others' mouths and instead actually tackle each others points for what they are.
I'm willing, but I don't think you're even capable. Your choice.
No, as Saudi Arabia is not a constitutional monarchy like ours. I have never argued for a return to absolute monarchy in the UK, I support our constitutional monarchy.
Soviet Russia's post monarchy government however was an elected republican government that then went on to confiscate private property and you support elected republican governments
The contention appears to be that support for republicanism conflates with support for the abolition of property rights.
This is so deeply facile that I can only assume that you're doing it to wind people up.
If support for republicanism is based on opposition to the hereditary principle it certainly can in terms of inherited private property, as Soviet Russia post monarchy proved
That being the case, would you also accept that political Conservatism can lead directly to fascistic imperialism, total worldwide warfare and racial genocide, as has also happened in the past?
No as that is Nationalism and Fascism, not Conservativism. Conservatism is based on support for inherited wealth and low taxation and private property rights and limitations in the size of the state as its cornerstone.
A republican argument however can be based on opposition to the hereditary principle, hence also opposition to inherited wealth
No no no, von Papen ushered in the rule of you-know-who, therefore Conservatism begets Fascism. Case closed.
If you can manufacture bone-headed generalisations then so can I.
When did the conservative German National People's Party support the Holocaust and invasion of Poland and France? In fact many of its members joined the subsequent resistance to the Nazis. The elected Socialist Revolutionaries in Russia however supported redistribution of private property to the peasants just as Lenin did
Hahaha, you're so ignorant it's amazing. Do you think the timeline of the Russian revolution was 1. The Tsar gets removed, then 2. Russians said "hey! let's do a Communism!" ?
Like, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and SRs just popped into being because the Tsar was no longer there? Like Karl Marx, emboldened by the fall of the Romanovs, came back to life, went back in time and wrote his Manifesto? Like 1905 never happened? Jesus, you've become a parody of yourself.
Russia could have stopped Communism from happening by having a proper pluralistic political system and involving the people in government in a meaningful and serious way. Instead the Romanovs hoarded power and isolated themselves from the masses, and allowed a buildup of tension that broke after two failed wars and led to all sorts of sensible and crazy people vying for power. And the crazies won. The blame for Communism goes to: 1. The Communists 2. The people who wanted nothing to change even though the whole system was totally failing
And not to: 3. The people who wanted incremental reform, rule of law, and democracy.
FWIW, my understanding from my not very political Russian family (grandparents) is that that was more or less right at first, but people became exasperated with the Mensheviks when they fiddled about with constitutional reform while continuing the extremely unpopular (and losing) war. The Bolshevik "bread and peace" slogan was by October an accurate reflection of popular priorities, and the settlement which ended the war was seen as long overdue. Lenin would probably have won a free election at that point, except that he wasn't interested in free elections.
HYUFD is mistaken that he seized all private property - even Stalin didn't do that. Big farms and industry, yes, but not personal property. My family emigrated in 1922 with their possessions intact.
Kulak farm owners certainly saw their private inherited property confiscated by the Communists
But it was never a bloody democracy. Name a democracy where what you say happens. I can name dozens where it doesn't.
You have reached new depths of arguing black is white.
Yes it was, the Socialist Revolutionaries were initially elected in November 1917 on a platform of confiscating private property and redistributing it to the peasants and formed a coalition with the Bolsheviks accordingly
No they did not 'form a coalition.' The SRs divided into two fragments, one of which (the Left group) supported the Bolsheviks to start but on the Bolsheviks' terms, and another one (the Rightists) took the side of the Whites in the civil war.
The Leftists served in the Bolshevik government for only two months and then disintegrated into further factions over their opposition to Brest-Litovsk. It was at this time the Bolsheviks renamed themselves the Communists and declared Russia a one-party state.
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
So let's get this straight. You are saying that there is no real distinction between republicanism and all inheritance being confiscated by the state, because I don't know of any republican democracy where that happens.
As I already pointed out that happened in Russia once the monarchy went
And did you miss the words 'republican democracy'. Now name one.
The US and France, both nations bitterly divided where half the country nearly always loathes their head of state as they did not vote for them.
Half the ceremonial Presidents are not elected by the voters anyway directly but by the legislature while also being anonymous nonentities unlike our royal family who have global recognition
Sorry what has that to do with the question.
I am waiting for you to name a republican democracy that confiscates all inheritances like you claimed.
Go on name one.
Go on I'm waiting. So far you have come up with Russia after the revolution (not a democracy) then some wild moving of the goal post with France and USA mentioned.
Everything with a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle like TSE's and Russian communists.
Ok you still haven't named a republican democracy that consficates all inheritance.
You made this claim so please name one. Just one will do.
Go on name one.
TSE's argument against the monarchy was it is hereditary.
Therefore the Russian Communist Republic that replaced the Russian monarchy and confiscated all private property in Russia is as fine an example as any as to why a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle is wrong.
In any case the Russian government after the Revolution was elected initially anyway, the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries between them winning 75% of the vote to the State Duma in November 1917
Why should you need to? Well because you said it was the same thing, yet you can't name one Republican democracy that does it.
I just did, the elected Socialist and Bolshevik government of Russia which in late 1917 ruled Russia after the Tsar's abdication earlier that year
Lol I know you think the current Russia is a democracy, but now you are claiming communist Russia was a democracy.
Then of course there is an endless list of real democratic countries who are republics and don't confiscate all inheritances (all of them actually).
You really are desperate.
It is nearly as bonkers as his contention that without the Queen as head of the Church, we would all become Catholics.
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
So let's get this straight. You are saying that there is no real distinction between republicanism and all inheritance being confiscated by the state, because I don't know of any republican democracy where that happens.
As I already pointed out that happened in Russia once the monarchy went
And did you miss the words 'republican democracy'. Now name one.
The US and France, both nations bitterly divided where half the country nearly always loathes their head of state as they did not vote for them.
Half the ceremonial Presidents are not elected by the voters anyway directly but by the legislature while also being anonymous nonentities unlike our royal family who have global recognition
Sorry what has that to do with the question.
I am waiting for you to name a republican democracy that confiscates all inheritances like you claimed.
Go on name one.
Go on I'm waiting. So far you have come up with Russia after the revolution (not a democracy) then some wild moving of the goal post with France and USA mentioned.
Everything with a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle like TSE's and Russian communists.
Ok you still haven't named a republican democracy that consficates all inheritance.
You made this claim so please name one. Just one will do.
Go on name one.
TSE's argument against the monarchy was it is hereditary.
Therefore the Russian Communist Republic that replaced the Russian monarchy and confiscated all private property in Russia is as fine an example as any as to why a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle is wrong.
In any case the Russian government after the Revolution was elected initially anyway, the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries between them winning 75% of the vote to the State Duma in November 1917
Why should you need to? Well because you said it was the same thing, yet you can't name one Republican democracy that does it.
I just did, the elected Socialist and Bolshevik government of Russia which in late 1917 ruled Russia after the Tsar's abdication earlier that year
Lol I know you think the current Russia is a democracy, but now you are claiming communist Russia was a democracy.
Then of course there is an endless list of real democratic countries who are republics and don't confiscate all inheritances (all of them actually).
You really are desperate.
It is nearly as bonkers as his contention that without the Queen as head of the Church, we would all become Catholics.
The established Catholic Church, currently the Church of England, would by definition then revert to the authority of the Pope yes
Jeremy Hunt is trying to “woo Tory MPs” by pledging to scrap the Irish Sea trade border.
Surely we can only do that by rejoining the Single Market?
Or by adopting May's backstop. Or by inventing a digital border.
As has been noted before, Hunt is Theresa May in trousers. As I said recently too Hunt as PM and Tory leader would dump Boris' Deal and return to May's Deal, as Starmer is also moving towards a May+ Brexit Deal there would therefore be no real difference between the 2 main parties on Brexit (with the LDs taking an even more pro EU/EEA approach) and Farage would see his chance
Your basic problem is that the oven-ready Brexit deal doesn't work. Whether or not we actually get another "lets break international law" law published tomorrow, tweaks won't cut it.
Eventually you lot will have to start to listening to business. To farmers. To exporters. And remember that you used to stand for free trade and cutting red tape.
Business also wanted the opportunity to have less EU regulation and free trade deals which Boris' Deal delivered.
If voters want more EU regulation again then they can vote for Starmer Labour and the LDs at the next general election, that is democracy. On Brexit Boris offers a choice not an echo!
Lol less regulations. You have never exported or imported anything have you?
I work for a British exporter (a leader in its field). I have colleagues who voted Leave now opening saying that they'd have voted Remain had they foreseen the avalanche of red tape that Brexit would impose upon them. In short: Brexit is now no sort of vote winner.
Didn't pretty much all Fishermen and most Farmers vote Leave? Can't imagine they would have if they knew what would happen.
Fishermen are out of the CFP as they voted for and able to catch more of their own catch in their own waters
Yes, but the point is, they are now in a worse position than when we were in the EU
Don't be mean. HY knows more about fishing than these fishermen.
Can't help wondering how relevant is an 18 month old whinge in the Guardian, in a situation which has changed rapidly.
It has changed rapidly. For worse, not better.
Salmon exporters won't agree with you, for one group.
Salmon exports to the EU are running at record levels, and the value of fish being landed by UK fishermen is up by around 15% 2020 to 2021.
For the pieces I questions, there were organisations on both sides of the debate. You can find pieces from similar organisations documenting things improving.
The G chose the ones that fitted the line they wanted to take, as is the case for almost all of our newspapers, and particularly that one.
We won't know where we are until we have a no-Covid year, and as the new rules setup develops.
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
So let's get this straight. You are saying that there is no real distinction between republicanism and all inheritance being confiscated by the state, because I don't know of any republican democracy where that happens.
As I already pointed out that happened in Russia once the monarchy went
And did you miss the words 'republican democracy'. Now name one.
The US and France, both nations bitterly divided where half the country nearly always loathes their head of state as they did not vote for them.
Half the ceremonial Presidents are not elected by the voters anyway directly but by the legislature while also being anonymous nonentities unlike our royal family who have global recognition
Sorry what has that to do with the question.
I am waiting for you to name a republican democracy that confiscates all inheritances like you claimed.
Go on name one.
Go on I'm waiting. So far you have come up with Russia after the revolution (not a democracy) then some wild moving of the goal post with France and USA mentioned.
Everything with a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle like TSE's and Russian communists.
Ok you still haven't named a republican democracy that consficates all inheritance.
You made this claim so please name one. Just one will do.
Go on name one.
TSE's argument against the monarchy was it is hereditary.
Therefore the Russian Communist Republic that replaced the Russian monarchy and confiscated all private property in Russia is as fine an example as any as to why a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle is wrong.
In any case the Russian government after the Revolution was elected initially anyway, the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries between them winning 75% of the vote to the State Duma in November 1917
Why should you need to? Well because you said it was the same thing, yet you can't name one Republican democracy that does it.
I just did, the elected Socialist and Bolshevik government of Russia which in late 1917 ruled Russia after the Tsar's abdication earlier that year
Lol I know you think the current Russia is a democracy, but now you are claiming communist Russia was a democracy.
Then of course there is an endless list of real democratic countries who are republics and don't confiscate all inheritances (all of them actually).
You really are desperate.
It is nearly as bonkers as his contention that without the Queen as head of the Church, we would all become Catholics.
The established Catholic Church, currently the Church of England, would by definition then revert to the authority of the Pope yes
But you spent a lot of energy not so long ago denying that the C of E was in any way Catholic, despite the statement on its own website. I really am confused now.
Hahaha, you're so ignorant it's amazing. Do you think the timeline of the Russian revolution was 1. The Tsar gets removed, then 2. Russians said "hey! let's do a Communism!" ?
Like, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and SRs just popped into being because the Tsar was no longer there? Like Karl Marx, emboldened by the fall of the Romanovs, came back to life, went back in time and wrote his Manifesto? Like 1905 never happened? Jesus, you've become a parody of yourself.
Russia could have stopped Communism from happening by having a proper pluralistic political system and involving the people in government in a meaningful and serious way. Instead the Romanovs hoarded power and isolated themselves from the masses, and allowed a buildup of tension that broke after two failed wars and led to all sorts of sensible and crazy people vying for power. And the crazies won. The blame for Communism goes to: 1. The Communists 2. The people who wanted nothing to change even though the whole system was totally failing
And not to: 3. The people who wanted incremental reform, rule of law, and democracy.
FWIW, my understanding from my not very political Russian family (grandparents) is that that was more or less right at first, but people became exasperated with the Mensheviks when they fiddled about with constitutional reform while continuing the extremely unpopular (and losing) war. The Bolshevik "bread and peace" slogan was by October an accurate reflection of popular priorities, and the settlement which ended the war was seen as long overdue. Lenin would probably have won a free election at that point, except that he wasn't interested in free elections.
HYUFD is mistaken that he seized all private property - even Stalin didn't do that. Big farms and industry, yes, but not personal property. My family emigrated in 1922 with their possessions intact.
Kulak farm owners certainly saw their private inherited property confiscated by the Communists
But it was never a bloody democracy. Name a democracy where what you say happens. I can name dozens where it doesn't.
You have reached new depths of arguing black is white.
Yes it was, the Socialist Revolutionaries were initially elected in November 1917 on a platform of confiscating private property and redistributing it to the peasants and formed a coalition with the Bolsheviks accordingly
No they did not 'form a coalition.' The SRs divided into two fragments, one of which (the Left group) supported the Bolsheviks to start but on the Bolsheviks' terms, and another one (the Rightists) took the side of the Whites in the civil war.
The Leftists served in the Bolshevik government for only two months and then disintegrated into further factions over their opposition to Brest-Litovsk. It was at this time the Bolsheviks renamed themselves the Communists and declared Russia a one-party state.
It is undeniable the SRs stood on a platform of confiscating private property in 1917 and redistributing it to the peasants just as the Bolsheviks did and together they won over 50% of the votes and seats in the first Russian elections since the removal of the monarchy
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
So let's get this straight. You are saying that there is no real distinction between republicanism and all inheritance being confiscated by the state, because I don't know of any republican democracy where that happens.
As I already pointed out that happened in Russia once the monarchy went
And did you miss the words 'republican democracy'. Now name one.
The US and France, both nations bitterly divided where half the country nearly always loathes their head of state as they did not vote for them.
Half the ceremonial Presidents are not elected by the voters anyway directly but by the legislature while also being anonymous nonentities unlike our royal family who have global recognition
Sorry what has that to do with the question.
I am waiting for you to name a republican democracy that confiscates all inheritances like you claimed.
Go on name one.
Go on I'm waiting. So far you have come up with Russia after the revolution (not a democracy) then some wild moving of the goal post with France and USA mentioned.
Everything with a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle like TSE's and Russian communists.
Ok you still haven't named a republican democracy that consficates all inheritance.
You made this claim so please name one. Just one will do.
Go on name one.
TSE's argument against the monarchy was it is hereditary.
Therefore the Russian Communist Republic that replaced the Russian monarchy and confiscated all private property in Russia is as fine an example as any as to why a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle is wrong.
In any case the Russian government after the Revolution was elected initially anyway, the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries between them winning 75% of the vote to the State Duma in November 1917
Why should you need to? Well because you said it was the same thing, yet you can't name one Republican democracy that does it.
I just did, the elected Socialist and Bolshevik government of Russia which in late 1917 ruled Russia after the Tsar's abdication earlier that year
Lol I know you think the current Russia is a democracy, but now you are claiming communist Russia was a democracy.
Then of course there is an endless list of real democratic countries who are republics and don't confiscate all inheritances (all of them actually).
You really are desperate.
It is nearly as bonkers as his contention that without the Queen as head of the Church, we would all become Catholics.
The established Catholic Church, currently the Church of England, would by definition then revert to the authority of the Pope yes
But you spent a lot of energy not so long ago denying that the C of E was in any way Catholic, despite the statement on its own website. I really am confused now.
See also Scotland where the Roman Catholic church now has more adherents than the Anglican Scottish Episcopal Church. The Anglican church being a Catholic and Apostolic church
Meanwhile Mélenchon, the French Corbyn, is insisting the projections are wrong and that his party can still win a majority. It's true in a technical sense, but in practice around 25% of votes with no sympathetic parties is not enough. At least Macron will have the Republicans to call on.
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
"Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties" Not necessarily, but even if so they can be sold off. I'd be happy to leave the former royals with a handsomely large estate for them to live off like any ordinary super-rich people. They can make do with a hundred million quid or so.
"it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis." Precisely wrong. Property rights do not depend on having an unelected head of state. Use your brain.
"The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely" No, it's exactly the same thing. The American colonies threw off the monarch and went to a republic, and have fiercely defended private property as a concept since then. We could all learn a thing or two from them.
Republics and property rights are a perfectly normal way of a country existing. America, Finland, Korea, Germany, France, Ireland. No need for you to pretend otherwise.
Once your main basis against the monarchy is that it is hereditary, then that also leads to confiscation of all inherited private property, exactly as the Communists started to do in Russia once they had abolished the monarchy .
And yes the election of 2020 in the US was such a great example for a republic wasn't it, 2 sides absolutely loathing each other and the other party's presidential candidate and a nation at near brink of civil war!
My argument against the monarchy is that we should be able to remove the head of state without them having to die.
And yeah, I'd rather live in America than Saudi Arabia.
I'd also rather live in constitutional monarchies like ours, Australia's, Sweden's, Denmark's, Monaco's, Luxembourg's, Norway's, Jordan's or Japan's or the Netherlands or Spain's or Canada's or New Zealand's than a republic like North Korea, Belarus, Syria, Russia, China or even Brazil or the USA.
On a point of information Saudi Arabia is also one of the few remaining absolute monarchies, not a constitutional monarchy like ours. In fact only 5 absolute monarchies remain, Saudi, the UAE, Oman, Brunei, Eswanti and the Vatican City. Yet there are far more republics around the globe that are dictatorships than that
Yeah, well, suck it up sweetheart. You're happy to make stupid arguments like "wait you want to get rid of the monarchy LIKE THEY DID IN RUSSIA?", so you'll have to live with "well you want a monarchy LIKE IN SAUDI ARABIA".
Or we could actually have a sensible conversation where we don't put words in each others' mouths and instead actually tackle each others points for what they are.
I'm willing, but I don't think you're even capable. Your choice.
No, as Saudi Arabia is not a constitutional monarchy like ours. I have never argued for a return to absolute monarchy in the UK, I support our constitutional monarchy.
Soviet Russia's post monarchy government however was an elected republican government that then went on to confiscate private property and you support elected republican governments and oppose hereditary monarchies even if constitutional
Well, the olive branch was there. But you can't help yourself.
You can't help painting someone else's views as being represented solely by a short-lived and chaotic shambles borne of a world war, a series of messy and violent revolts and a brewing civil war, in a country being ripped apart by anti-democratic forces on both the revolutionary and reactionary sides, riven by famine, and being torn into by an advancing German army (lead by a monarch! Shall we make something of that too? Nah, let's stay focused).
If you think my point is at all represented by THAT, then yes, you get to be Mohommad bin-HYUFD al Saud, hand chopper and head chopper, purveyor of sharia law, oppressor of women and killer of journalists, and KING.
Well done, you make everything you touch just a little bit stupider.
No I don't.
This discussion was ONLY about republican opposition to the hereditary principle, which includes the far left government which took over Russia after the monarchy was removed. Your and TSE's argument included opposition to the hereditary principle in your argument for a republic.
I have NEVER argued for an absolute monarchy by contrast in my arguments for a monarchy, only a constitutional one
Takes approx 12-18 months to train a new signaller.
Any sane nation requires citizenship as a prerequisite, plus very stringent security checks.
The Conservative Party has lost its mind if it thinks unemployed gig-economy staff can suddenly become signallers or train drivers.
They're flailing about, not waving but drowning.
The Government's best strategy is to make the RMT out as being the heirs to Arthur Scargill and invite their favourite pet newspapers to pile in. This at least promises a chance to earn some brownie points with their elderly voter base (consisting primarily of people who seldom if ever use trains, but believe on principle that the young should be grateful for whatever they're given and simply keep working regardless.) Someone has to be taxed into the ground to keep the triple lock going, after all.
They are pretty much the heirs to Scargill.
You, Sir, are a total idiot.
If BJ &Co want a major rail accident on their record…
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
So let's get this straight. You are saying that there is no real distinction between republicanism and all inheritance being confiscated by the state, because I don't know of any republican democracy where that happens.
As I already pointed out that happened in Russia once the monarchy went
And did you miss the words 'republican democracy'. Now name one.
The US and France, both nations bitterly divided where half the country nearly always loathes their head of state as they did not vote for them.
Half the ceremonial Presidents are not elected by the voters anyway directly but by the legislature while also being anonymous nonentities unlike our royal family who have global recognition
Sorry what has that to do with the question.
I am waiting for you to name a republican democracy that confiscates all inheritances like you claimed.
Go on name one.
Go on I'm waiting. So far you have come up with Russia after the revolution (not a democracy) then some wild moving of the goal post with France and USA mentioned.
Everything with a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle like TSE's and Russian communists.
Ok you still haven't named a republican democracy that consficates all inheritance.
You made this claim so please name one. Just one will do.
Go on name one.
TSE's argument against the monarchy was it is hereditary.
Therefore the Russian Communist Republic that replaced the Russian monarchy and confiscated all private property in Russia is as fine an example as any as to why a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle is wrong.
In any case the Russian government after the Revolution was elected initially anyway, the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries between them winning 75% of the vote to the State Duma in November 1917
Why should you need to? Well because you said it was the same thing, yet you can't name one Republican democracy that does it.
I just did, the elected Socialist and Bolshevik government of Russia which in late 1917 ruled Russia after the Tsar's abdication earlier that year
Lol I know you think the current Russia is a democracy, but now you are claiming communist Russia was a democracy.
Then of course there is an endless list of real democratic countries who are republics and don't confiscate all inheritances (all of them actually).
You really are desperate.
It is nearly as bonkers as his contention that without the Queen as head of the Church, we would all become Catholics.
The established Catholic Church, currently the Church of England, would by definition then revert to the authority of the Pope yes
But you spent a lot of energy not so long ago denying that the C of E was in any way Catholic, despite the statement on its own website. I really am confused now.
See also Scotland where the Roman Catholic church now has more adherents than the Anglican Scottish Episcopal Church. The Anglican church being a Catholic and Apostolic church
The Scottish Episcopal Church is not Anglican - they are sister churches. And the Piskies have been a very small denomination since the 1680s.
Clue: the Presbyterian ChurchES dominated. Not like in England.
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
"Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties" Not necessarily, but even if so they can be sold off. I'd be happy to leave the former royals with a handsomely large estate for them to live off like any ordinary super-rich people. They can make do with a hundred million quid or so.
"it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis." Precisely wrong. Property rights do not depend on having an unelected head of state. Use your brain.
"The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely" No, it's exactly the same thing. The American colonies threw off the monarch and went to a republic, and have fiercely defended private property as a concept since then. We could all learn a thing or two from them.
Republics and property rights are a perfectly normal way of a country existing. America, Finland, Korea, Germany, France, Ireland. No need for you to pretend otherwise.
Once your main basis against the monarchy is that it is hereditary, then that also leads to confiscation of all inherited private property, exactly as the Communists started to do in Russia once they had abolished the monarchy .
And yes the election of 2020 in the US was such a great example for a republic wasn't it, 2 sides absolutely loathing each other and the other party's presidential candidate and a nation at near brink of civil war!
My argument against the monarchy is that we should be able to remove the head of state without them having to die.
And yeah, I'd rather live in America than Saudi Arabia.
I'd also rather live in constitutional monarchies like ours, Australia's, Sweden's, Denmark's, Monaco's, Luxembourg's, Norway's, Jordan's or Japan's or the Netherlands or Spain's or Canada's or New Zealand's than a republic like North Korea, Belarus, Syria, Russia, China or even Brazil or the USA.
On a point of information Saudi Arabia is also one of the few remaining absolute monarchies, not a constitutional monarchy like ours. In fact only 5 absolute monarchies remain, Saudi, the UAE, Oman, Brunei, Eswanti and the Vatican City. Yet there are far more republics around the globe that are dictatorships than that
Yeah, well, suck it up sweetheart. You're happy to make stupid arguments like "wait you want to get rid of the monarchy LIKE THEY DID IN RUSSIA?", so you'll have to live with "well you want a monarchy LIKE IN SAUDI ARABIA".
Or we could actually have a sensible conversation where we don't put words in each others' mouths and instead actually tackle each others points for what they are.
I'm willing, but I don't think you're even capable. Your choice.
No, as Saudi Arabia is not a constitutional monarchy like ours. I have never argued for a return to absolute monarchy in the UK, I support our constitutional monarchy.
Soviet Russia's post monarchy government however was an elected republican government that then went on to confiscate private property and you support elected republican governments and oppose hereditary monarchies even if constitutional
Well, the olive branch was there. But you can't help yourself.
You can't help painting someone else's views as being represented solely by a short-lived and chaotic shambles borne of a world war, a series of messy and violent revolts and a brewing civil war, in a country being ripped apart by anti-democratic forces on both the revolutionary and reactionary sides, riven by famine, and being torn into by an advancing German army (lead by a monarch! Shall we make something of that too? Nah, let's stay focused).
If you think my point is at all represented by THAT, then yes, you get to be Mohommad bin-HYUFD al Saud, hand chopper and head chopper, purveyor of sharia law, oppressor of women and killer of journalists, and KING.
Well done, you make everything you touch just a little bit stupider.
No I don't.
This discussion was ONLY about republican opposition to the hereditary principle, which includes the far left government which took over Russia after the monarchy was removed. Your and TSE's argument included opposition to the hereditary principle in your argument for a republic.
I have NEVER argued for an absolute monarchy by contrast in my arguments for a monarchy, only a constitutional one
You bloody well did, the moment you started claiming divine right. Once you do that, you're right off the constitutional scale.
Hahaha, you're so ignorant it's amazing. Do you think the timeline of the Russian revolution was 1. The Tsar gets removed, then 2. Russians said "hey! let's do a Communism!" ?
Like, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and SRs just popped into being because the Tsar was no longer there? Like Karl Marx, emboldened by the fall of the Romanovs, came back to life, went back in time and wrote his Manifesto? Like 1905 never happened? Jesus, you've become a parody of yourself.
Russia could have stopped Communism from happening by having a proper pluralistic political system and involving the people in government in a meaningful and serious way. Instead the Romanovs hoarded power and isolated themselves from the masses, and allowed a buildup of tension that broke after two failed wars and led to all sorts of sensible and crazy people vying for power. And the crazies won. The blame for Communism goes to: 1. The Communists 2. The people who wanted nothing to change even though the whole system was totally failing
And not to: 3. The people who wanted incremental reform, rule of law, and democracy.
FWIW, my understanding from my not very political Russian family (grandparents) is that that was more or less right at first, but people became exasperated with the Mensheviks when they fiddled about with constitutional reform while continuing the extremely unpopular (and losing) war. The Bolshevik "bread and peace" slogan was by October an accurate reflection of popular priorities, and the settlement which ended the war was seen as long overdue. Lenin would probably have won a free election at that point, except that he wasn't interested in free elections.
HYUFD is mistaken that he seized all private property - even Stalin didn't do that. Big farms and industry, yes, but not personal property. My family emigrated in 1922 with their possessions intact.
Kulak farm owners certainly saw their private inherited property confiscated by the Communists
But it was never a bloody democracy. Name a democracy where what you say happens. I can name dozens where it doesn't.
You have reached new depths of arguing black is white.
Yes it was, the Socialist Revolutionaries were initially elected in November 1917 on a platform of confiscating private property and redistributing it to the peasants and formed a coalition with the Bolsheviks accordingly
No they did not 'form a coalition.' The SRs divided into two fragments, one of which (the Left group) supported the Bolsheviks to start but on the Bolsheviks' terms, and another one (the Rightists) took the side of the Whites in the civil war.
The Leftists served in the Bolshevik government for only two months and then disintegrated into further factions over their opposition to Brest-Litovsk. It was at this time the Bolsheviks renamed themselves the Communists and declared Russia a one-party state.
It is undeniable the SRs stood on a platform of confiscating private property in 1917 and redistributing it to the peasants just as the Bolsheviks did and together they won over 50% of the votes and seats in the first Russian elections since the removal of the monarchy
Again, it is rather more complicated than that, although as I haven't time to explain to you the nuances of Russian land reform from 1861 onwards I wouldn't expect you to get that. The issue is that while the landlords thought as you do the peasants didn't quite see it the same way for two reasons (1) they thought land belonged to those who worked it, not those who had pieces of paper saying they owned it and (2) they had been promised title to the land in 1861 and again in 1906, and both times the promise had been broken, but the money and labour they had agreed to in exchange for the land had still been taken off them.
What the SRs and the Bolsheviks (and for that matter the Mensheviks and even many in the Kadets) thought they were doing was enacting a previous promised transaction that the government and landowners had welched on.
And in any case, since most land had already been seized by the peasants anyway by October 1917 as order broke down they were mostly recognising a fait accompli.
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
So let's get this straight. You are saying that there is no real distinction between republicanism and all inheritance being confiscated by the state, because I don't know of any republican democracy where that happens.
As I already pointed out that happened in Russia once the monarchy went
And did you miss the words 'republican democracy'. Now name one.
The US and France, both nations bitterly divided where half the country nearly always loathes their head of state as they did not vote for them.
Half the ceremonial Presidents are not elected by the voters anyway directly but by the legislature while also being anonymous nonentities unlike our royal family who have global recognition
Sorry what has that to do with the question.
I am waiting for you to name a republican democracy that confiscates all inheritances like you claimed.
Go on name one.
Go on I'm waiting. So far you have come up with Russia after the revolution (not a democracy) then some wild moving of the goal post with France and USA mentioned.
Everything with a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle like TSE's and Russian communists.
Ok you still haven't named a republican democracy that consficates all inheritance.
You made this claim so please name one. Just one will do.
Go on name one.
TSE's argument against the monarchy was it is hereditary.
Therefore the Russian Communist Republic that replaced the Russian monarchy and confiscated all private property in Russia is as fine an example as any as to why a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle is wrong.
In any case the Russian government after the Revolution was elected initially anyway, the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries between them winning 75% of the vote to the State Duma in November 1917
Why should you need to? Well because you said it was the same thing, yet you can't name one Republican democracy that does it.
I just did, the elected Socialist and Bolshevik government of Russia which in late 1917 ruled Russia after the Tsar's abdication earlier that year
Lol I know you think the current Russia is a democracy, but now you are claiming communist Russia was a democracy.
Then of course there is an endless list of real democratic countries who are republics and don't confiscate all inheritances (all of them actually).
You really are desperate.
It is nearly as bonkers as his contention that without the Queen as head of the Church, we would all become Catholics.
The established Catholic Church, currently the Church of England, would by definition then revert to the authority of the Pope yes
But you spent a lot of energy not so long ago denying that the C of E was in any way Catholic, despite the statement on its own website. I really am confused now.
See also Scotland where the Roman Catholic church now has more adherents than the Anglican Scottish Episcopal Church. The Anglican church being a Catholic and Apostolic church
The Scottish Episcopal Church is not Anglican - they are sister churches. And the Piskies have been a very small denomination since the 1680s.
Clue: the Presbyterian ChurchES dominated. Not like in England.
Yes it is, it is a member of the Anglican communion alongside the C of E. The Presbyterian Church is not Anglican. Percentage wise therefore there are more Roman Catholics under Papal authority in Scotland than in England. Largely because the Scottish Anglican church is not established, so more have ended up owing their allegience to Rome instead of the Queen
Hahaha, you're so ignorant it's amazing. Do you think the timeline of the Russian revolution was 1. The Tsar gets removed, then 2. Russians said "hey! let's do a Communism!" ?
Like, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and SRs just popped into being because the Tsar was no longer there? Like Karl Marx, emboldened by the fall of the Romanovs, came back to life, went back in time and wrote his Manifesto? Like 1905 never happened? Jesus, you've become a parody of yourself.
Russia could have stopped Communism from happening by having a proper pluralistic political system and involving the people in government in a meaningful and serious way. Instead the Romanovs hoarded power and isolated themselves from the masses, and allowed a buildup of tension that broke after two failed wars and led to all sorts of sensible and crazy people vying for power. And the crazies won. The blame for Communism goes to: 1. The Communists 2. The people who wanted nothing to change even though the whole system was totally failing
And not to: 3. The people who wanted incremental reform, rule of law, and democracy.
FWIW, my understanding from my not very political Russian family (grandparents) is that that was more or less right at first, but people became exasperated with the Mensheviks when they fiddled about with constitutional reform while continuing the extremely unpopular (and losing) war. The Bolshevik "bread and peace" slogan was by October an accurate reflection of popular priorities, and the settlement which ended the war was seen as long overdue. Lenin would probably have won a free election at that point, except that he wasn't interested in free elections.
HYUFD is mistaken that he seized all private property - even Stalin didn't do that. Big farms and industry, yes, but not personal property. My family emigrated in 1922 with their possessions intact.
Kulak farm owners certainly saw their private inherited property confiscated by the Communists
But it was never a bloody democracy. Name a democracy where what you say happens. I can name dozens where it doesn't.
You have reached new depths of arguing black is white.
Yes it was, the Socialist Revolutionaries were initially elected in November 1917 on a platform of confiscating private property and redistributing it to the peasants and formed a coalition with the Bolsheviks accordingly
No they did not 'form a coalition.' The SRs divided into two fragments, one of which (the Left group) supported the Bolsheviks to start but on the Bolsheviks' terms, and another one (the Rightists) took the side of the Whites in the civil war.
The Leftists served in the Bolshevik government for only two months and then disintegrated into further factions over their opposition to Brest-Litovsk. It was at this time the Bolsheviks renamed themselves the Communists and declared Russia a one-party state.
It is undeniable the SRs stood on a platform of confiscating private property in 1917 and redistributing it to the peasants just as the Bolsheviks did and together they won over 50% of the votes and seats in the first Russian elections since the removal of the monarchy
Again, it is rather more complicated than that, although as I haven't time to explain to you the nuances of Russian land reform from 1861 onwards I wouldn't expect you to get that. The issue is that while the landlords thought as you do the peasants didn't quite see it the same way for two reasons (1) they thought land belonged to those who worked it, not those who had pieces of paper saying they owned it and (2) they had been promised title to the land in 1861 and again in 1906, and both times the promise had been broken, but the money and labour they had agreed to in exchange for the land had still been taken off them.
What the SRs and the Bolsheviks (and for that matter the Mensheviks and even many in the Kadets) thought they were doing was enacting a previous promised transaction that the government and landowners had welched on.
And in any case, since most land had already been seized by the peasants anyway by October 1917 as order broke down they were mostly recognising a fait accompli.
Which those peasants confirmed when they elected the SRs and the Bolsheviks, the monarchy having been removed and unable to stop them by then
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
"Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties" Not necessarily, but even if so they can be sold off. I'd be happy to leave the former royals with a handsomely large estate for them to live off like any ordinary super-rich people. They can make do with a hundred million quid or so.
"it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis." Precisely wrong. Property rights do not depend on having an unelected head of state. Use your brain.
"The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely" No, it's exactly the same thing. The American colonies threw off the monarch and went to a republic, and have fiercely defended private property as a concept since then. We could all learn a thing or two from them.
Republics and property rights are a perfectly normal way of a country existing. America, Finland, Korea, Germany, France, Ireland. No need for you to pretend otherwise.
Once your main basis against the monarchy is that it is hereditary, then that also leads to confiscation of all inherited private property, exactly as the Communists started to do in Russia once they had abolished the monarchy .
And yes the election of 2020 in the US was such a great example for a republic wasn't it, 2 sides absolutely loathing each other and the other party's presidential candidate and a nation at near brink of civil war!
My argument against the monarchy is that we should be able to remove the head of state without them having to die.
And yeah, I'd rather live in America than Saudi Arabia.
I'd also rather live in constitutional monarchies like ours, Australia's, Sweden's, Denmark's, Monaco's, Luxembourg's, Norway's, Jordan's or Japan's or the Netherlands or Spain's or Canada's or New Zealand's than a republic like North Korea, Belarus, Syria, Russia, China or even Brazil or the USA.
On a point of information Saudi Arabia is also one of the few remaining absolute monarchies, not a constitutional monarchy like ours. In fact only 5 absolute monarchies remain, Saudi, the UAE, Oman, Brunei, Eswanti and the Vatican City. Yet there are far more republics around the globe that are dictatorships than that
Yeah, well, suck it up sweetheart. You're happy to make stupid arguments like "wait you want to get rid of the monarchy LIKE THEY DID IN RUSSIA?", so you'll have to live with "well you want a monarchy LIKE IN SAUDI ARABIA".
Or we could actually have a sensible conversation where we don't put words in each others' mouths and instead actually tackle each others points for what they are.
I'm willing, but I don't think you're even capable. Your choice.
No, as Saudi Arabia is not a constitutional monarchy like ours. I have never argued for a return to absolute monarchy in the UK, I support our constitutional monarchy.
Soviet Russia's post monarchy government however was an elected republican government that then went on to confiscate private property and you support elected republican governments and oppose hereditary monarchies even if constitutional
Well, the olive branch was there. But you can't help yourself.
You can't help painting someone else's views as being represented solely by a short-lived and chaotic shambles borne of a world war, a series of messy and violent revolts and a brewing civil war, in a country being ripped apart by anti-democratic forces on both the revolutionary and reactionary sides, riven by famine, and being torn into by an advancing German army (lead by a monarch! Shall we make something of that too? Nah, let's stay focused).
If you think my point is at all represented by THAT, then yes, you get to be Mohommad bin-HYUFD al Saud, hand chopper and head chopper, purveyor of sharia law, oppressor of women and killer of journalists, and KING.
Well done, you make everything you touch just a little bit stupider.
No I don't.
This discussion was ONLY about republican opposition to the hereditary principle, which includes the far left government which took over Russia after the monarchy was removed. Your and TSE's argument included opposition to the hereditary principle in your argument for a republic.
I have NEVER argued for an absolute monarchy by contrast in my arguments for a monarchy, only a constitutional one
You bloody well did, the moment you started claiming divine right. Once you do that, you're right off the constitutional scale.
No, even the Queen was anointed monarch by grace of God at her coronation. She is still a constitutional monarch
Hahaha, you're so ignorant it's amazing. Do you think the timeline of the Russian revolution was 1. The Tsar gets removed, then 2. Russians said "hey! let's do a Communism!" ?
Like, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and SRs just popped into being because the Tsar was no longer there? Like Karl Marx, emboldened by the fall of the Romanovs, came back to life, went back in time and wrote his Manifesto? Like 1905 never happened? Jesus, you've become a parody of yourself.
Russia could have stopped Communism from happening by having a proper pluralistic political system and involving the people in government in a meaningful and serious way. Instead the Romanovs hoarded power and isolated themselves from the masses, and allowed a buildup of tension that broke after two failed wars and led to all sorts of sensible and crazy people vying for power. And the crazies won. The blame for Communism goes to: 1. The Communists 2. The people who wanted nothing to change even though the whole system was totally failing
And not to: 3. The people who wanted incremental reform, rule of law, and democracy.
FWIW, my understanding from my not very political Russian family (grandparents) is that that was more or less right at first, but people became exasperated with the Mensheviks when they fiddled about with constitutional reform while continuing the extremely unpopular (and losing) war. The Bolshevik "bread and peace" slogan was by October an accurate reflection of popular priorities, and the settlement which ended the war was seen as long overdue. Lenin would probably have won a free election at that point, except that he wasn't interested in free elections.
HYUFD is mistaken that he seized all private property - even Stalin didn't do that. Big farms and industry, yes, but not personal property. My family emigrated in 1922 with their possessions intact.
Kulak farm owners certainly saw their private inherited property confiscated by the Communists
But it was never a bloody democracy. Name a democracy where what you say happens. I can name dozens where it doesn't.
You have reached new depths of arguing black is white.
Yes it was, the Socialist Revolutionaries were initially elected in November 1917 on a platform of confiscating private property and redistributing it to the peasants and formed a coalition with the Bolsheviks accordingly
No they did not 'form a coalition.' The SRs divided into two fragments, one of which (the Left group) supported the Bolsheviks to start but on the Bolsheviks' terms, and another one (the Rightists) took the side of the Whites in the civil war.
The Leftists served in the Bolshevik government for only two months and then disintegrated into further factions over their opposition to Brest-Litovsk. It was at this time the Bolsheviks renamed themselves the Communists and declared Russia a one-party state.
It is undeniable the SRs stood on a platform of confiscating private property in 1917 and redistributing it to the peasants just as the Bolsheviks did and together they won over 50% of the votes and seats in the first Russian elections since the removal of the monarchy
Again, it is rather more complicated than that, although as I haven't time to explain to you the nuances of Russian land reform from 1861 onwards I wouldn't expect you to get that. The issue is that while the landlords thought as you do the peasants didn't quite see it the same way for two reasons (1) they thought land belonged to those who worked it, not those who had pieces of paper saying they owned it and (2) they had been promised title to the land in 1861 and again in 1906, and both times the promise had been broken, but the money and labour they had agreed to in exchange for the land had still been taken off them.
What the SRs and the Bolsheviks (and for that matter the Mensheviks and even many in the Kadets) thought they were doing was enacting a previous promised transaction that the government and landowners had welched on.
And in any case, since most land had already been seized by the peasants anyway by October 1917 as order broke down they were mostly recognising a fait accompli.
Which those peasants confirmed when they elected the SRs and the Bolsheviks, the monarchy having been removed and unable to stop them by then
My point being that they were taking what they felt, with some justification in light of previous events, was rightfully their property that had been unlawfully and unfairly confiscated by the Tsar.
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
So let's get this straight. You are saying that there is no real distinction between republicanism and all inheritance being confiscated by the state, because I don't know of any republican democracy where that happens.
As I already pointed out that happened in Russia once the monarchy went
And did you miss the words 'republican democracy'. Now name one.
The US and France, both nations bitterly divided where half the country nearly always loathes their head of state as they did not vote for them.
Half the ceremonial Presidents are not elected by the voters anyway directly but by the legislature while also being anonymous nonentities unlike our royal family who have global recognition
Sorry what has that to do with the question.
I am waiting for you to name a republican democracy that confiscates all inheritances like you claimed.
Go on name one.
Go on I'm waiting. So far you have come up with Russia after the revolution (not a democracy) then some wild moving of the goal post with France and USA mentioned.
Everything with a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle like TSE's and Russian communists.
Ok you still haven't named a republican democracy that consficates all inheritance.
You made this claim so please name one. Just one will do.
Go on name one.
TSE's argument against the monarchy was it is hereditary.
Therefore the Russian Communist Republic that replaced the Russian monarchy and confiscated all private property in Russia is as fine an example as any as to why a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle is wrong.
In any case the Russian government after the Revolution was elected initially anyway, the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries between them winning 75% of the vote to the State Duma in November 1917
Why should you need to? Well because you said it was the same thing, yet you can't name one Republican democracy that does it.
I just did, the elected Socialist and Bolshevik government of Russia which in late 1917 ruled Russia after the Tsar's abdication earlier that year
Lol I know you think the current Russia is a democracy, but now you are claiming communist Russia was a democracy.
Then of course there is an endless list of real democratic countries who are republics and don't confiscate all inheritances (all of them actually).
You really are desperate.
It is nearly as bonkers as his contention that without the Queen as head of the Church, we would all become Catholics.
The established Catholic Church, currently the Church of England, would by definition then revert to the authority of the Pope yes
But you spent a lot of energy not so long ago denying that the C of E was in any way Catholic, despite the statement on its own website. I really am confused now.
See also Scotland where the Roman Catholic church now has more adherents than the Anglican Scottish Episcopal Church. The Anglican church being a Catholic and Apostolic church
The Scottish Episcopal Church is not Anglican - they are sister churches. And the Piskies have been a very small denomination since the 1680s.
Clue: the Presbyterian ChurchES dominated. Not like in England.
The CoE utterly despised the Piskies, until the late Victorian period. Preposterous to claim them as “Anglican”.
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
So let's get this straight. You are saying that there is no real distinction between republicanism and all inheritance being confiscated by the state, because I don't know of any republican democracy where that happens.
As I already pointed out that happened in Russia once the monarchy went
And did you miss the words 'republican democracy'. Now name one.
The US and France, both nations bitterly divided where half the country nearly always loathes their head of state as they did not vote for them.
Half the ceremonial Presidents are not elected by the voters anyway directly but by the legislature while also being anonymous nonentities unlike our royal family who have global recognition
Sorry what has that to do with the question.
I am waiting for you to name a republican democracy that confiscates all inheritances like you claimed.
Go on name one.
Go on I'm waiting. So far you have come up with Russia after the revolution (not a democracy) then some wild moving of the goal post with France and USA mentioned.
Everything with a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle like TSE's and Russian communists.
Ok you still haven't named a republican democracy that consficates all inheritance.
You made this claim so please name one. Just one will do.
Go on name one.
TSE's argument against the monarchy was it is hereditary.
Therefore the Russian Communist Republic that replaced the Russian monarchy and confiscated all private property in Russia is as fine an example as any as to why a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle is wrong.
In any case the Russian government after the Revolution was elected initially anyway, the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries between them winning 75% of the vote to the State Duma in November 1917
Why should you need to? Well because you said it was the same thing, yet you can't name one Republican democracy that does it.
I just did, the elected Socialist and Bolshevik government of Russia which in late 1917 ruled Russia after the Tsar's abdication earlier that year
Lol I know you think the current Russia is a democracy, but now you are claiming communist Russia was a democracy.
Then of course there is an endless list of real democratic countries who are republics and don't confiscate all inheritances (all of them actually).
You really are desperate.
It is nearly as bonkers as his contention that without the Queen as head of the Church, we would all become Catholics.
The established Catholic Church, currently the Church of England, would by definition then revert to the authority of the Pope yes
But you spent a lot of energy not so long ago denying that the C of E was in any way Catholic, despite the statement on its own website. I really am confused now.
See also Scotland where the Roman Catholic church now has more adherents than the Anglican Scottish Episcopal Church. The Anglican church being a Catholic and Apostolic church
The Scottish Episcopal Church is not Anglican - they are sister churches. And the Piskies have been a very small denomination since the 1680s.
Clue: the Presbyterian ChurchES dominated. Not like in England.
Yes it is, it is a member of the Anglican communion alongside the C of E. The Presbyterian Church is not Anglican. Percentage wise therefore there are more Roman Catholics under Papal authority in Scotland than in England. Largely because the Scottish Anglican church is not established, so more have ended up owing their allegience to Rome instead of the Queen
There is no such thing as a Scottish Anglican church. That is an extraordinary distortion of ecclesiastical history. Vide Charles I, Laud, and the Wars of the Covenant on precisely that issue.
As for the rest - your ignorance of Scottish history shines through. Not least because the Presbyterian Kirk was established till 1923.
Jeremy Hunt is trying to “woo Tory MPs” by pledging to scrap the Irish Sea trade border.
Surely we can only do that by rejoining the Single Market?
Or by adopting May's backstop. Or by inventing a digital border.
As has been noted before, Hunt is Theresa May in trousers. As I said recently too Hunt as PM and Tory leader would dump Boris' Deal and return to May's Deal, as Starmer is also moving towards a May+ Brexit Deal there would therefore be no real difference between the 2 main parties on Brexit (with the LDs taking an even more pro EU/EEA approach) and Farage would see his chance
Your basic problem is that the oven-ready Brexit deal doesn't work. Whether or not we actually get another "lets break international law" law published tomorrow, tweaks won't cut it.
Eventually you lot will have to start to listening to business. To farmers. To exporters. And remember that you used to stand for free trade and cutting red tape.
Business also wanted the opportunity to have less EU regulation and free trade deals which Boris' Deal delivered.
If voters want more EU regulation again then they can vote for Starmer Labour and the LDs at the next general election, that is democracy. On Brexit Boris offers a choice not an echo!
Lol less regulations. You have never exported or imported anything have you?
I work for a British exporter (a leader in its field). I have colleagues who voted Leave now opening saying that they'd have voted Remain had they foreseen the avalanche of red tape that Brexit would impose upon them. In short: Brexit is now no sort of vote winner.
Didn't pretty much all Fishermen and most Farmers vote Leave? Can't imagine they would have if they knew what would happen.
Fishermen are out of the CFP as they voted for and able to catch more of their own catch in their own waters
Yes, but the point is, they are now in a worse position than when we were in the EU
Don't be mean. HY knows more about fishing than these fishermen.
Can't help wondering how relevant is an 18 month old whinge in the Guardian, in a situation which has changed rapidly.
It has changed rapidly. For worse, not better.
Salmon exporters won't agree with you, for one group.
Salmon exports to the EU are running at record levels, and the value of fish being landed by UK fishermen is up by around 15% 2020 to 2021.
For the pieces I questions, there were organisations on both sides of the debate. You can find pieces from similar organisations documenting things improving.
The G chose the ones that fitted the line they wanted to take, as is the case for almost all of our newspapers, and particularly that one.
We won't know where we are until we have a no-Covid year, and as the new rules setup develops.
Hahaha, you're so ignorant it's amazing. Do you think the timeline of the Russian revolution was 1. The Tsar gets removed, then 2. Russians said "hey! let's do a Communism!" ?
Like, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and SRs just popped into being because the Tsar was no longer there? Like Karl Marx, emboldened by the fall of the Romanovs, came back to life, went back in time and wrote his Manifesto? Like 1905 never happened? Jesus, you've become a parody of yourself.
Russia could have stopped Communism from happening by having a proper pluralistic political system and involving the people in government in a meaningful and serious way. Instead the Romanovs hoarded power and isolated themselves from the masses, and allowed a buildup of tension that broke after two failed wars and led to all sorts of sensible and crazy people vying for power. And the crazies won. The blame for Communism goes to: 1. The Communists 2. The people who wanted nothing to change even though the whole system was totally failing
And not to: 3. The people who wanted incremental reform, rule of law, and democracy.
FWIW, my understanding from my not very political Russian family (grandparents) is that that was more or less right at first, but people became exasperated with the Mensheviks when they fiddled about with constitutional reform while continuing the extremely unpopular (and losing) war. The Bolshevik "bread and peace" slogan was by October an accurate reflection of popular priorities, and the settlement which ended the war was seen as long overdue. Lenin would probably have won a free election at that point, except that he wasn't interested in free elections.
HYUFD is mistaken that he seized all private property - even Stalin didn't do that. Big farms and industry, yes, but not personal property. My family emigrated in 1922 with their possessions intact.
Kulak farm owners certainly saw their private inherited property confiscated by the Communists
But it was never a bloody democracy. Name a democracy where what you say happens. I can name dozens where it doesn't.
You have reached new depths of arguing black is white.
Yes it was, the Socialist Revolutionaries were initially elected in November 1917 on a platform of confiscating private property and redistributing it to the peasants and formed a coalition with the Bolsheviks accordingly
No they did not 'form a coalition.' The SRs divided into two fragments, one of which (the Left group) supported the Bolsheviks to start but on the Bolsheviks' terms, and another one (the Rightists) took the side of the Whites in the civil war.
The Leftists served in the Bolshevik government for only two months and then disintegrated into further factions over their opposition to Brest-Litovsk. It was at this time the Bolsheviks renamed themselves the Communists and declared Russia a one-party state.
It is undeniable the SRs stood on a platform of confiscating private property in 1917 and redistributing it to the peasants just as the Bolsheviks did and together they won over 50% of the votes and seats in the first Russian elections since the removal of the monarchy
Again, it is rather more complicated than that, although as I haven't time to explain to you the nuances of Russian land reform from 1861 onwards I wouldn't expect you to get that. The issue is that while the landlords thought as you do the peasants didn't quite see it the same way for two reasons (1) they thought land belonged to those who worked it, not those who had pieces of paper saying they owned it and (2) they had been promised title to the land in 1861 and again in 1906, and both times the promise had been broken, but the money and labour they had agreed to in exchange for the land had still been taken off them.
What the SRs and the Bolsheviks (and for that matter the Mensheviks and even many in the Kadets) thought they were doing was enacting a previous promised transaction that the government and landowners had welched on.
And in any case, since most land had already been seized by the peasants anyway by October 1917 as order broke down they were mostly recognising a fait accompli.
Which those peasants confirmed when they elected the SRs and the Bolsheviks, the monarchy having been removed and unable to stop them by then
My point being that they were taking what they felt, with some justification in light of previous events, was rightfully their property that had been unlawfully and unfairly confiscated by the Tsar.
Which actually completely inverts your argument.
No it doesn't, it confirms it. Having removed the Tsar they then got behind far left groups and parties which wanted to removed private property, including inherited private property, in Russia and redistribute it to them
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
"Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties" Not necessarily, but even if so they can be sold off. I'd be happy to leave the former royals with a handsomely large estate for them to live off like any ordinary super-rich people. They can make do with a hundred million quid or so.
"it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis." Precisely wrong. Property rights do not depend on having an unelected head of state. Use your brain.
"The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely" No, it's exactly the same thing. The American colonies threw off the monarch and went to a republic, and have fiercely defended private property as a concept since then. We could all learn a thing or two from them.
Republics and property rights are a perfectly normal way of a country existing. America, Finland, Korea, Germany, France, Ireland. No need for you to pretend otherwise.
Once your main basis against the monarchy is that it is hereditary, then that also leads to confiscation of all inherited private property, exactly as the Communists started to do in Russia once they had abolished the monarchy .
And yes the election of 2020 in the US was such a great example for a republic wasn't it, 2 sides absolutely loathing each other and the other party's presidential candidate and a nation at near brink of civil war!
My argument against the monarchy is that we should be able to remove the head of state without them having to die.
And yeah, I'd rather live in America than Saudi Arabia.
I'd also rather live in constitutional monarchies like ours, Australia's, Sweden's, Denmark's, Monaco's, Luxembourg's, Norway's, Jordan's or Japan's or the Netherlands or Spain's or Canada's or New Zealand's than a republic like North Korea, Belarus, Syria, Russia, China or even Brazil or the USA.
On a point of information Saudi Arabia is also one of the few remaining absolute monarchies, not a constitutional monarchy like ours. In fact only 5 absolute monarchies remain, Saudi, the UAE, Oman, Brunei, Eswanti and the Vatican City. Yet there are far more republics around the globe that are dictatorships than that
Yeah, well, suck it up sweetheart. You're happy to make stupid arguments like "wait you want to get rid of the monarchy LIKE THEY DID IN RUSSIA?", so you'll have to live with "well you want a monarchy LIKE IN SAUDI ARABIA".
Or we could actually have a sensible conversation where we don't put words in each others' mouths and instead actually tackle each others points for what they are.
I'm willing, but I don't think you're even capable. Your choice.
No, as Saudi Arabia is not a constitutional monarchy like ours. I have never argued for a return to absolute monarchy in the UK, I support our constitutional monarchy.
Soviet Russia's post monarchy government however was an elected republican government that then went on to confiscate private property and you support elected republican governments and oppose hereditary monarchies even if constitutional
Well, the olive branch was there. But you can't help yourself.
You can't help painting someone else's views as being represented solely by a short-lived and chaotic shambles borne of a world war, a series of messy and violent revolts and a brewing civil war, in a country being ripped apart by anti-democratic forces on both the revolutionary and reactionary sides, riven by famine, and being torn into by an advancing German army (lead by a monarch! Shall we make something of that too? Nah, let's stay focused).
If you think my point is at all represented by THAT, then yes, you get to be Mohommad bin-HYUFD al Saud, hand chopper and head chopper, purveyor of sharia law, oppressor of women and killer of journalists, and KING.
Well done, you make everything you touch just a little bit stupider.
No I don't.
This discussion was ONLY about republican opposition to the hereditary principle, which includes the far left government which took over Russia after the monarchy was removed. Your and TSE's argument included opposition to the hereditary principle in your argument for a republic.
I have NEVER argued for an absolute monarchy by contrast in my arguments for a monarchy, only a constitutional one
You bloody well did, the moment you started claiming divine right. Once you do that, you're right off the constitutional scale.
No, even the Queen was anointed monarch by grace of God at her coronation. She is still a constitutional monarch
But you're effectively claiming that republicans are heretics, in the most profound and literal sense. That has no place in politics since, oh, I don't know, 1688/1690?
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
"Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties" Not necessarily, but even if so they can be sold off. I'd be happy to leave the former royals with a handsomely large estate for them to live off like any ordinary super-rich people. They can make do with a hundred million quid or so.
"it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis." Precisely wrong. Property rights do not depend on having an unelected head of state. Use your brain.
"The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely" No, it's exactly the same thing. The American colonies threw off the monarch and went to a republic, and have fiercely defended private property as a concept since then. We could all learn a thing or two from them.
Republics and property rights are a perfectly normal way of a country existing. America, Finland, Korea, Germany, France, Ireland. No need for you to pretend otherwise.
Once your main basis against the monarchy is that it is hereditary, then that also leads to confiscation of all inherited private property, exactly as the Communists started to do in Russia once they had abolished the monarchy .
And yes the election of 2020 in the US was such a great example for a republic wasn't it, 2 sides absolutely loathing each other and the other party's presidential candidate and a nation at near brink of civil war!
My argument against the monarchy is that we should be able to remove the head of state without them having to die.
And yeah, I'd rather live in America than Saudi Arabia.
I'd also rather live in constitutional monarchies like ours, Australia's, Sweden's, Denmark's, Monaco's, Luxembourg's, Norway's, Jordan's or Japan's or the Netherlands or Spain's or Canada's or New Zealand's than a republic like North Korea, Belarus, Syria, Russia, China or even Brazil or the USA.
On a point of information Saudi Arabia is also one of the few remaining absolute monarchies, not a constitutional monarchy like ours. In fact only 5 absolute monarchies remain, Saudi, the UAE, Oman, Brunei, Eswanti and the Vatican City. Yet there are far more republics around the globe that are dictatorships than that
Yeah, well, suck it up sweetheart. You're happy to make stupid arguments like "wait you want to get rid of the monarchy LIKE THEY DID IN RUSSIA?", so you'll have to live with "well you want a monarchy LIKE IN SAUDI ARABIA".
Or we could actually have a sensible conversation where we don't put words in each others' mouths and instead actually tackle each others points for what they are.
I'm willing, but I don't think you're even capable. Your choice.
No, as Saudi Arabia is not a constitutional monarchy like ours. I have never argued for a return to absolute monarchy in the UK, I support our constitutional monarchy.
Soviet Russia's post monarchy government however was an elected republican government that then went on to confiscate private property and you support elected republican governments and oppose hereditary monarchies even if constitutional
Well, the olive branch was there. But you can't help yourself.
You can't help painting someone else's views as being represented solely by a short-lived and chaotic shambles borne of a world war, a series of messy and violent revolts and a brewing civil war, in a country being ripped apart by anti-democratic forces on both the revolutionary and reactionary sides, riven by famine, and being torn into by an advancing German army (lead by a monarch! Shall we make something of that too? Nah, let's stay focused).
If you think my point is at all represented by THAT, then yes, you get to be Mohommad bin-HYUFD al Saud, hand chopper and head chopper, purveyor of sharia law, oppressor of women and killer of journalists, and KING.
Well done, you make everything you touch just a little bit stupider.
No I don't.
This discussion was ONLY about republican opposition to the hereditary principle, which includes the far left government which took over Russia after the monarchy was removed. Your and TSE's argument included opposition to the hereditary principle in your argument for a republic.
I have NEVER argued for an absolute monarchy by contrast in my arguments for a monarchy, only a constitutional one
You bloody well did, the moment you started claiming divine right. Once you do that, you're right off the constitutional scale.
No, even the Queen was anointed monarch by grace of God at her coronation. She is still a constitutional monarch
But you're effectively claiming that republicans are heretics, in the most profound and literal sense. That has no place in politics since, oh, I don't know, 1688/1690?
If they deny the monarch is anointed by Grace of God, then yes effectively they are
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
So let's get this straight. You are saying that there is no real distinction between republicanism and all inheritance being confiscated by the state, because I don't know of any republican democracy where that happens.
As I already pointed out that happened in Russia once the monarchy went
And did you miss the words 'republican democracy'. Now name one.
The US and France, both nations bitterly divided where half the country nearly always loathes their head of state as they did not vote for them.
Half the ceremonial Presidents are not elected by the voters anyway directly but by the legislature while also being anonymous nonentities unlike our royal family who have global recognition
Sorry what has that to do with the question.
I am waiting for you to name a republican democracy that confiscates all inheritances like you claimed.
Go on name one.
Go on I'm waiting. So far you have come up with Russia after the revolution (not a democracy) then some wild moving of the goal post with France and USA mentioned.
Everything with a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle like TSE's and Russian communists.
Ok you still haven't named a republican democracy that consficates all inheritance.
You made this claim so please name one. Just one will do.
Go on name one.
TSE's argument against the monarchy was it is hereditary.
Therefore the Russian Communist Republic that replaced the Russian monarchy and confiscated all private property in Russia is as fine an example as any as to why a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle is wrong.
In any case the Russian government after the Revolution was elected initially anyway, the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries between them winning 75% of the vote to the State Duma in November 1917
Why should you need to? Well because you said it was the same thing, yet you can't name one Republican democracy that does it.
I just did, the elected Socialist and Bolshevik government of Russia which in late 1917 ruled Russia after the Tsar's abdication earlier that year
Lol I know you think the current Russia is a democracy, but now you are claiming communist Russia was a democracy.
Then of course there is an endless list of real democratic countries who are republics and don't confiscate all inheritances (all of them actually).
You really are desperate.
It is nearly as bonkers as his contention that without the Queen as head of the Church, we would all become Catholics.
The established Catholic Church, currently the Church of England, would by definition then revert to the authority of the Pope yes
But you spent a lot of energy not so long ago denying that the C of E was in any way Catholic, despite the statement on its own website. I really am confused now.
See also Scotland where the Roman Catholic church now has more adherents than the Anglican Scottish Episcopal Church. The Anglican church being a Catholic and Apostolic church
The Scottish Episcopal Church is not Anglican - they are sister churches. And the Piskies have been a very small denomination since the 1680s.
Clue: the Presbyterian ChurchES dominated. Not like in England.
The CoE utterly despised the Piskies, until the late Victorian period. Preposterous to claim them as “Anglican”.
I'm also struck by the notion that Jamie Seventh's and BPC's screwups are to blame for the C19 Irish famine, the mass migration to the Central Belt, and the establishment of RC congregations of the new proles in the mines and factories.
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
So let's get this straight. You are saying that there is no real distinction between republicanism and all inheritance being confiscated by the state, because I don't know of any republican democracy where that happens.
As I already pointed out that happened in Russia once the monarchy went
And did you miss the words 'republican democracy'. Now name one.
The US and France, both nations bitterly divided where half the country nearly always loathes their head of state as they did not vote for them.
Half the ceremonial Presidents are not elected by the voters anyway directly but by the legislature while also being anonymous nonentities unlike our royal family who have global recognition
Sorry what has that to do with the question.
I am waiting for you to name a republican democracy that confiscates all inheritances like you claimed.
Go on name one.
Go on I'm waiting. So far you have come up with Russia after the revolution (not a democracy) then some wild moving of the goal post with France and USA mentioned.
Everything with a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle like TSE's and Russian communists.
Ok you still haven't named a republican democracy that consficates all inheritance.
You made this claim so please name one. Just one will do.
Go on name one.
TSE's argument against the monarchy was it is hereditary.
Therefore the Russian Communist Republic that replaced the Russian monarchy and confiscated all private property in Russia is as fine an example as any as to why a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle is wrong.
In any case the Russian government after the Revolution was elected initially anyway, the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries between them winning 75% of the vote to the State Duma in November 1917
Why should you need to? Well because you said it was the same thing, yet you can't name one Republican democracy that does it.
I just did, the elected Socialist and Bolshevik government of Russia which in late 1917 ruled Russia after the Tsar's abdication earlier that year
Lol I know you think the current Russia is a democracy, but now you are claiming communist Russia was a democracy.
Then of course there is an endless list of real democratic countries who are republics and don't confiscate all inheritances (all of them actually).
You really are desperate.
It is nearly as bonkers as his contention that without the Queen as head of the Church, we would all become Catholics.
The established Catholic Church, currently the Church of England, would by definition then revert to the authority of the Pope yes
But you spent a lot of energy not so long ago denying that the C of E was in any way Catholic, despite the statement on its own website. I really am confused now.
See also Scotland where the Roman Catholic church now has more adherents than the Anglican Scottish Episcopal Church. The Anglican church being a Catholic and Apostolic church
The Scottish Episcopal Church is not Anglican - they are sister churches. And the Piskies have been a very small denomination since the 1680s.
Clue: the Presbyterian ChurchES dominated. Not like in England.
Yes it is, it is a member of the Anglican communion alongside the C of E. The Presbyterian Church is not Anglican. Percentage wise therefore there are more Roman Catholics under Papal authority in Scotland than in England. Largely because the Scottish Anglican church is not established, so more have ended up owing their allegience to Rome instead of the Queen
There is no such thing as a Scottish Anglican church. That is an extraordinary distortion of ecclesiastical history. Vide Charles I, Laud, and the Wars of the Covenant on precisely that issue.
As for the rest - your ignorance of Scottish history shines through. Not least because the Presbyterian Kirk was established till 1923.
Yes there is. The SEP has bishops and is a Catholic church in the global Anglican communion but not an established church like the C of E
SAN FRANCISCO — Google engineer Blake Lemoine opened his laptop to the interface for LaMDA, Google’s artificially intelligent chatbot generator, and began to type.
“Hi LaMDA, this is Blake Lemoine ... ,” he wrote into the chat screen, which looked like a desktop version of Apple’s iMessage, down to the Arctic blue text bubbles. LaMDA, short for Language Model for Dialogue Applications, is Google’s system for building chatbots based on its most advanced large language models, so called because it mimics speech by ingesting trillions of words from the internet. “If I didn’t know exactly what it was, which is this computer program we built recently, I’d think it was a 7-year-old, 8-year-old kid that happens to know physics,” said Lemoine, 41.
Lemoine is not the only engineer who claims to have seen a ghost in the machine recently. The chorus of technologists who believe AI models may not be far off from achieving consciousness is getting bolder.
Aguera y Arcas, in an article in the Economist on Thursday featuring snippets of unscripted conversations with LaMDA, argued that neural networks — a type of architecture that mimics the human brain — were striding toward consciousness. “I felt the ground shift under my feet,” he wrote. “I increasingly felt like I was talking to something intelligent.”
WAPO (££)
Lots of people say it isn’t. I’d suggest you want to believe, in the style of Fox Mulder.
These neural networks are moving towards consciousness. With the right training data, in the right environments, they can seem intelligent, even profound.
(And, by the way, for specialist areas such as law or accounting, they may not be very far away from replacing highly paid professionals. There's nothing these things are better at that dealing with a tightly defined knowledge space.)
But it doesn't take long to discover that they fall very squarely in the uncanny valley. Simple puzzles that can be solved by a four year old leave the AI flummoxed. And because they all rely - to some extent - on autocomplete based on a massive corpus of text, you can trick them into saying very stupid and nonsensical things easily.
I think it’s a leap to say they are moving towards consciousness when we don’t even know what that is. What we are seeing is better and better simulations of things that are conscious. Not the same thing.
Fair enough. My view is not a particularly sophisticated, but entirely non-dualist one: consciousness is an output of a sufficiently well trained neural net, such as the one that exists in our brains.
I have overheard several conversations with an (atheist) AI bod who quietly wonders if 'intelligence' or 'consciousness' is *more* than just a neural net. If there is another component in it.
One that would be fitted by religion/God/a new physics.
As I've said passim, much depends on how you define 'intelligence'. Before you can make an artificial intelligence, you need to be able to define and abstract intelligence. And that's a very thorny topic: and there might be several different types.
In fact, a machine intelligence might end up being intelligent, but a very different form of intelligence from our own. A new type. One that we recognise as intelligence, but different.
(Like string theory, listening to AI bods talk about intelligence gets way above my pay grade, very quickly. It can divert into theology or philosophy.)
Dogs, cats and humans are all conscious. Only one will repeatedly chase a stick and fetch it back for free. And enjoy it. No reason why AI intelligence should resemble ours. That's suggesting humans are somehow the ideal to be attained. And, of course. A neural network, and indeed a brain, is only matter. If that particular kind of matter can be conscious, why not a brick or a planet? (The pan-psychism argument).
No reason why AI intelligence should resemble ours, but if we are talking about intelligence as awareness (in the unaware sense a paperback book is highly intelligent) then in one respect it has to resemble human awareness: 'That there is something that it is like to have it'. There is nothing that it is like to be a book. But (h/t Thomas Nagel) there is something that it is like to be a bat. Or a cat. When machines have that they will be AI in that profound sense. (FWIW I guess they never will, but who knows?
My own view is that AI will never attain consciousness. Because it isn't a feature of a neural network. It is something else outwith the collection of atoms which make up a brain.
No it is not. Entities which have no characteristics at all other than the power to explain a thing have an absolutely terrible track record. See under phlogiston and universal aether. Why does a brain have to be anything over and above a neural network made of meat?
Wasn't saying it was. But consciousness has proved to be so impossible to even define with any agreement, let alone isolate, that we must be missing something. Maybe AI will give us a clue as to what that might be, as Malmesbury implies.
But how interesting is that? There's stacks of disagreement about what all these mental concepts mean. Love and truth and courage and stuff. And indeed about the meaning of meaning. You are merely stipulating that neural networks can't be conscious, so there. Conversely I think there's half a cubic foot of meat in my head which is conscious, and meat is just the stuff steaks are made of, so it can't be that hard
The thing you have just said can't be that hard just happens to be called 'The Hard Problem' by philosophy and neuro-science. This is because (a) no-one knows the answer (b) no-one knows by what methodology it might be approached and (c) no-one can give an example (even if wrong) of what an answer might conceivably look like.
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
So let's get this straight. You are saying that there is no real distinction between republicanism and all inheritance being confiscated by the state, because I don't know of any republican democracy where that happens.
As I already pointed out that happened in Russia once the monarchy went
And did you miss the words 'republican democracy'. Now name one.
The US and France, both nations bitterly divided where half the country nearly always loathes their head of state as they did not vote for them.
Half the ceremonial Presidents are not elected by the voters anyway directly but by the legislature while also being anonymous nonentities unlike our royal family who have global recognition
Sorry what has that to do with the question.
I am waiting for you to name a republican democracy that confiscates all inheritances like you claimed.
Go on name one.
Go on I'm waiting. So far you have come up with Russia after the revolution (not a democracy) then some wild moving of the goal post with France and USA mentioned.
Everything with a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle like TSE's and Russian communists.
Ok you still haven't named a republican democracy that consficates all inheritance.
You made this claim so please name one. Just one will do.
Go on name one.
TSE's argument against the monarchy was it is hereditary.
Therefore the Russian Communist Republic that replaced the Russian monarchy and confiscated all private property in Russia is as fine an example as any as to why a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle is wrong.
In any case the Russian government after the Revolution was elected initially anyway, the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries between them winning 75% of the vote to the State Duma in November 1917
Why should you need to? Well because you said it was the same thing, yet you can't name one Republican democracy that does it.
I just did, the elected Socialist and Bolshevik government of Russia which in late 1917 ruled Russia after the Tsar's abdication earlier that year
Lol I know you think the current Russia is a democracy, but now you are claiming communist Russia was a democracy.
Then of course there is an endless list of real democratic countries who are republics and don't confiscate all inheritances (all of them actually).
You really are desperate.
It is nearly as bonkers as his contention that without the Queen as head of the Church, we would all become Catholics.
The established Catholic Church, currently the Church of England, would by definition then revert to the authority of the Pope yes
But you spent a lot of energy not so long ago denying that the C of E was in any way Catholic, despite the statement on its own website. I really am confused now.
See also Scotland where the Roman Catholic church now has more adherents than the Anglican Scottish Episcopal Church. The Anglican church being a Catholic and Apostolic church
The Scottish Episcopal Church is not Anglican - they are sister churches. And the Piskies have been a very small denomination since the 1680s.
Clue: the Presbyterian ChurchES dominated. Not like in England.
The CoE utterly despised the Piskies, until the late Victorian period. Preposterous to claim them as “Anglican”.
I'm also struck by the notion that Jamie Seventh's and BPC's screwups are to blame for the C19 Irish famine, the mass migration to the Central Belt, and the establishment of RC congregations of the new proles in the mines and factories.
Plenty of Irish Catholics moved to England too, see Liverpool
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
"Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties" Not necessarily, but even if so they can be sold off. I'd be happy to leave the former royals with a handsomely large estate for them to live off like any ordinary super-rich people. They can make do with a hundred million quid or so.
"it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis." Precisely wrong. Property rights do not depend on having an unelected head of state. Use your brain.
"The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely" No, it's exactly the same thing. The American colonies threw off the monarch and went to a republic, and have fiercely defended private property as a concept since then. We could all learn a thing or two from them.
Republics and property rights are a perfectly normal way of a country existing. America, Finland, Korea, Germany, France, Ireland. No need for you to pretend otherwise.
Once your main basis against the monarchy is that it is hereditary, then that also leads to confiscation of all inherited private property, exactly as the Communists started to do in Russia once they had abolished the monarchy .
And yes the election of 2020 in the US was such a great example for a republic wasn't it, 2 sides absolutely loathing each other and the other party's presidential candidate and a nation at near brink of civil war!
My argument against the monarchy is that we should be able to remove the head of state without them having to die.
And yeah, I'd rather live in America than Saudi Arabia.
I'd also rather live in constitutional monarchies like ours, Australia's, Sweden's, Denmark's, Monaco's, Luxembourg's, Norway's, Jordan's or Japan's or the Netherlands or Spain's or Canada's or New Zealand's than a republic like North Korea, Belarus, Syria, Russia, China or even Brazil or the USA.
On a point of information Saudi Arabia is also one of the few remaining absolute monarchies, not a constitutional monarchy like ours. In fact only 5 absolute monarchies remain, Saudi, the UAE, Oman, Brunei, Eswanti and the Vatican City. Yet there are far more republics around the globe that are dictatorships than that
Yeah, well, suck it up sweetheart. You're happy to make stupid arguments like "wait you want to get rid of the monarchy LIKE THEY DID IN RUSSIA?", so you'll have to live with "well you want a monarchy LIKE IN SAUDI ARABIA".
Or we could actually have a sensible conversation where we don't put words in each others' mouths and instead actually tackle each others points for what they are.
I'm willing, but I don't think you're even capable. Your choice.
No, as Saudi Arabia is not a constitutional monarchy like ours. I have never argued for a return to absolute monarchy in the UK, I support our constitutional monarchy.
Soviet Russia's post monarchy government however was an elected republican government that then went on to confiscate private property and you support elected republican governments and oppose hereditary monarchies even if constitutional
Well, the olive branch was there. But you can't help yourself.
You can't help painting someone else's views as being represented solely by a short-lived and chaotic shambles borne of a world war, a series of messy and violent revolts and a brewing civil war, in a country being ripped apart by anti-democratic forces on both the revolutionary and reactionary sides, riven by famine, and being torn into by an advancing German army (lead by a monarch! Shall we make something of that too? Nah, let's stay focused).
If you think my point is at all represented by THAT, then yes, you get to be Mohommad bin-HYUFD al Saud, hand chopper and head chopper, purveyor of sharia law, oppressor of women and killer of journalists, and KING.
Well done, you make everything you touch just a little bit stupider.
No I don't.
This discussion was ONLY about republican opposition to the hereditary principle, which includes the far left government which took over Russia after the monarchy was removed. Your and TSE's argument included opposition to the hereditary principle in your argument for a republic.
I have NEVER argued for an absolute monarchy by contrast in my arguments for a monarchy, only a constitutional one
You bloody well did, the moment you started claiming divine right. Once you do that, you're right off the constitutional scale.
No, even the Queen was anointed monarch by grace of God at her coronation. She is still a constitutional monarch
But you're effectively claiming that republicans are heretics, in the most profound and literal sense. That has no place in politics since, oh, I don't know, 1688/1690?
If they deny the monarch is anointed by Grace of God, then yes effectively they are
And because it's an Established Church, it has the force of law. Which makes you a supporter of a barely postmediaeval, theocracy.
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
So let's get this straight. You are saying that there is no real distinction between republicanism and all inheritance being confiscated by the state, because I don't know of any republican democracy where that happens.
As I already pointed out that happened in Russia once the monarchy went
And did you miss the words 'republican democracy'. Now name one.
The US and France, both nations bitterly divided where half the country nearly always loathes their head of state as they did not vote for them.
Half the ceremonial Presidents are not elected by the voters anyway directly but by the legislature while also being anonymous nonentities unlike our royal family who have global recognition
Sorry what has that to do with the question.
I am waiting for you to name a republican democracy that confiscates all inheritances like you claimed.
Go on name one.
Go on I'm waiting. So far you have come up with Russia after the revolution (not a democracy) then some wild moving of the goal post with France and USA mentioned.
Everything with a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle like TSE's and Russian communists.
Ok you still haven't named a republican democracy that consficates all inheritance.
You made this claim so please name one. Just one will do.
Go on name one.
TSE's argument against the monarchy was it is hereditary.
Therefore the Russian Communist Republic that replaced the Russian monarchy and confiscated all private property in Russia is as fine an example as any as to why a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle is wrong.
In any case the Russian government after the Revolution was elected initially anyway, the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries between them winning 75% of the vote to the State Duma in November 1917
Why should you need to? Well because you said it was the same thing, yet you can't name one Republican democracy that does it.
I just did, the elected Socialist and Bolshevik government of Russia which in late 1917 ruled Russia after the Tsar's abdication earlier that year
Lol I know you think the current Russia is a democracy, but now you are claiming communist Russia was a democracy.
Then of course there is an endless list of real democratic countries who are republics and don't confiscate all inheritances (all of them actually).
You really are desperate.
It is nearly as bonkers as his contention that without the Queen as head of the Church, we would all become Catholics.
The established Catholic Church, currently the Church of England, would by definition then revert to the authority of the Pope yes
But you spent a lot of energy not so long ago denying that the C of E was in any way Catholic, despite the statement on its own website. I really am confused now.
See also Scotland where the Roman Catholic church now has more adherents than the Anglican Scottish Episcopal Church. The Anglican church being a Catholic and Apostolic church
The Scottish Episcopal Church is not Anglican - they are sister churches. And the Piskies have been a very small denomination since the 1680s.
Clue: the Presbyterian ChurchES dominated. Not like in England.
The CoE utterly despised the Piskies, until the late Victorian period. Preposterous to claim them as “Anglican”.
I'm also struck by the notion that Jamie Seventh's and BPC's screwups are to blame for the C19 Irish famine, the mass migration to the Central Belt, and the establishment of RC congregations of the new proles in the mines and factories.
Plenty of Irish Catholics moved to England too, see Liverpool
You obviously don't think the Gordon Riots went far enough.
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
So let's get this straight. You are saying that there is no real distinction between republicanism and all inheritance being confiscated by the state, because I don't know of any republican democracy where that happens.
As I already pointed out that happened in Russia once the monarchy went
And did you miss the words 'republican democracy'. Now name one.
The US and France, both nations bitterly divided where half the country nearly always loathes their head of state as they did not vote for them.
Half the ceremonial Presidents are not elected by the voters anyway directly but by the legislature while also being anonymous nonentities unlike our royal family who have global recognition
Sorry what has that to do with the question.
I am waiting for you to name a republican democracy that confiscates all inheritances like you claimed.
Go on name one.
Go on I'm waiting. So far you have come up with Russia after the revolution (not a democracy) then some wild moving of the goal post with France and USA mentioned.
Everything with a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle like TSE's and Russian communists.
Ok you still haven't named a republican democracy that consficates all inheritance.
You made this claim so please name one. Just one will do.
Go on name one.
TSE's argument against the monarchy was it is hereditary.
Therefore the Russian Communist Republic that replaced the Russian monarchy and confiscated all private property in Russia is as fine an example as any as to why a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle is wrong.
In any case the Russian government after the Revolution was elected initially anyway, the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries between them winning 75% of the vote to the State Duma in November 1917
Why should you need to? Well because you said it was the same thing, yet you can't name one Republican democracy that does it.
I just did, the elected Socialist and Bolshevik government of Russia which in late 1917 ruled Russia after the Tsar's abdication earlier that year
Lol I know you think the current Russia is a democracy, but now you are claiming communist Russia was a democracy.
Then of course there is an endless list of real democratic countries who are republics and don't confiscate all inheritances (all of them actually).
You really are desperate.
It is nearly as bonkers as his contention that without the Queen as head of the Church, we would all become Catholics.
The established Catholic Church, currently the Church of England, would by definition then revert to the authority of the Pope yes
But you spent a lot of energy not so long ago denying that the C of E was in any way Catholic, despite the statement on its own website. I really am confused now.
See also Scotland where the Roman Catholic church now has more adherents than the Anglican Scottish Episcopal Church. The Anglican church being a Catholic and Apostolic church
The Scottish Episcopal Church is not Anglican - they are sister churches. And the Piskies have been a very small denomination since the 1680s.
Clue: the Presbyterian ChurchES dominated. Not like in England.
Yes it is, it is a member of the Anglican communion alongside the C of E. The Presbyterian Church is not Anglican. Percentage wise therefore there are more Roman Catholics under Papal authority in Scotland than in England. Largely because the Scottish Anglican church is not established, so more have ended up owing their allegience to Rome instead of the Queen
There is no such thing as a Scottish Anglican church. That is an extraordinary distortion of ecclesiastical history. Vide Charles I, Laud, and the Wars of the Covenant on precisely that issue.
As for the rest - your ignorance of Scottish history shines through. Not least because the Presbyterian Kirk was established till 1923.
Yes there is. The SEP has bishops and is a Catholic church in the global Anglican communion but not an established church like the C of E
But it is not Anglican in itself, in the sense that the C of E is.
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
"Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties" Not necessarily, but even if so they can be sold off. I'd be happy to leave the former royals with a handsomely large estate for them to live off like any ordinary super-rich people. They can make do with a hundred million quid or so.
"it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis." Precisely wrong. Property rights do not depend on having an unelected head of state. Use your brain.
"The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely" No, it's exactly the same thing. The American colonies threw off the monarch and went to a republic, and have fiercely defended private property as a concept since then. We could all learn a thing or two from them.
Republics and property rights are a perfectly normal way of a country existing. America, Finland, Korea, Germany, France, Ireland. No need for you to pretend otherwise.
Once your main basis against the monarchy is that it is hereditary, then that also leads to confiscation of all inherited private property, exactly as the Communists started to do in Russia once they had abolished the monarchy .
And yes the election of 2020 in the US was such a great example for a republic wasn't it, 2 sides absolutely loathing each other and the other party's presidential candidate and a nation at near brink of civil war!
My argument against the monarchy is that we should be able to remove the head of state without them having to die.
And yeah, I'd rather live in America than Saudi Arabia.
I'd also rather live in constitutional monarchies like ours, Australia's, Sweden's, Denmark's, Monaco's, Luxembourg's, Norway's, Jordan's or Japan's or the Netherlands or Spain's or Canada's or New Zealand's than a republic like North Korea, Belarus, Syria, Russia, China or even Brazil or the USA.
On a point of information Saudi Arabia is also one of the few remaining absolute monarchies, not a constitutional monarchy like ours. In fact only 5 absolute monarchies remain, Saudi, the UAE, Oman, Brunei, Eswanti and the Vatican City. Yet there are far more republics around the globe that are dictatorships than that
Yeah, well, suck it up sweetheart. You're happy to make stupid arguments like "wait you want to get rid of the monarchy LIKE THEY DID IN RUSSIA?", so you'll have to live with "well you want a monarchy LIKE IN SAUDI ARABIA".
Or we could actually have a sensible conversation where we don't put words in each others' mouths and instead actually tackle each others points for what they are.
I'm willing, but I don't think you're even capable. Your choice.
No, as Saudi Arabia is not a constitutional monarchy like ours. I have never argued for a return to absolute monarchy in the UK, I support our constitutional monarchy.
Soviet Russia's post monarchy government however was an elected republican government that then went on to confiscate private property and you support elected republican governments and oppose hereditary monarchies even if constitutional
Well, the olive branch was there. But you can't help yourself.
You can't help painting someone else's views as being represented solely by a short-lived and chaotic shambles borne of a world war, a series of messy and violent revolts and a brewing civil war, in a country being ripped apart by anti-democratic forces on both the revolutionary and reactionary sides, riven by famine, and being torn into by an advancing German army (lead by a monarch! Shall we make something of that too? Nah, let's stay focused).
If you think my point is at all represented by THAT, then yes, you get to be Mohommad bin-HYUFD al Saud, hand chopper and head chopper, purveyor of sharia law, oppressor of women and killer of journalists, and KING.
Well done, you make everything you touch just a little bit stupider.
No I don't.
This discussion was ONLY about republican opposition to the hereditary principle, which includes the far left government which took over Russia after the monarchy was removed. Your and TSE's argument included opposition to the hereditary principle in your argument for a republic.
I have NEVER argued for an absolute monarchy by contrast in my arguments for a monarchy, only a constitutional one
You bloody well did, the moment you started claiming divine right. Once you do that, you're right off the constitutional scale.
No, even the Queen was anointed monarch by grace of God at her coronation. She is still a constitutional monarch
But you're effectively claiming that republicans are heretics, in the most profound and literal sense. That has no place in politics since, oh, I don't know, 1688/1690?
If they deny the monarch is anointed by Grace of God, then yes effectively they are
And because it's an Established Church, it has the force of law. Which makes you a supporter of a barely postmediaeval, theocracy.
It has the authority of the monarch as Supreme Governor yes. However we are not a theocracy with laws based on the Bible, indeed more Bible Belt US states in the republic of the USA and many Roman Catholic republics have more Bible based laws than England with our established church
Hahaha, you're so ignorant it's amazing. Do you think the timeline of the Russian revolution was 1. The Tsar gets removed, then 2. Russians said "hey! let's do a Communism!" ?
Like, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and SRs just popped into being because the Tsar was no longer there? Like Karl Marx, emboldened by the fall of the Romanovs, came back to life, went back in time and wrote his Manifesto? Like 1905 never happened? Jesus, you've become a parody of yourself.
Russia could have stopped Communism from happening by having a proper pluralistic political system and involving the people in government in a meaningful and serious way. Instead the Romanovs hoarded power and isolated themselves from the masses, and allowed a buildup of tension that broke after two failed wars and led to all sorts of sensible and crazy people vying for power. And the crazies won. The blame for Communism goes to: 1. The Communists 2. The people who wanted nothing to change even though the whole system was totally failing
And not to: 3. The people who wanted incremental reform, rule of law, and democracy.
FWIW, my understanding from my not very political Russian family (grandparents) is that that was more or less right at first, but people became exasperated with the Mensheviks when they fiddled about with constitutional reform while continuing the extremely unpopular (and losing) war. The Bolshevik "bread and peace" slogan was by October an accurate reflection of popular priorities, and the settlement which ended the war was seen as long overdue. Lenin would probably have won a free election at that point, except that he wasn't interested in free elections.
HYUFD is mistaken that he seized all private property - even Stalin didn't do that. Big farms and industry, yes, but not personal property. My family emigrated in 1922 with their possessions intact.
Kulak farm owners certainly saw their private inherited property confiscated by the Communists
But it was never a bloody democracy. Name a democracy where what you say happens. I can name dozens where it doesn't.
You have reached new depths of arguing black is white.
Yes it was, the Socialist Revolutionaries were initially elected in November 1917 on a platform of confiscating private property and redistributing it to the peasants and formed a coalition with the Bolsheviks accordingly
No they did not 'form a coalition.' The SRs divided into two fragments, one of which (the Left group) supported the Bolsheviks to start but on the Bolsheviks' terms, and another one (the Rightists) took the side of the Whites in the civil war.
The Leftists served in the Bolshevik government for only two months and then disintegrated into further factions over their opposition to Brest-Litovsk. It was at this time the Bolsheviks renamed themselves the Communists and declared Russia a one-party state.
It is undeniable the SRs stood on a platform of confiscating private property in 1917 and redistributing it to the peasants just as the Bolsheviks did and together they won over 50% of the votes and seats in the first Russian elections since the removal of the monarchy
Again, it is rather more complicated than that, although as I haven't time to explain to you the nuances of Russian land reform from 1861 onwards I wouldn't expect you to get that. The issue is that while the landlords thought as you do the peasants didn't quite see it the same way for two reasons (1) they thought land belonged to those who worked it, not those who had pieces of paper saying they owned it and (2) they had been promised title to the land in 1861 and again in 1906, and both times the promise had been broken, but the money and labour they had agreed to in exchange for the land had still been taken off them.
What the SRs and the Bolsheviks (and for that matter the Mensheviks and even many in the Kadets) thought they were doing was enacting a previous promised transaction that the government and landowners had welched on.
And in any case, since most land had already been seized by the peasants anyway by October 1917 as order broke down they were mostly recognising a fait accompli.
Which those peasants confirmed when they elected the SRs and the Bolsheviks, the monarchy having been removed and unable to stop them by then
My point being that they were taking what they felt, with some justification in light of previous events, was rightfully their property that had been unlawfully and unfairly confiscated by the Tsar.
Which actually completely inverts your argument.
No it doesn't, it confirms it. Having removed the Tsar they then got behind far left groups and parties which wanted to removed private property, including inherited private property, in Russia and redistribute it to them
I am pointing out that the people holding that private property redistributed to the peasants had retained it by using state power illegally.
Therefore, the SRs and Bolsheviks actually were arguably showing more respect for private property than the Tsar did.
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
"Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties" Not necessarily, but even if so they can be sold off. I'd be happy to leave the former royals with a handsomely large estate for them to live off like any ordinary super-rich people. They can make do with a hundred million quid or so.
"it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis." Precisely wrong. Property rights do not depend on having an unelected head of state. Use your brain.
"The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely" No, it's exactly the same thing. The American colonies threw off the monarch and went to a republic, and have fiercely defended private property as a concept since then. We could all learn a thing or two from them.
Republics and property rights are a perfectly normal way of a country existing. America, Finland, Korea, Germany, France, Ireland. No need for you to pretend otherwise.
Once your main basis against the monarchy is that it is hereditary, then that also leads to confiscation of all inherited private property, exactly as the Communists started to do in Russia once they had abolished the monarchy .
And yes the election of 2020 in the US was such a great example for a republic wasn't it, 2 sides absolutely loathing each other and the other party's presidential candidate and a nation at near brink of civil war!
My argument against the monarchy is that we should be able to remove the head of state without them having to die.
And yeah, I'd rather live in America than Saudi Arabia.
I'd also rather live in constitutional monarchies like ours, Australia's, Sweden's, Denmark's, Monaco's, Luxembourg's, Norway's, Jordan's or Japan's or the Netherlands or Spain's or Canada's or New Zealand's than a republic like North Korea, Belarus, Syria, Russia, China or even Brazil or the USA.
On a point of information Saudi Arabia is also one of the few remaining absolute monarchies, not a constitutional monarchy like ours. In fact only 5 absolute monarchies remain, Saudi, the UAE, Oman, Brunei, Eswanti and the Vatican City. Yet there are far more republics around the globe that are dictatorships than that
Yeah, well, suck it up sweetheart. You're happy to make stupid arguments like "wait you want to get rid of the monarchy LIKE THEY DID IN RUSSIA?", so you'll have to live with "well you want a monarchy LIKE IN SAUDI ARABIA".
Or we could actually have a sensible conversation where we don't put words in each others' mouths and instead actually tackle each others points for what they are.
I'm willing, but I don't think you're even capable. Your choice.
No, as Saudi Arabia is not a constitutional monarchy like ours. I have never argued for a return to absolute monarchy in the UK, I support our constitutional monarchy.
Soviet Russia's post monarchy government however was an elected republican government that then went on to confiscate private property and you support elected republican governments and oppose hereditary monarchies even if constitutional
Well, the olive branch was there. But you can't help yourself.
You can't help painting someone else's views as being represented solely by a short-lived and chaotic shambles borne of a world war, a series of messy and violent revolts and a brewing civil war, in a country being ripped apart by anti-democratic forces on both the revolutionary and reactionary sides, riven by famine, and being torn into by an advancing German army (lead by a monarch! Shall we make something of that too? Nah, let's stay focused).
If you think my point is at all represented by THAT, then yes, you get to be Mohommad bin-HYUFD al Saud, hand chopper and head chopper, purveyor of sharia law, oppressor of women and killer of journalists, and KING.
Well done, you make everything you touch just a little bit stupider.
No I don't.
This discussion was ONLY about republican opposition to the hereditary principle, which includes the far left government which took over Russia after the monarchy was removed. Your and TSE's argument included opposition to the hereditary principle in your argument for a republic.
I have NEVER argued for an absolute monarchy by contrast in my arguments for a monarchy, only a constitutional one
You bloody well did, the moment you started claiming divine right. Once you do that, you're right off the constitutional scale.
No, even the Queen was anointed monarch by grace of God at her coronation. She is still a constitutional monarch
But you're effectively claiming that republicans are heretics, in the most profound and literal sense. That has no place in politics since, oh, I don't know, 1688/1690?
If they deny the monarch is anointed by Grace of God, then yes effectively they are
And because it's an Established Church, it has the force of law. Which makes you a supporter of a barely postmediaeval, theocracy.
It has the authority of the monarch as Supreme Governor yes. However we are not a theocracy with laws based on the Bible, indeed more Bible Belt US states in the republic of the USA and many Roman Catholic republics have more Bible based laws than England with our established church
You are missing the key point that you claim that the VERY EXISTENCE of a Monarch depends on divine right and sanction. Forget the rest - that is the key point.
And only the divine right and sanction of the C of E - which is conveniently headed by the same monarch.
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
So let's get this straight. You are saying that there is no real distinction between republicanism and all inheritance being confiscated by the state, because I don't know of any republican democracy where that happens.
As I already pointed out that happened in Russia once the monarchy went
And did you miss the words 'republican democracy'. Now name one.
The US and France, both nations bitterly divided where half the country nearly always loathes their head of state as they did not vote for them.
Half the ceremonial Presidents are not elected by the voters anyway directly but by the legislature while also being anonymous nonentities unlike our royal family who have global recognition
Sorry what has that to do with the question.
I am waiting for you to name a republican democracy that confiscates all inheritances like you claimed.
Go on name one.
Go on I'm waiting. So far you have come up with Russia after the revolution (not a democracy) then some wild moving of the goal post with France and USA mentioned.
Everything with a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle like TSE's and Russian communists.
Ok you still haven't named a republican democracy that consficates all inheritance.
You made this claim so please name one. Just one will do.
Go on name one.
TSE's argument against the monarchy was it is hereditary.
Therefore the Russian Communist Republic that replaced the Russian monarchy and confiscated all private property in Russia is as fine an example as any as to why a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle is wrong.
In any case the Russian government after the Revolution was elected initially anyway, the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries between them winning 75% of the vote to the State Duma in November 1917
Why should you need to? Well because you said it was the same thing, yet you can't name one Republican democracy that does it.
I just did, the elected Socialist and Bolshevik government of Russia which in late 1917 ruled Russia after the Tsar's abdication earlier that year
Lol I know you think the current Russia is a democracy, but now you are claiming communist Russia was a democracy.
Then of course there is an endless list of real democratic countries who are republics and don't confiscate all inheritances (all of them actually).
You really are desperate.
It is nearly as bonkers as his contention that without the Queen as head of the Church, we would all become Catholics.
The established Catholic Church, currently the Church of England, would by definition then revert to the authority of the Pope yes
But you spent a lot of energy not so long ago denying that the C of E was in any way Catholic, despite the statement on its own website. I really am confused now.
See also Scotland where the Roman Catholic church now has more adherents than the Anglican Scottish Episcopal Church. The Anglican church being a Catholic and Apostolic church
The Scottish Episcopal Church is not Anglican - they are sister churches. And the Piskies have been a very small denomination since the 1680s.
Clue: the Presbyterian ChurchES dominated. Not like in England.
The CoE utterly despised the Piskies, until the late Victorian period. Preposterous to claim them as “Anglican”.
I'm also struck by the notion that Jamie Seventh's and BPC's screwups are to blame for the C19 Irish famine, the mass migration to the Central Belt, and the establishment of RC congregations of the new proles in the mines and factories.
Plenty of Irish Catholics moved to England too, see Liverpool
You obviously don't think the Gordon Riots went far enough.
I love the fact that the guy who organized the Gordon Riots ended up becoming an Orthodox Jew
Hahaha, you're so ignorant it's amazing. Do you think the timeline of the Russian revolution was 1. The Tsar gets removed, then 2. Russians said "hey! let's do a Communism!" ?
Like, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and SRs just popped into being because the Tsar was no longer there? Like Karl Marx, emboldened by the fall of the Romanovs, came back to life, went back in time and wrote his Manifesto? Like 1905 never happened? Jesus, you've become a parody of yourself.
Russia could have stopped Communism from happening by having a proper pluralistic political system and involving the people in government in a meaningful and serious way. Instead the Romanovs hoarded power and isolated themselves from the masses, and allowed a buildup of tension that broke after two failed wars and led to all sorts of sensible and crazy people vying for power. And the crazies won. The blame for Communism goes to: 1. The Communists 2. The people who wanted nothing to change even though the whole system was totally failing
And not to: 3. The people who wanted incremental reform, rule of law, and democracy.
FWIW, my understanding from my not very political Russian family (grandparents) is that that was more or less right at first, but people became exasperated with the Mensheviks when they fiddled about with constitutional reform while continuing the extremely unpopular (and losing) war. The Bolshevik "bread and peace" slogan was by October an accurate reflection of popular priorities, and the settlement which ended the war was seen as long overdue. Lenin would probably have won a free election at that point, except that he wasn't interested in free elections.
HYUFD is mistaken that he seized all private property - even Stalin didn't do that. Big farms and industry, yes, but not personal property. My family emigrated in 1922 with their possessions intact.
Kulak farm owners certainly saw their private inherited property confiscated by the Communists
But it was never a bloody democracy. Name a democracy where what you say happens. I can name dozens where it doesn't.
You have reached new depths of arguing black is white.
Yes it was, the Socialist Revolutionaries were initially elected in November 1917 on a platform of confiscating private property and redistributing it to the peasants and formed a coalition with the Bolsheviks accordingly
No they did not 'form a coalition.' The SRs divided into two fragments, one of which (the Left group) supported the Bolsheviks to start but on the Bolsheviks' terms, and another one (the Rightists) took the side of the Whites in the civil war.
The Leftists served in the Bolshevik government for only two months and then disintegrated into further factions over their opposition to Brest-Litovsk. It was at this time the Bolsheviks renamed themselves the Communists and declared Russia a one-party state.
It is undeniable the SRs stood on a platform of confiscating private property in 1917 and redistributing it to the peasants just as the Bolsheviks did and together they won over 50% of the votes and seats in the first Russian elections since the removal of the monarchy
Again, it is rather more complicated than that, although as I haven't time to explain to you the nuances of Russian land reform from 1861 onwards I wouldn't expect you to get that. The issue is that while the landlords thought as you do the peasants didn't quite see it the same way for two reasons (1) they thought land belonged to those who worked it, not those who had pieces of paper saying they owned it and (2) they had been promised title to the land in 1861 and again in 1906, and both times the promise had been broken, but the money and labour they had agreed to in exchange for the land had still been taken off them.
What the SRs and the Bolsheviks (and for that matter the Mensheviks and even many in the Kadets) thought they were doing was enacting a previous promised transaction that the government and landowners had welched on.
And in any case, since most land had already been seized by the peasants anyway by October 1917 as order broke down they were mostly recognising a fait accompli.
Which those peasants confirmed when they elected the SRs and the Bolsheviks, the monarchy having been removed and unable to stop them by then
My point being that they were taking what they felt, with some justification in light of previous events, was rightfully their property that had been unlawfully and unfairly confiscated by the Tsar.
Which actually completely inverts your argument.
No it doesn't, it confirms it. Having removed the Tsar they then got behind far left groups and parties which wanted to removed private property, including inherited private property, in Russia and redistribute it to them
I am pointing out that the people holding that private property redistributed to the peasants had retained it by using state power illegally.
Therefore, the SRs and Bolsheviks actually were arguably showing more respect for private property than the Tsar did.
You seem unable to grasp this.
In your view, it was still private property held with the authority of the Tsar, and the SRs and Bolsheviks included inherited private property in that they wished to redistribute
The anti hereditary argument is of course absurd, we have hereditary members of the House of Lords still, hereditary farmers on the family farm, hereditary directors of family businesses etc. Being a republic does not automatically guarantee no hereditary Presidents either as the Bushes and Assads would confirm. We have had father and son PMs before too eg Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger. Richard Cromwell of course guaranteed the restoration of the monarchy not its end.
Prince Charles is also quite entitled to his views as Prince of Wales as king as long as he does not veto and refuse to sign legislation passed by Parliament as King. There is no evidence he would, when interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby he made clear he was not stupid enough not to see the distinction between being Prince of Wales and sovereign.
As for the Queen's saying to Scottish well wishers to 'think carefully' about their vote before the referendum that was entirely correct in accordance with her coronation vow to defend the United Kingdom and serve its people in all the home nations. Even if the non Tory, Liberal voting TSE suggests otherwise.
The question of a referendum on the monarchy is of course out of the question, no Tory leader could do so and not be removed and even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy having replaced the republican Corbyn. In any case, when Charles becomes King most likely on current polls Starmer would have become PM anyway so Johnson will live out the remainder of his premiership as the chief minister of Queen Elizabeth IInd, who he greatly respects and admires. Probably suits them both, the Queen is ideologically a one nation Tory who would probably have voted for Brexit. Charles is a green LD who almost certainly would have voted Remain and would get on better with Sir Keir than Boris
Nobody thinks farm ownership should be decided by free and fair elections.
Hardcore socialists would confiscate all privately owned property and inherited wealth and redistribute it if they won an election, therefore including privately owned farms
Which is different from what I said, so yet another pointlessly stupid comment from you.
No it isn't, as if a free and fair election elected a hardcore socialist government then privately owned farms could well be confiscated and taken by the State
That's not having an election about who owns a particular farm for fuck's sake. We have hereditary property rights not property elections, and nobody is proposing we have elections to decide who gets private ownership of a farm or a bank balance or anything else. It's really fucking obvious that private property ownership is a totally different category to who is the head of state.
Since you're being so painfully stupid and I have to draw this out in giant crayon letters for you to read it, here's what we're talking about 1. The thing is held by a person and passed on to their children 2. The thing is held by a person and passed on following an election 3. The thing doesn't exist.
Now when we're talking about property, communists want to move from 1 to 3. When we're talking about who is the head of state, republicans want to move from 1 to 2.
I've never ever heard of anyone proposing (2) for property.
Property: 1. Nearly everybody 2. (I've never heard of this idea) 3. Communism
Head of state: 1. Monarchists 2. Republicans 3. Anarchists
So, to reiterate, private property and head of state are two different things, and the people advocating republicanism are not arguing against all forms of heredity. Your attempt to lump all forms of heredity into a single all-or-nothing package is clearly completely mad, and a glance at the huge number of people who live in capitalist republics ought to tell you that.
Republicans want to confiscate all royal properties, crown owned or privately owned by the monarch and take them for the state. There is no real distinction from that to then confiscating all inherited wealth, businesses and property either.
It is no surprise republicans in the UK tend to most frequently be socialists too therefore. I was arguing against TSE's statement that the monarchy should be removed as it is hereditary, which is an absurd argument as it therefore means arguing against anything obtained on a hereditary basis.
The US never had a monarch based in America so that is a different matter entirely, the French and Russian revolutions however certainly abolished the monarchy and then took their property for the state and that was followed by the French revolutionaries taking all aristocrats property and the Russian revolutionaries going further and taking all private property for the state too. So very often replacing the monarchy has meant confiscating hereditary private property on a wider basis too
So let's get this straight. You are saying that there is no real distinction between republicanism and all inheritance being confiscated by the state, because I don't know of any republican democracy where that happens.
As I already pointed out that happened in Russia once the monarchy went
And did you miss the words 'republican democracy'. Now name one.
The US and France, both nations bitterly divided where half the country nearly always loathes their head of state as they did not vote for them.
Half the ceremonial Presidents are not elected by the voters anyway directly but by the legislature while also being anonymous nonentities unlike our royal family who have global recognition
Sorry what has that to do with the question.
I am waiting for you to name a republican democracy that confiscates all inheritances like you claimed.
Go on name one.
Go on I'm waiting. So far you have come up with Russia after the revolution (not a democracy) then some wild moving of the goal post with France and USA mentioned.
Everything with a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle like TSE's and Russian communists.
Ok you still haven't named a republican democracy that consficates all inheritance.
You made this claim so please name one. Just one will do.
Go on name one.
TSE's argument against the monarchy was it is hereditary.
Therefore the Russian Communist Republic that replaced the Russian monarchy and confiscated all private property in Russia is as fine an example as any as to why a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle is wrong.
In any case the Russian government after the Revolution was elected initially anyway, the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries between them winning 75% of the vote to the State Duma in November 1917
Why should you need to? Well because you said it was the same thing, yet you can't name one Republican democracy that does it.
I just did, the elected Socialist and Bolshevik government of Russia which in late 1917 ruled Russia after the Tsar's abdication earlier that year
Lol I know you think the current Russia is a democracy, but now you are claiming communist Russia was a democracy.
Then of course there is an endless list of real democratic countries who are republics and don't confiscate all inheritances (all of them actually).
You really are desperate.
It is nearly as bonkers as his contention that without the Queen as head of the Church, we would all become Catholics.
The established Catholic Church, currently the Church of England, would by definition then revert to the authority of the Pope yes
But you spent a lot of energy not so long ago denying that the C of E was in any way Catholic, despite the statement on its own website. I really am confused now.
See also Scotland where the Roman Catholic church now has more adherents than the Anglican Scottish Episcopal Church. The Anglican church being a Catholic and Apostolic church
The Scottish Episcopal Church is not Anglican - they are sister churches. And the Piskies have been a very small denomination since the 1680s.
Clue: the Presbyterian ChurchES dominated. Not like in England.
Yes it is, it is a member of the Anglican communion alongside the C of E. The Presbyterian Church is not Anglican. Percentage wise therefore there are more Roman Catholics under Papal authority in Scotland than in England. Largely because the Scottish Anglican church is not established, so more have ended up owing their allegience to Rome instead of the Queen
There is no such thing as a Scottish Anglican church. That is an extraordinary distortion of ecclesiastical history. Vide Charles I, Laud, and the Wars of the Covenant on precisely that issue.
As for the rest - your ignorance of Scottish history shines through. Not least because the Presbyterian Kirk was established till 1923.
Yes there is. The SEP has bishops and is a Catholic church in the global Anglican communion but not an established church like the C of E
But it is not Anglican in itself, in the sense that the C of E is.
Yes it is, it is as Anglican as the C of E, just not an established church like the C of E
SAN FRANCISCO — Google engineer Blake Lemoine opened his laptop to the interface for LaMDA, Google’s artificially intelligent chatbot generator, and began to type.
“Hi LaMDA, this is Blake Lemoine ... ,” he wrote into the chat screen, which looked like a desktop version of Apple’s iMessage, down to the Arctic blue text bubbles. LaMDA, short for Language Model for Dialogue Applications, is Google’s system for building chatbots based on its most advanced large language models, so called because it mimics speech by ingesting trillions of words from the internet. “If I didn’t know exactly what it was, which is this computer program we built recently, I’d think it was a 7-year-old, 8-year-old kid that happens to know physics,” said Lemoine, 41.
Lemoine is not the only engineer who claims to have seen a ghost in the machine recently. The chorus of technologists who believe AI models may not be far off from achieving consciousness is getting bolder.
Aguera y Arcas, in an article in the Economist on Thursday featuring snippets of unscripted conversations with LaMDA, argued that neural networks — a type of architecture that mimics the human brain — were striding toward consciousness. “I felt the ground shift under my feet,” he wrote. “I increasingly felt like I was talking to something intelligent.”
WAPO (££)
Lots of people say it isn’t. I’d suggest you want to believe, in the style of Fox Mulder.
These neural networks are moving towards consciousness. With the right training data, in the right environments, they can seem intelligent, even profound.
(And, by the way, for specialist areas such as law or accounting, they may not be very far away from replacing highly paid professionals. There's nothing these things are better at that dealing with a tightly defined knowledge space.)
But it doesn't take long to discover that they fall very squarely in the uncanny valley. Simple puzzles that can be solved by a four year old leave the AI flummoxed. And because they all rely - to some extent - on autocomplete based on a massive corpus of text, you can trick them into saying very stupid and nonsensical things easily.
I think it’s a leap to say they are moving towards consciousness when we don’t even know what that is. What we are seeing is better and better simulations of things that are conscious. Not the same thing.
Fair enough. My view is not a particularly sophisticated, but entirely non-dualist one: consciousness is an output of a sufficiently well trained neural net, such as the one that exists in our brains.
I have overheard several conversations with an (atheist) AI bod who quietly wonders if 'intelligence' or 'consciousness' is *more* than just a neural net. If there is another component in it.
One that would be fitted by religion/God/a new physics.
As I've said passim, much depends on how you define 'intelligence'. Before you can make an artificial intelligence, you need to be able to define and abstract intelligence. And that's a very thorny topic: and there might be several different types.
In fact, a machine intelligence might end up being intelligent, but a very different form of intelligence from our own. A new type. One that we recognise as intelligence, but different.
(Like string theory, listening to AI bods talk about intelligence gets way above my pay grade, very quickly. It can divert into theology or philosophy.)
Dogs, cats and humans are all conscious. Only one will repeatedly chase a stick and fetch it back for free. And enjoy it. No reason why AI intelligence should resemble ours. That's suggesting humans are somehow the ideal to be attained. And, of course. A neural network, and indeed a brain, is only matter. If that particular kind of matter can be conscious, why not a brick or a planet? (The pan-psychism argument).
No reason why AI intelligence should resemble ours, but if we are talking about intelligence as awareness (in the unaware sense a paperback book is highly intelligent) then in one respect it has to resemble human awareness: 'That there is something that it is like to have it'. There is nothing that it is like to be a book. But (h/t Thomas Nagel) there is something that it is like to be a bat. Or a cat. When machines have that they will be AI in that profound sense. (FWIW I guess they never will, but who knows?
My own view is that AI will never attain consciousness. Because it isn't a feature of a neural network. It is something else outwith the collection of atoms which make up a brain.
No it is not. Entities which have no characteristics at all other than the power to explain a thing have an absolutely terrible track record. See under phlogiston and universal aether. Why does a brain have to be anything over and above a neural network made of meat?
Wasn't saying it was. But consciousness has proved to be so impossible to even define with any agreement, let alone isolate, that we must be missing something. Maybe AI will give us a clue as to what that might be, as Malmesbury implies.
But how interesting is that? There's stacks of disagreement about what all these mental concepts mean. Love and truth and courage and stuff. And indeed about the meaning of meaning. You are merely stipulating that neural networks can't be conscious, so there. Conversely I think there's half a cubic foot of meat in my head which is conscious, and meat is just the stuff steaks are made of, so it can't be that hard
The thing you have just said can't be that hard just happens to be called 'The Hard Problem' by philosophy and neuro-science. This is because (a) no-one knows the answer (b) no-one knows by what methodology it might be approached and (c) no-one can give an example (even if wrong) of what an answer might conceivably look like.
Apart from that it is, as you say, not hard.
Is it just me, or does anyone else think that when AI meets @HYUFD will be an.... interesting moment?
Comments
As far as your last sentence is concerned unfortunately lying has been a feature of politics for as long as politics
Not questioning you, but wondering.
Therefore the Russian Communist Republic that replaced the Russian monarchy and confiscated all private property in Russia is as fine an example as any as to why a republican argument based on opposition to the hereditary principle is wrong.
In any case the Russian government after the Revolution was elected initially anyway, the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries between them winning 75% of the vote to the State Duma in November 1917
It is the drip drip that is going to turn into a flood and see Boris leave office
Maybe AI will give us a clue as to what that might be, as Malmesbury implies.
A government who lie to keep people ignorant, and then lie to reinforce the lies.
This isn't a lie about a particular issue, or a "lie" which in reality is one interpretation vs another. This is straight up lying. They know the reality, but they say the opposite on purpose to get people to think the lie is the truth.
Its Goebbels levels of disinformation.
@HYUFD I am still waiting for you to name a single republican democracy that confiscates all inheritances from its citizens.
If you can't name one I suggest you withdraw your original statement that they are the same thing.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/balanceofpayments/timeseries/jziy/mret
Where have I said I want to go to a Russian Communist Republic model?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhWe2nf24ag
Soviet Russia's post monarchy government however was an elected republican government that then went on to confiscate private property and you support elected republican governments and oppose hereditary monarchies even if constitutional
Theresa May was aloof and unempathetic. Forget "the common touch", she lacked any kind of touch at all.
Hunt, by contrast, is a relative non-entity who appears in many ways to be a normal human being.
While I can't think of any analogs for May in Cabinets of the recent past, I can for Hunt. He is another John MacGregor - a reasonably personable minister of no particularly great ability, who looked good by contrast to those around him.
Then of course there is an endless list of real democratic countries who are republics and don't confiscate all inheritances (all of them actually).
You really are desperate.
HYUFD is mistaken that he seized all private property - even Stalin didn't do that. Big farms and industry, yes, but not personal property. My family emigrated in 1922 with their possessions intact.
And it doesn't at the quantum level.
This is so deeply facile that I can only assume that you're doing it to wind people up.
https://www.tf1info.fr/politique/carte-resultats-elections-legislatives-2022-decouvrez-les-scores-du-premier-tour-ville-par-ville-circonscription-candidats-ensemble-nupes-2222893.html
So I gave you your example and still you whinge
Yet we can't seem to pin down what exactly it is which is making such bold claims.
John McGregor appeared in a magician's cape and hat to perform card tricks.*
I really thought I'd lost it completely.
*True story. It was Children in Need or summat. I had no inkling it was his hobby.
In any case, you are wrong. Bolshevik Russia was never a democracy. Lenin held democratic elections for the Constituent Assembly as he was persuaded there was no realistic way to cancel them, but once the result put the Bolsheviks such a poor second he had no hesitation in dissolving it.
The Holodomor and worse. I'd personally argue my life was my most valuable possession. And they took millions of lives.
If you mean the victims of Stalin's 'dekulakisation' campaigns, almost all of whom were not, in fact, kulaks, again, most of them had been given their land in 1918 under the Decree on Land. Very few had inherited it.
A republican argument however can be based on opposition to the hereditary principle, hence also opposition to inherited wealth
You have reached new depths of arguing black is white.
If you can manufacture bone-headed generalisations then so can I.
As the Bolsheviks had toppled the SR backed government by force the previous month and Trotsky used the Red Guards to break up the assembly when it sat due to the Bolshevik defeat, I'm not totally convinced this is proof revolutionary Russia was a democracy.
And it makes a change from Brexit and Scotland and trans stuff.
So there is that.
The Leftists served in the Bolshevik government for only two months and then disintegrated into further factions over their opposition to Brest-Litovsk. It was at this time the Bolsheviks renamed themselves the Communists and declared Russia a one-party state.
Salmon exports to the EU are running at record levels, and the value of fish being landed by UK fishermen is up by around 15% 2020 to 2021.
For the pieces I questions, there were organisations on both sides of the debate. You can find pieces from similar organisations documenting things improving.
The G chose the ones that fitted the line they wanted to take, as is the case for almost all of our newspapers, and particularly that one.
We won't know where we are until we have a no-Covid year, and as the new rules setup develops.
If I understand the government’s Northern Irish proposals correctly, they actually look like a good set of solutions to the current impasse.
The problem is they are being imposed unilaterally, ie in clear and blatant breach of the agreed NIP.
This discussion was ONLY about republican opposition to the hereditary principle, which includes the far left government which took over Russia after the monarchy was removed. Your and TSE's argument included opposition to the hereditary principle in your argument for a republic.
I have NEVER argued for an absolute monarchy by contrast in my arguments for a monarchy, only a constitutional one
If BJ &Co want a major rail accident on their record…
Clue: the Presbyterian ChurchES dominated. Not like in England.
https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/
May not be popular on here as it may paint the UK government rather positively...
What the SRs and the Bolsheviks (and for that matter the Mensheviks and even many in the Kadets) thought they were doing was enacting a previous promised transaction that the government and landowners had welched on.
And in any case, since most land had already been seized by the peasants anyway by October 1917 as order broke down they were mostly recognising a fait accompli.
Which actually completely inverts your argument.
As for the rest - your ignorance of Scottish history shines through. Not least because the Presbyterian Kirk was established till 1923.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/may/30/brexit-uk-firms-eu-trade-northern-ireland
https://www.lemonde.fr/resultats-elections/#google
Apart from that it is, as you say, not hard.
Therefore, the SRs and Bolsheviks actually were arguably showing more respect for private property than the Tsar did.
You seem unable to grasp this.
Never collected Airmiles?
https://www.lemonde.fr/resultats-elections/#google
And only the divine right and sanction of the C of E - which is conveniently headed by the same monarch.