Folks, with all the recent attacks on our history, traditions, and heritage, I am jealous of our allies in Great Britain.
They hold fast to their British pride and heritage despite the present-day challenges of political correctness and the “woke” movement destroying American society.
So I have to ask the question,
Why does the UK love the monarchy?
Mark Easton
Home editor BBC News
@BBCMarkEastonon Twitter
29 May 2012
Whydoes Great Britain remain so loyal to the monarchy?
According to recent polls, less than a fifth of the Queen’s subjects in the UK say they want to get rid of the Royal Family – a proportion that has barely changed across decades.
Support for those who want to do away with the monarchy and switch to a constitutional republic, like ours, was 18% in 1969, 18% in 1993, 19% in 2002 and 18% last year. Three-quarters of the population want Britain to remain a monarchy – a finding that has been described by pollsters as “probably the most stable trend we have ever measured”.
Given the enormous social change there has been since the current Queen assumed the throne 60 years ago, it might seem surprising that a system of inherited privilege and power should have retained its popularity.
But reading some of the comments on Twitter, it seems that even to raise a quizzical eyebrow at the approval ratings of the Windsors is regarded by some monarchists as tantamount to treason.
Those in favor of a republic, on the other hand, believe that to highlight the conspicuous lack of progress they have had in winning the nation to their cause is evidence of submissive knee-bending.
Looking to history, two major figures in the long-running debate between republican and monarchist thinkers in Britain come to mind. Thomas Paine and Walter Bagehot.
Thomas Paine was an England-born political philosopher and writer who supported revolutionary causes in America and Europe.
Paine’s most famous pamphlet, “Common Sense,” was first published on January 10, 1776, selling out its thousand printed copies immediately. By the end of that year, 150,000 copies–an enormous amount for its time–had been printed and sold. (It remains in print today.)
“Common Sense” is credited as playing a crucial role in convincing colonists to take up arms against England. In it, Paine argues that representational government is superior to a monarchy or other forms of government based on aristocracy and heredity.
The pamphlet proved so influential that John Adams reportedly declared, “Without the pen of the author of ‘Common Sense,’ the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain.”
“There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of Monarchy,” Paine declared. “One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of the hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion.”
He contrasted the common sense of his pamphlet’s title with the absurdity and superstition that inspired the “prejudice of Englishmen” for monarchy, arising “as much or more from national pride than reason”.
To this day, British republicans refer to Paine’s Common Sense almost as the sacred text. But monarchists have their own sacred text, written almost exactly a century later. Walter Bagehot’s (pronounced “badget”) English Constitution was a belated response to the revolutionary arguments of the New World republicans.
Walter Bagehot (1826-1877), was a British journalist who became editor of the British newspaper, The Economist in 1859.
“We catch the Americans smiling at our Queen with her secret mystery,” he wrote, with a suggestion that Paine and his kind were prisoners of their own “literalness”.
Bagehot didn’t try to justify monarchy as rational (indeed he accepted many of Paine’s criticisms), but his point was that an “old and complicated society” like England required more than mundane, dreary logic.
“The mystic reverence, the religious allegiance, which are essential to a true monarchy, are imaginative sentiments that no legislature can manufacture in any people,” he wrote. “You might as well adopt a father as make a monarchy.”
Bagehot had identified a developing national characteristic.
As colonial power and the riches of empire declined, there was an increasing desire to define greatness as something other than wealth and territory.
Britain wanted to believe it was, intrinsically, special. “People yield a deference to what we may call the theatrical show of society,” he wrote. “The climax of the play is the Queen.”
Isn’t that what Biden said last week? “We are special”.
Wind the clock forward to 1952 and plans were being made for the Coronation of the new Queen, Elizabeth II. Despite post-war hardship, it was decided the event should be a fabulous, flamboyant, extravagant affair with all the pomp and pageantry they could muster. There would be feathers and fur, gold and jewels, anthems and trumpets.
It was a giant gamble. Britain was re-evaluating many of the traditional power structures that had shaped society in the 1930s.
How would a population still subject to food rationing react to a ceremony that almost rubbed its nose in the wealth and privilege of the hereditary monarch?
Two sociologists, Michael Young and Ed Shils, had joined the crowds in the East End of London, dropping in on street parties to find out.
Their thesis, entitled The Meaning of the Coronation, accepted that there were some who had dismissed the whole affair as a ridiculous waste of money.
But overall, they concluded: “The Coronation provided at one time and for practically the entire society such an intense contact with the sacred that the people saw it as a great act of national communion.”
Britain – battered, bruised and broke – appeared determined to embrace its monarchy regardless of the cost. The paradox is that poverty was positively comfortable with flamboyance; in other words, challenge spawned a passion for hereditary and tradition.
It wasn’t just that Britain wanted a distraction from hardship and uncertainty. Enthusiastic support for monarchy seemed to run counter to the new liberalism which was guiding the politics of post-war Britain.
The 1950s were also a period in which Great Britain was worried about how global, institutional, and social change might threaten its identity.
Just like we are facing today.
Do you see where I am going with this. When Great Britain faced similar attacks on their traditions and heritage, they rallied behind their country and flag.
Are we capable of doing the same? Do we even want to?
The impact of Americanisation as well as colonial and European immigration upon British life were a source of great concern.
Sound familiar?
Despite winning the war, it appeared that national power and influence were being lost. Institutional authority was being questioned.
There were fears, too, that the values and traditions which underpinned family and community life were also changing rapidly.
Again, sound familiar?
War and financial hardship had combined to shake up and challenge ancient orthodoxies.
Monarchy represented a safeguard against rapid and scary change.
Sixty years after the Queen assumed the throne, many of those same anxieties remain. Concerns about how globalization and immigration are changing Britain continue to trouble the country.
Respect for institutions has declined as the global financial crisis has ushered in a new era of hardship.
Times are tough, the challenges are great and Great Britain still responds by cheering an aspect of their culture that, for all its irrationality, is uniquely theirs.
That is the way it used to be here in America. We called it patriotism.
The British have always chosen the quirks of their history against foreign ideas.
The Romans brought them straight roads and decimal system. As soon as they left, they reverted to impossibly complicated Imperial measures and winding country lanes.
The British don’t like straight lines. When they look at those maps of the United States with ruler-straight state boundaries, they feel pity.
Walter Bagehot understood that their identity was found in the twists and turns of a rural road, not in the practicality of a highway.
It is the same with their system of governance. Logic is not the most important factor. They are happy to accept eccentricity and quirkiness because they reflect an important part of their national character.
So in trying to explain the unlikely success of the monarchy, we shouldn’t expect the answer to be based on reason.
It is not a question of prevailing political attitudes – how can a liberal democracy justify power and privilege based on an accident of birth?
The British monarchy is valued because it is the British monarchy. They are an old and complicated society that holds on to sacred traditions and heritage.
Perhaps we should step back and look at the example being set by the people of Great Britain.
So, let’s look at America today.
Bobby Jindal, former Governor of Louisiana, 2008-2016., in The National Review.
What has truly set America apart, has been something very similar to what the British have embraced — our culture. Our Founding Fathers created a limited government dedicated to protecting, not creating, our God-given rights, and thus enshrined freedom into our foundational documents and culture.
In America, civic values like individualism, frugality, delayed gratification, striving, private charity, and temperance have served us well through many generations.
Combined with healthy, though not absolute, tendencies towards libertarianism and isolationism, these values have not been identified with a particular political party or religious denomination.
Despite their roots in the beliefs of the first Protestant immigrants to the colonial settlements, they have been embraced by Americans from all backgrounds.
I worry because these values are under assault. Indeed, the middle class — the traditional repository of these values and the backbone of America — is under increasing assault, economically and otherwise. We now have a Democratic party more concerned with making individuals dependent on government and a Republican party more concerned with protecting the wealthy.
America is strong enough to confront any external threat, but we need to worry more about our weakening from within. Even as we resist enemies determined to take away our freedoms, we need to realize that we are at risk of simply giving away our incredible heritage.
Liberals have been remarkably successful in transforming America’s culture from within, dominating the media, universities, and the entertainment industry, where so many ideas originate.
Elites have adopted new values of government dependency, the universalization of victimhood, instant gratification, political correctness, and group identity.
The problem is, we are not merely passive recipients; but families, busy paying bills and raising kids, who are affected by these attacks on our culture and traditions.
Just as previous eras’ kids had their parents’ values reinforced from television shows, movies, and celebrities, today’s children are similarly influenced by today’s popular culture.
Diversity and tolerance (for all except those who disagree with the liberal elites) are becoming the most sacred values in today’s more secular society.
Nobody is arguing for their opposite, but values originally designed to protect the minority view have instead become tools with which to bludgeon into conformity all who hold dissenting views.
Conservatives are no longer to be tolerated, much less debated with — all in the name of tolerance. The quickest way to silence those who have non-liberal views on gay marriage, transgender bathrooms, or quotas is to simply label them bigots. Case closed.
There is much self-satisfaction and heroism in being countercultural against great odds.
Folks, as I stated at the beginning of this show, I am envious of the British people who have held onto their culture and traditions.
It is time for we the people, as Americans, regardless of party affiliation, to fight not just to win elections, but for a greater and more enduring victory — to reclaim our culture.
No fight is more important right now than reasserting America’s traditional values.
I hope it is not too late.