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It was not written by the queen. "The speech, devised by Whitehall officials at one of the most fraught Cold War periods..."
by air 13y ago
It was not written by the queen.
"The speech, devised by Whitehall officials at one of the most fraught Cold War periods..."
- gadders 13y agoYeah, but it matters who says it, right? Otherwise you could get a newsreader to deliver it.
- rooshdi 13y agoReading doesn't require royalty. Peasants can too.
- air 13y agoIt does feel a bit funny, that a piece of text she did not write, present, or probably even read, is given as a reason to have her as a monarch. Seems like you would probably get on just fine with a fabricated character played by an actress, who is charismatic enough. Say, "Big Sister"
- prawn 13y agoFirst sentence there is superb. Wish I could up vote more than once. Really quite insightful.
- gadders 13y agoOr we could do what Americans do and venerate a piece of cloth? I'm not having a pop at Americans, but it may make sense to view the queen as a symbol in the same way that the flag is for Americans. It's just that our symbol happens to be a person. Also, the Queen ties us back to stuff like Henry V and Agincourt etc.
- moocowduckquack 13y agoI see no reason to venerate either flags or royalty. Frankly I find nationalism toe-curlingly embarrassing at best. If I am feeling particularly generous I tend to agree with Samuel Johnson that "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." The rest of the time I am more aligned with Ambrose Bierce's version from The Devil's Dictionary. “Patriotism, n. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name. In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit it is the first.”
- gadders 13y agoWell when some patriotic/nationalistic people decide to invade the particular piece of ground you are inhabiting at the time, be sure to tell them you have opted out.
- moocowduckquack 13y agoNot how it works. Defending against expansionist nationalists is not the same thing as accepting the philosophy of nationalism.
- tonyblundell 13y agoThe Queen is more than just an actor. Think of how you'd hire a lawyer to speak for you if you had to appear in court. It is necessary to hire a trained expert in collating and co-ordinating information from the relevant sources and communicating in that particular forum. It doesn't detract from the meaning or sentiment.
- drakeandrews 13y agoOf course not. But our politicians tend to have all the charisma of a pile of gravel, as opposed to our royals who are usually pretty decent orators.
- moocowduckquack 13y agoI dunno, the Queen just sounds bored shitless whenever she is required to speak in public. As for her husband, his public outbursts of genteel bigotry are more lavatory than oratory.