There is an element of vagueness to this idea due to the fact that whereas I live in Great Britain, this is an island rather than a state and it might be about a president of Scotland, England, Wales, the "U"K or something else I haven't thought of, but which is associated with this place. Maybe the Commonwealth? I don't want to take a position for this particular aspect of the issue for the purposes of this idea.
But: Okay, so we have a King, and we have lots of people saying "not my king", and people wanting this place, whatever it is, to be a republic, or maybe republics. Well, there doesn't seem to be anything stopping us from organising some kind of possibly not very representative electoral process whereby we do actually elect a president, not officially recognised but kind of the person who would be president if we didn't have a monarchy. We could set up a pressure group, or use the existing republican pressure groups, to ask people to nominate various respected figures to stand as president in the Irish constitutional sense, which is similar in some ways to the role of monarch than the American or French position, in that it's about signing bills into law, which obviously couldn't be done, but also acting as a figurehead representative of the country, making speeches on issues considered to be of national importance like the State of the Union address or the King's Speech, turning up to international conferences but not being allowed in due to not being a real head of state and so on. No, I don't know what I mean by "and so on" because we don't have a written constitution, so I can't.
The idea is to personify opposition to the monarchy in a kind of non-political way, where the presence of a person who would be president is a constant reminder that we are a monarchy, but if we weren't we could have respected national treasure X representing us all to the world, such as, well the first person who springs to mind is David Attenborough, but I dunno, Judi Dench, Stephen Fry or someone. The problem being that many of our national treasures are in with the monarchy.-- nineteenthly, May 08 2023 Alternative Government [pocmloc, May 08 2023] Me spending too much time thinking about hats being used to establish social status and power Janitor_20Hat_20Des..._20Hats_20Seriously [doctorremulac3, May 08 2023] Way too much time... Tall_20Hat_20Social...estosterone_20Study [doctorremulac3, May 08 2023] The meaning of life https://youtu.be/O2QJvc_SxFQThis is incorrect on the hat issue. [nineteenthly, May 11 2023] Dictator hats. https://www.gettyim...pular&license=rf,rm [doctorremulac3, May 12 2023] Elected leader hats https://www.gettyim...lar&license=rf%2Crm [doctorremulac3, May 12 2023] A president? Eh - no thanks - can see how well that works out in Russia, China and the USA. Once they get their hands on the control panels, they're not keen to ever let go. (and yes that applies equally to the USA as we saw in the refusal of him who's name cannot be spoken on the HB to accept the election result and leave the stage) I'm very happy to have the system as currently applies to the UK complete with our lovely King.-- xenzag, May 08 2023 //some kind of possibly not very representative electoral process//
Ah yes; that will definitely turn out well.-- pertinax, May 08 2023 //and yes that applies equally to the USA as we saw in the refusal of him who's name cannot be spoken on the HB to accept the election result and leave the stage) I'm very happy to have the system as currently applies to the UK complete with our lovely King//
I think that's great. Some people can't be trusted with self determination and need a self appointed monarchy that hypnotizes them with a sparky hat.
"Why is he the king ruling over us all?"
"He's got a sparkly hat."
"Oh, good point."
Those people might not be able to understand that China is a one party system, and a one party system is not a democracy, or that Russia is run by a lifetime office holding totalitarian dictator (23 years and counting) that murders his rivals and subordinates the rule of law to the interests of his supporting oligarchs.
Gets kind of complicated though, some folks should just stick with vowing fealty to the guy with the sparkly hat.-- doctorremulac3, May 08 2023 An elected president with no legal power? So he has all the soft power of "this is the guy we all agreed should lead us" but no direct influence over laws, budget, or military. He can make speeches and his influence is in direct proportion to his fame, popularity, and likedness. An elected father figure.-- Voice, May 08 2023 Here in New Zealand, the idea of becoming a republic rears it's head every now & then (particularly now, given the recent event). People always ask "what shall we replace the king WITH?" My position is, the king is effectively irrelevant to the actual running of the country, so why replace him at all? Just get rid of the "ceremonial head of state" position, & carry on as normal.-- neutrinos_shadow, May 08 2023 Don't underestimate the real world serious power of silly hats.
King / Queen => person in silly hat Pope => person in silly hat Judge => person in silly hat Totalitarian dictator => person in silly hat &c.-- pocmloc, May 08 2023 //Just get rid of the "ceremonial head of state" position, & carry on as normal.//
Or just cut the power of the government down by 80% and put in a ceremonial head of state to give the people something to grovel at.
I've often suggested we do that in America. Give the peasants something to drool over while the grownups run things.
Okay, enough of that. I know the monarchy makes some people happy, which is great, unless they decide to pick on America. We have a bit of a history, the royals and us. We don't exactly melt when the monarchists point a finger at us.-- doctorremulac3, May 08 2023 //King / Queen => person in silly hat Pope => person in silly hat Judge => person in silly hat Totalitarian dictator => person in silly hat &c.//
Wwwwwaaaaait a second.... you're saying people can control other people just by wearing silly hats?
That's a subject I've spend waaaayyy too much time thinking about. (links)-- doctorremulac3, May 08 2023 Correlation does not always imply causation, hence the need for your proposed scientific study. [+] for it.-- pocmloc, May 09 2023 No representation without taxation!(just a second, I'm having a feeling I mucked up that quote)-- lurch, May 10 2023 No taxenatation without representionation?-- doctorremulac3, May 10 2023 //that Russia is run by a lifetime office holding totalitarian dictator (23 years and counting// When he who’s name cannot be spoken on the halfbakery observed that Chinese leader Xi Jinping was allowed to be president for life, he openly expressed the sentiment that he too should be able to be declared the permanent president of the USA. “He’s now president for life. President for life. No, he’s great,” XXXXX said. “And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot someday.”-- xenzag, May 10 2023 The Canadian counterpart of that individual looks up to a similar oriental totalitarian.
At some point in the future they will refer to this period of time as the "Silent War" because it all goes down behind the scenes.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, May 11 2023 That's the problem with the presidential system, of which we see clear evidence in the several countries I outlined. They start off being elected by a flawed process, then refuse to step down when their time is up. In one notable case they go as far as to organise an armed insurrection by a rabid mob of neanderthals in a desperate bid to become permanently installed new age Neros. Long live King Charles!-- xenzag, May 11 2023 Problem: Presidents don't step down sometimes.
Xenzag's solution: Replace them with kings that never step down.
And that was after obsessing about it for 3 days. Can't make this stuff up.-- doctorremulac3, May 11 2023 My conclusion from this discussion is that contrary to Monty Python's claim, people are actually wearing too many hats.
What I had in mind was something similar to a British monarch in their role, i.e. without significant political power, but elected and not entitled to the vast wealth the King has. Like the Irish president, not the American. I did actually say that but I also posted a massive long wall of text so maybe I should've made it clearer.-- nineteenthly, May 11 2023 You left out what kind of hat they're gonna wear.
I've posted two links, one of "dictator hats" and one of "elected leader hats". The dictator's hat game is so superior as to not even be compatible to the elected leaders, who seem to treat hats as a afterthought. There are like 5 pictures of Margret Thatcher wearing a fedora.
Let's look at the facts: Hat sizes to followers ratios ranked.
Pope: Hat height 1.5 ft - followers = 1.3 billion
President of the CCP: Hat height 8" - followers = 96 million
Any questions?-- doctorremulac3, May 12 2023 I would like to see a graph of hat size against number of people ruled. As many data points as possible, preferably 100 or so-- pocmloc, May 12 2023 This is sorely lacking in illustrations, graphs, charts etc admittedly.-- doctorremulac3, May 12 2023 Well, you have Queen Amidala who wore an absolutely ridiculous outfit and presumably ruled over every human-looking thing on Naboo, so that's quite a bit.
But then again the Emperor doesn't have much but a hoodie, so...?-- RayfordSteele, May 13 2023 True, but a hoodie has a lot of area to it.-- doctorremulac3, May 13 2023 Okay...
...so bald it is?-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, May 13 2023 Bring back sacrificing the king/queen/president/dictator after 5 years rule...-- prufrax, May 13 2023 random, halfbakery