{"id":21256,"date":"2013-07-24T08:17:42","date_gmt":"2013-07-24T13:17:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=21256"},"modified":"2013-07-24T08:18:22","modified_gmt":"2013-07-24T13:18:22","slug":"colby-cosh-on-the-constitutional-monarchy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2013\/07\/24\/colby-cosh-on-the-constitutional-monarchy\/","title":{"rendered":"Colby Cosh on the constitutional monarchy"},"content":{"rendered":"

I suspect Colby will be getting lots of hate mail from republicans after this column<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The secret of constitutional monarchies is not that they indulge the dynastic impulse, but that they have found a means of circumscribing it without losing the advantages. Chief amongst these, I think, is a sense of historical continuity: we still so clearly remember the new prince\u2019s gin- and horse-loving great-great-grandmother, born in the reign of Victoria, and now comes R.B. himself, unlikely to warm the chair of St. Edward until even the youngest of you reading this are pensioners (if you\u2019re lucky, and if \u201cpensions\u201d are still a thing). It provides a natural, almost enforced occasion for a species of \u201clong now\u201d panoramic, intergenerational thinking that various nerds and hucksters like to profit from.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that a domestic Canadian dynasty would do that job about as well, and this is the source for much of the odium in which our system is held by republicans. Dammit, Royal Baby isn\u2019t even Canadian Royal Baby! Barring the overthrow of our Constitution, we are never likely to have a \u201cCanadian\u201d head of state who has grown up entirely amongst us. When you are finished having a cry about that, I would suggest reflecting upon the possible benefits: an indigenous Canadian head of state would have to be some particular person, wedded to one of our regions and official languages and political tribes and social classes and, indeed, component nations. Surely there is some merit in having ultimate last-resort legitimacy \u2014 an important plus of monarchy, as the Second World War taught \u2014 vested in an outsider. Maybe every country should have a king or queen from somewhere else, someone extremely intimate with its constitutional traditions and language but otherwise neutral; rooted, for safety, in other soil.<\/p>\n

Or maybe that is the dumbest idea you\u2019ve ever heard. But republicans do need to take the \u201cparticularity\u201d factor into account in weighing their long-term chances. Until the debate over the fundamental Constitution gets serious, the choice is \u201cimaginary elected president from my personal fantasies, perhaps a genetic cross between Barack Obama and Justin Timberlake\u201d versus \u201cactual living family that has had various difficulties and embarrassments.\u201d This is inherently good ground for anti-monarchists to fight on, but only when there is no actual fight.<\/p>\n

If we had an Australian-style referendum on the monarchy, the republicans would not only have to present an actual alternative system for criticism \u2014 which is what befouled the hopes of Australian republicans \u2014 undecideds would also be obliged to start imagining a world in which the personal fountainhead of political legitimacy might end up being Don Cherry or Rob Ford or George Stroumboulopoulos. I personally will take my chances with little R.B. God save the Queen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I suspect Colby will be getting lots of hate mail from republicans after this column: The secret of constitutional monarchies is not that they indulge the dynastic impulse, but that they have found a means of circumscribing it without losing the advantages. Chief amongst these, I think, is a sense of historical continuity: we still […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,84],"tags":[715,396],"class_list":["post-21256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britain","category-cancon","category-government","tag-constitution","tag-monarchy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-5wQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21256"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21258,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21256\/revisions\/21258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}