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Post by tangent on Aug 30, 2018 18:56:44 GMT
I'm not saying they're spongers who do nothing. In fact, I don't think they are. I'm saying they give that impression to the general public.
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Post by whollygoats on Aug 30, 2018 19:11:22 GMT
Here, we rely entirely upon 'reality television characters' to fill the niche of having complete empty-headed twats to watch. Royalty would just be redundant.
Instead of Liz, we have our own Queen Caitlyn.
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Post by spaceflower on Aug 30, 2018 21:30:32 GMT
Why do you assume that royalty are "complete empty-headed twats"?
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Post by whollygoats on Sept 21, 2018 21:16:19 GMT
Because they are born and raised with the belief that they are somehow more superior to those not related to them by virtue of their birth alone.
As far as I am concerned, that is prima facie evidence that they are twats and that they continue to believe it qualifies them as completely empty-headed.
That one's birth determines social status, health, welfare, comfort, and perverse attitude toward others of your own species is sufficient for my judgement.
So far, I feel reasonably vindicated, given the history of royalty, particularly in Britain.
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Post by Moose on Sept 21, 2018 22:17:17 GMT
What the Goat said. What actually makes the Royal Family any better than the rest of us? Serious answers only please.
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Post by JoeP on Sept 21, 2018 22:38:08 GMT
Have you read the Titus books Goat? And Moose?
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Post by whollygoats on Sept 21, 2018 23:21:07 GMT
"The Titus books"?
No.
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Post by Mari on Sept 22, 2018 7:25:18 GMT
I doubt nowadays the royals feel "better" than us plebeians. That's an attitude I associate with families who've been lawyers for generations or doctors. I met a few of those scions when I studied in Leiden. Leiden is pretty much the Oxford/Cambridge of Dutchland. I'm quite sure our princesses often feel burdened with their birthrights actually. And how about Harry and William who have had to look on as their mother's private life has been in the news etc. so often and not always nicely?
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Post by JoeP on Sept 22, 2018 10:57:24 GMT
The Gormenghast trilogy (although the third book is less recommended) by Mervyn Peake.
One of the main themes is how the pressure of ritual, and being born into certain duties, is a burden that warps people. I think this touches on a very different argument to your (rather emptied-headed) claim that they must be twats simply because "they continue to believe it" (which you didn't offer any evidence for). It's the same level of argument as saying that poor people can just choose to stop being poor.
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Post by JoeP on Sept 22, 2018 10:58:00 GMT
Anyway, I recommend Mervyn Peake to royalists and republicans alike.
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Post by whollygoats on Sept 22, 2018 13:27:00 GMT
Excuse me....If it is such a frippin' burden, and it is warping them, then they can just abdicate and give up all their land, possessions, wealth and all of those ill-gotten gains and onerous ritual requirements. Yet they don't, now, do they? Damn....Somewhere around here is the world's smallest violin. I think we need a round of 'My Heart Bleeds For You'.
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Post by whollygoats on Sept 22, 2018 16:21:27 GMT
And...lest we forget...The royalty and the aristocracy hold their 'homo superior' attitudes by virtue of their descent from utterly ruthless vicious violent thugs who took what they, and their descendants, have by force of arms and intimidation.
Cue Dennis the Anarcho-Syndicalist Peasant.
"...you can't expect to wield supreme power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you!"
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Post by Kye on Sept 22, 2018 18:14:43 GMT
I guess I feel the same way about people who were born to wealth and privilege just because someone in their ancestry came up with a better mousetrap...
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Post by Moose on Sept 22, 2018 19:50:39 GMT
At least someone in THEIR families had a bit of intelligence and ingenuity though
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Post by Kye on Sept 22, 2018 21:50:48 GMT
True. But the progeny don't necessarily share the original talent --certainly not more likely to than anyone else.
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Post by Moose on Sept 23, 2018 20:34:07 GMT
No . But it's more fair. I just don't see what the Royals have done to be in the exalted position that they are in
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Post by whollygoats on Sept 23, 2018 21:44:10 GMT
Well, I rather support the idea of innovators and original talent being rewarded, but even in such cases of accumulation of nouveau wealth, the scions gain more than other societal scions, in that they have access to all the best toys, learning tools, instruction, primer capital, and endless exemplars to draw upon from their privileged life. I think that a big accumulator like that needs to be able to leave enough for their spouse to live out their life in the style to which they have become accustomed, and the legitimate children raised to the age where they are capable of making independent judgements (and a starter nest egg)....all assets beyond that become property of the state and help support the social safety net. In my estimation, inheritance taxes should be otherwise total.
I expect that if the scions of such prodigies are truly 'a chip off the old block', then a profligate assist in starting life should be more than enough for the scion to do well in life. And, it will serve as an incentive for innovation and production which would not be present if it were all handed to them on a silver platter. Rewarding people for just being born rewards sloth, indolence, and greed; it is not an advised practice.
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Post by kingedmund on Sept 29, 2018 2:08:23 GMT
Well! I have recently become interested in genealogy and have been told since I was a kid that my family history had a lot of nobility-royalty in it. I was amazed what I found. To name one, My 15th great grandmother was Lady Elizabeth Ludham. Her son, my 14th great Uncle down line was Queen Elizabeth and George Washington. So I guess they are cousins of some type. Not that they know whether hell I am but not that it makes any difference in my way world. Also am related to a Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, kings and Queens of Britannia, and Princess Diana's family. Found out that my uncle is actually a cousin because we share a 12th Great Grandmother Wealthian Loring of Massachusetts. She was almost tried as a witch. I'm amazed. Lots of knights, lady's, and Earls. All I knew when I was a kid is in the 1850's that line came to America and sold of their manufacturing businesses to start it up here.
Even though I'm American I really don't have an interest in royal family's. Except that for the last couple of years for purposes of genealogy. Kind of like you on that note goat.
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Post by kingedmund on Sept 29, 2018 2:11:04 GMT
I see no reason to pay taxes on those escapades.
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Post by tangent on Sept 29, 2018 11:01:33 GMT
Well! I have recently become interested in genealogy and have been told since I was a kid that my family history had a lot of nobility-royalty in it. I was amazed what I found. To name one, My 15th great grandmother was Lady Elizabeth Ludham. Her son, my 14th great Uncle down line was Queen Elizabeth and George Washington. So I guess they are cousins of some type. Not that they know whether hell I am but not that it makes any difference in my way world. Also am related to a Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, kings and Queens of Britannia, and Princess Diana's family. Found out that my uncle is actually a cousin because we share a 12th Great Grandmother Wealthian Loring of Massachusetts. She was almost tried as a witch. I'm amazed. Lots of knights, lady's, and Earls. All I knew when I was a kid is in the 1850's that line came to America and sold of their manufacturing businesses to start it up here. Geneology websites make a lot of money by telling you these things but can you trust them?
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Post by kingedmund on Sept 29, 2018 15:48:51 GMT
It's taken a lot of research. My uncle had already visited the archives and we have pictures of everything. Plus mormons have the largest archive that they have assembled along with the pictures of deeds. Wills, abstracts,court filings. Seven known this in our family for since grandmother was born. I just never paid attention to it until a couple years ago. The marriage certificate and census records are pretty accurate except for misspellings of names. The Mormons site and archives do not charge to add you records plus they verified what we and if you need help they will help you.
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Post by kingedmund on Sept 29, 2018 15:53:15 GMT
Everyone on this planet is related to someone famous. If you do the math and you go back to you 15th great grandparents you will have approximately 3.5 million cousins living today. Go back further and the number increases. The mormons have spent 100 years amassing this information and taking pictures of public records and estates. Deeds as well. You will be surprised what you find. I found old pictures with them and for the life of don't know how they got it. I have an old painting of my 3great uncle in my library. They had it too plus others that I have as well. I don't know how but they did obtain these.
My great uncle traveled Europe for 5 years researching this, which was in the 1980's. When he died a couple years back I had a treasure trove of pictures of cemeteries, wills, local town archives with kids names what they owned who the were related to. Mormons had the same information.
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Post by whollygoats on Sept 29, 2018 15:57:55 GMT
And, as a result, you found out that you were one of many possible descendants of vicious, bloody thugs who raped, pillaged, and burned throughout Europe to advance their fortunes and impose wretchedness and tyranny upon all others.
Bully. You're a thug.
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Post by kingedmund on Sept 29, 2018 16:01:33 GMT
Hate to tell you this. You probably are too. Keep in mind 20th 30th etc had tons of children too. They had to marry or sleep with people too. Pretty much everyone is related by some way or another. Like my uncle who is a cousin by an 1680's grandmother. It opened my eyes to the numbers and equations of how we are all related.
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Yuki
Senior members
Posts: 632
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Post by Yuki on Sept 29, 2018 16:13:43 GMT
I wish the monarchy in Morocco was as in the UK. The Moroccan king has most power in his hand (and controls a large part of the economy through his family investment fund), with the government and the parliament serving mostly as administrators and assistants, and sometimes just as a facade for foreign media to project a more positive image of the country as being more "democratic" than it actually is; and also as scapegoats when something goes wrong (such as the austerity measures and foreign debt which was blamed on the ex-prime minister). It's still better than being ruled by Islamists, as most people would vote for them if we were a truly democratic country, or by the military as in Egypt.
But overall, I think the whole idea of a monarchy is silly and should be abolished.
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Yuki
Senior members
Posts: 632
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Post by Yuki on Sept 29, 2018 16:23:25 GMT
What is wrong about an elected President? It means there are two, often conflicting heads of government, the president and the prime minister (or equivalent head of the elected house). In Germany, the president has very little power, and has a 5 year term renewable only once, so you can actually achieve the same goal without monarchy.
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Post by kingedmund on Sept 29, 2018 16:29:55 GMT
Very true.
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Post by spaceflower on Sept 29, 2018 16:31:01 GMT
It would be nice to be related to aristocracy b/c then you could know more about them. My forefathers were peasants and I only know name, homestead, birth date, wedding date, dates of children, death date.
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Post by kingedmund on Sept 29, 2018 18:14:34 GMT
I guarantee you some of them married into upper classes. You just have to do the research.
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Post by whollygoats on Sept 29, 2018 18:23:39 GMT
Regarding claims of familial relationships to famous people of the past....
You have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents and so on back in to time, doubling with each generation.
So, we could assume that each generation is some where in the realm of 20 to 25 years on average, so that in one hundred years duration, four to five generations might transpire.
When we keep doubling the number of possible direct ancestors, we find that by 25 generations in the past, or five to six hundred years in the past, you will have 33,554,432 possible direct ancestors in the population of that period. We're talking the 1300s or 1400s. Do you think that of the medieval European population of that time, that among thirty three and a half million of them, that a few might have had the blood of the rouges and thugs of aristocracy and royalty (invented categories themselves) coursing in their veins? Rape was a major pastime of brutal thugs; it still is. What was the population of Europe at the outbreak of the Black Plague? (1347) Then, what was the population after the Black Plague. (Those estimates should be readily available....BRB.) ETA: 1350 Europe population estimated at 70 million.
So, yeah. You are the direct descendant of a population half the size of that of Europe in 1350. SFW? So am I. So are most on this board.
Sorry, but I do not see what the excitement is about.
ETA: Going one generation earlier would again doulble the number of ancestors, making it 66+ million possible direct ancestors. It's still not quite equivalent to the entire population of Europe at the time (which was about 78 million), but by stepping back just one more generation (to #27, I believe), some time in the latter half of the thirteenth century, you would have in the realm of 132 million possible direct ancestors, well beyond the size of the entire population of Europe at the time.
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