Not looking good for Queen Elizabeth (RIP)
 

Think this is probably worthy of its own thread...family rushing to Balmoral.

The death of Queen Elizabeth II: Live updates | CNN

I mean, we've literally been waiting at least a decade for this, haven't we?

So how do Brits feel about continuing the monarchy after she passes?

Who would be the new King/Queen/Nongendered-Ruling-Title anyways?

Charles is next in line, but there's been some discussion of him abdicating the throne to William.

Think they love William & Kate. Not so much Charles & Camilla.


Charles but maybe chance he'll pass it down to William?

I just spoke to my sister in law who lives in England. General sentiment is people are really sad. They think she’s likely gone already. Once they announce it all school children are sent home. Lots of speculation they are waiting to announce because it is prince williams kids first day at a new school.

I have always wondered if her death will be what eventually causes Australia, NZ, Canada, and all the other countries out there to stop the whole connection to the monarchy.

Charles will not abdicate before he is crowned. He has waited his whole life for this position, and he has made clear he intends on being King. He might retire before his death (I believe Elizabeth didn't because she wanted to be the wants to be remembered as the longest tenured ruler). There is no way he is going to refuse the crown, and he is not so unpopular that he would be somehow refused the crown.

Mrs. A also pointed out that Charles abdicating basically b/c people don't like him diminishes the Monarchy. Agree or disagree, but it is more than a popularity contest for people like him.

She is gone. The announcement is already referring to him a King.



Buckingham Palace announces she is dead

Had 40 years or so for the disinherit or murder plot, it’s a shame she was so weak in intrigue. The faction to install Prince William on the British throne has already begun the process to click the button to issue their demands.

In all seriousness, while I’m totally opposed to the concept of the monarchy, she was an incredibly strong and decent person who led through some unbelievable periods of upheaval. It is genuinely a sad day for the country.

Liz Truss had two days in office before she had to start preparing for the first coronation in 70 years.

This note in the BBC coverage really puts some perspective on the reign of Queen Elizabeth I think: "for the first time since 1952, when the national anthem is played the words will be "God Save the King"

Her coronation is credited as much as anything with making television a mainstream medium in Great Britain. She was the last remaining monarch to have served in World War II.

Thrust into a job that she had little time to prepare for, as she put it "a very sudden kind of taking on and making the best job you can."

May she rest in peace.

RIP

And oof, might not see another Premier League match until October.

Charles won't abdicate (he has already announced he will be called Charles III - he could have used any of his given names). He has been trained for this role for decades. While there will be plenty of discussion about whether the concept of royalty means anything in the modern world, the family itself doesn't add to that discussion.

Whether Charles steps into this role and becomes a popular monarch depends entirely on how he handles it. One thing in his favor is that William is very, very popular, which gives him an easy role while William is raising young children. If he uses this role to make speeches and do everything Elizabeth didn't, there will be increasing talk of ending the monarchy.

The monarchy is to be seen and not heard. Strange custom, but it makes a lot of sense to a lot of people.

Its crazy, she is all I have known in my life and right now, the Brit in me, despite immigrating to America at such a young age, is really struggling with her passing. I can't even articulate it, but its definitely real.

2nd longest reigning monarch ever. Almost caught Louis XIV (who I believe outlived all his kids). Probably should be on top since Louis XIV was just a young child and had a council I believe that ran things till he was older.
List of longest-reigning monarchs - Wikipedia

“Reminder that Queen Elizabeth is not a remnant of colonial times. She was an active participant in colonialism. She actively tried to stop independence movements & she tried to keep newly independent colonies from leaving the commonwealth. The evil she did was enough”

Good riddance

"Let’s start at the beginning with her being Kenya during the Mau Mau revolution, where GB genocided and tortured Kenyans. Literally she was there for all of it."

I'm basically just quoting Black Twitter (tm) to say that I don't think we necessarily need to bestow praises upon someone who was the (another quote) "matriarch of a royal family legacy of slave-trading, imperialism, colonialism, theft, symbol of opulence and mascot for the ruling class"

Wild she lasted this long. Wild that Charles finally gets to be King and Camila, the royal side chick gets to be Queen lol.

Yeah, that's credible.

King Charles III

I hear he's having a bar installed in the throne room so he and Boris can partay

They cancelled this weeks round of matches for the EPL. People are flipping out.

I've heard next weekend's are likely off as well. Then there is an international break. It's a very divisive issue, granted I'm going off of City's fan forum primarily so it's a harder core base.

It's going to cause some serious scheduling issues, especially with the Qatar Cup taking place later this year.

Can't speak to Australia or NZ, but this sounds quite unlikely for Canada. My understanding is we would need to amend our constitution, and doing that is a massive can of worms in this country. Far easier to just display some pageantry whenever they visit and host the Commonwealth games every 25 years or so.

Irish Twitter was savage yesterday.

I don't mean that to be a what about-ism, just simply an observation of the different reactions from the various communities both off and online(include all the caveats of Twitter not being a real place in place) around the world yesterday. Despite knowing the history, I was just caught off guard by the reaction from that section of Twitter. I am not sure why.

Of course the battle has already begun among the countries where the British monarchy is currently the head of state as to whether that relationship should continue and whether it is disrespectful to have that discussion right now. It definitely will be interesting to see how things unfurl.

https://youtu.be/QDRF8jdVFC0

A look at what the next few weeks/months/year may look like.

What I find interesting is all the "celebrating" her death like she finally got what she deserved. She lived a long full life and died at 96 loved a respected by many. Can I be punished like that?

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When you were a carefree tenured professor living your best life, and then are suddenly forced to chair your department pic.twitter.com/GMuLyQeQFy

— Jay Cummings (@LongFormMath) September 9, 2022

I don't know the rules but could Charles have said "no thanks" and let his son be King?

Yes. They can abdicate and pass the throne down to the next in the line of succession.

FWIW, I do believe Queen Elizabeth, as monarch and representative of her empire, does have some culpability for all the wrongs of colonialism. I don't know how much "control" she had back in the 50's and 60's but certainly in the 80's, she couldn't dictate FP matters. However, it'll be fair to say she could still influence UK's FP some if she really, really wanted/had to.

Had to look up the Mau Mau reference. Yup, bad for UK and some bad for her. Let's pick something within 2 generations. Is there anything bad she did or can be attributed to her FP wise since 1980s? What else other than Kenya in the 50's which was just right after she took over.

I'll also state my belief that she was very likely a racist back in the 50's and 60's. In the truest sense of the definition of "we Brits/whites were born and are inherently superior to blacks/browns/yellows" and not the more contemporary everything is a racism. If I'm wrong, show me some of her speeches & articles to the contrary, but hard for me to believe a monarch of an empire that had subjugated so many not be a racist (kinda naturally goes hand in hand).

With that said ...

People are products of their environment and their generation. People inherit circumstances. People change.

On racism, I think Queen Elizabeth can be given a pass here as I've not seen or read anything halfway recently racist (other than Meghan's implied claims).

As far as the bads of 50's and 60's colonialism, yup let's say she should have done more to help or at least, punish any bad people. She's kinda gotten a pass for her early tenure IMO.

Bottom line ...

Are there significantly more pros than cons of her tenure, as a whole, taken in it's entirety and context? I think UK citizens will say yes. I think current day Kenyan's will say yes. The US will say yes.

I certainly think the US has lost a great friend. RIP



EDIT: timely article that I just saw after posting above. It also mentioned the Nigerian Civil War, but that was in the 60's.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/10/afric...ntl/index.html

I would say young people, even middle aged people, in the UK don't tend to just accept tradition and previously held beliefs without question. This is kind of a flip from previous generations. The monarchy and religion is certainly declining in popularity as more knowledge about the world in general has been gained.

However sentiment for the Queen is high throughout the generations. She really hasn't as much as said a word out of line in my living memory. Great dignity in tough times, and certainly hung in there performing her duties.

I would say Prince Andrew and Megan are extremely unpopular. Andrew is viewed as a guilty man. Megan taking shots at the Royal family on a chat show did not go down well at all, particularly due to Prince Phillip's ill health at the time. No idea if there is any merit to her accusations or not, but speaking out at the time she did, and on a chat show, buried her.

I agree Charles isn't particularly popular, and William is. Harry was very popular but probably lower-mid table with Charles now.

Well...

Buckingham Palace banned ethnic minorities from office roles, papers reveal | Monarchy | The Guardian

To be clear. I post this not as proof of whether she was racist or not either in the 60's or the minute she passed. I post because the article does raise some interesting questions about her views on racial discrimination. I do think it is legitimate to ask why the Queen sought exemption from the racial discrimination laws before they came about in the 1960's. It would have been appropriate to ask the Queen and is acceptable to ask King Charles why the exemption is so important that it is still in place in 2022. It does not seem like something that is required now and it is definitely something I would have an explanation for given the sensitivity around the allegations made by the The Duchess of Sussex.

Finally, if Queen's consent (I assume it is now the King's Consent) was not just a formality but was used "to quietly press ministers to make alterations to benefit the crown or her private interests, or to reflect her opinions.", I don't know if we can ever be sure what we can/cannot attribute to her good or bad on any UK policy foreign or domestic. If she had the power to influence the legislation above, it is fair to wonder what other things she was able to influence behind the scenes IMO.

It was good to see the brothers & wives walk together (albeit the request came from Charles). I doubt there'll ever be true reconciliation between the two brothers though.

Harry has gone his own path and since (for all practical purposes) he isn't in line of succession, go do your thing and live your life (but try not to be an ingrate and publicly bite the hand that feeds/fed you).

I am glad that William + Kate seem to have a "normal" relationship and not all the drama that went with Diana/Charles and Harry/Meghan.

Honestly, it's fair to say most people from that era in the UK of a certain class would probably be considered to have racist or bigoted views today. My gran, who was one of the kindest, smartest and most intelligent people I knew and was around the same age certainly grew up as a middle class person with incredibly negative and bigoted views of the empire, and even in the 80s and 90s while not outwardly racist things would still come up in conversation that would make you cringe. I have (had?) an aunt who was just a stuffy bigot straight out of 1940's upper middle class Britain and you couldn't go 30 minutes without her saying things that would make your ears bleed. Hell even my dad who is my hero still sometimes uses phrases that are decidedly not woke by the standards of today, it's just what he grew up with.

I guess that's a long way of saying that early in her reign it's inevitable that she would be what we would call racist and a bigot by today's standards, just by the environment she grew up in and what she was expected to be. Not to excuse it but it is what it is. I think you have to judge her for what she was and what she did later in life as things changed around her.

The opt out of the racial discrimination laws is definitely unfortunate and raises some questions. I suspect it was probably to protect them from lawsuits and bad press rather than any clear racist intent from the top, but you definitely wish it wasn't the case and it's a bad look.

This probably won't go over well, but...

It isn't possible, with reasonable documentation available, for someone to live an entire life and never make a serious mistake in judgment. And I'm not talking about ordering the chicken or the fish for your airline meal.

If you dig deep enough with any public figure, you will find something horrifying in their past by today's standards. The further back you go, the more horrifying.

The instant response these days is to change the topic. "That means you support that atrocity. How can you support that atrocity?" We're no longer even talking about that figure from history. We're in a current debate about a subject that no one needs to debate.

When that happens with people who are no longer with us, they can't defend themselves. The sum total of their lives becomes that one statement. Anyone who says something like, "well, that quote is impossible to defend today, but she actively led the crown through the end of imperialism and advocated what we see as the commonwealth today - perhaps we can look at the many examples of her leadership and get a good idea of who she was as a person and how she would lead on this issue today" the subject gets changed right back.

There's no debate. It's either you agree with the anachronistic quote or act (who would or could) or you don't, and if you don't condemn this person's entire life, you're a bad person and should feel bad.

If it's a current figure, there's likely a long Twitter trail or FOFC archive. You can dig through there and find one quote, and bring that forward. It might be a bad take on one issue. It might be an attempt at humor that's brought forward out of context. It could be anything - you ordered the fish when you should have ordered the chicken.

And that's where we are as a country right now. We no longer debate issues where there's genuine disagreement. Instead, we try and frame issues so that we look virtuous and the person we want to take down looks like a villain. We see that in political debates today. We see that on Twitter and on message boards. Life no longer has any sense of nuance.

We lack humility. We are so defensive and so angry all the time that we genuinely believe we alone are the perfect end results of billions of years of evolution, from the Big Bang to the primordial soup to the first man to the dawn of civilization to the founding of our country all the way to September 11, 2022.

When in fact, ten years from now, we will be judged just as harshly as we judge statements made ten years ago.

Queen Elizabeth was a great lady and a great leader and she lived a great life. It should go without saying that she made mistakes. It should go without saying that at times in the past, she had ideas that we would find deplorable in today's culture. She was wrong sometimes. She may have been wrong last week on some things. She ordered some fish and she probably had some racist ideas even by today's standards (if you dig deep enough, we all probably do, no matter which side we're on). And ten years from now, you'll undoubtedly find more.

When we talk about the "cancel culture," this is what it means. To find something to cancel and argue the something rather than have a genuine conversation about today. It's my opinion, and I could be wrong, that this practice will be judged harshly in the not-too-distant future, but those who practiced it will be judged more by the sum total of their lives and it will be accepted that the 2010s and 2020s were a bit too consumed with the Twittersphere.

I generally agree with you, Jim. People are a product of the times in which they lived, and rather than applaud those who were forward-thinking, we spend way too much time trying to tear down those who were "normal" for their times. And yes, that includes subjects and acts that are detestable today.

I can't wait to find out what it is 50-75 years from now that we do daily that will be considered "evil" then. Maybe there will be such evolution in creating food and further scientific study of animals that we will no longer need or want to eat meat from animals because it's capable of being reproduced other ways. And the way we are going, people in 2080 are going to be petitioning to change high schools and streets named for people we honored because they had the audacity to eat steak and chicken during their lives.

The food example is an interesting one. Some people are quite passionate about this. Those of us (and I'm in this group) who have a child who is a vegetarian - their perpetual disgust about our diets is genuine.

As an aside, I wonder if vegans can be considered "pro-life vegetarians".

One wonders how this issue will evolve. I look at our pet cats, who have evolved as carnivores - their teeth, their digestive systems... they don't do well without high-protein diets. Will owning pet cats become verboten? Or will we die first, and they'll know what to do?

Forgive me ... just had to mention the "London has Fallen" plot


I'm liking the "Fallen" plots. These are great B+ grade movies. Gerard Butler won't win any Emmy's but most of his movies are action oriented and entertaining.

I know it's easy to bash the archaic outdated out of touch monarchy but....Elizabeth was a marvelous woman and role model. So lovely. So graceful.
RIP

Is there a specific example from the Queen's decisions that fit this description?


The reason why I asked about a specific act above is because most of the criticisms of the Queen I have seen are things that she could have explained and defended herself from while she was alive if she believed them to be serious mistakes in judgement. For example, the exemptions that were mentioned in the article I posted were essentially renewed in 2010. There was and is time to explain why she is doing the same thing that might have been okay by 1960s but is definitely against 2010 standards IMO?


The only way we can say for sure that Queen Elizabeth or anyone else was a great person, a great leader and lived a great life is if we have a complete picture of their life warts and all. To not examine the good and the bad feels like tilting the scale to fit whatever side you want that person's life to fall on. In this case, I agree Queen Elizabeth was not perfect. We should definitely discuss and praise all the good she did in her life. We should also be able to discuss her imperfections. I agree it goes without saying that she made mistakes. That does not mean that we HAVE to go without saying that she made mistakes to the point of ignorance and not examine what the effects those mistakes on others as she was a public leader. We also have to recognize that the conclusion those that have benefited from all the good she has done may be different to someone who was more harshly impacted by the mistakes she made. Both are legitimate.

I think it is a red herring to say that people today don't consider the standards of the time in these types of discussion. I think all of us have that problematic family members or friend who have maintained some of the standards of their day. And just like others have mentioned we looked at their complete life and make a judgement over that complete picture while acknowledging the areas where they are problematic. I think a lot of people recognize how the decisions of public figures meshed with the standards of the day. However if those decisions end up hurting people, I think that should at the very least be acknowledged as well. For example, I understand the standards that were in place when those exemptions were requested and granted. I don't like the standards, I hated the quote but I understand the standard of the day. But as far as I know, the exemptions are still in place. The standards are supposed to be different today.

Yes, this is exactly it. Because those who praise her are asked to consider a position that can't be defended in a 2022 world view. Which then becomes the conversation.


Does everyone, on all sides of the political spectrum, have the same requirement? Who gets to decide when a mistake is so egregious by today's standards that apology isn't enough? Will it be enough tomorrow? Can the decision be reversed?

Many people just don't give interviews, and the world of politics is such that making an apology of any kind is seen as a fatal weakness. Or sometimes, enough time has passed that the offender is no longer with us.

And, of course, the next day, there will be a call for a new apology. Because the apology itself isn't important. It can't change history. All it does is change the topic to a position that can't be defended in the context of the day.


Of course. And, with humility, understand history. That times continually change, and our own evaluations are ultimately unimportant. We're supposed to learn from history, not judge it, over and over.

What we're doing is not so interesting or relevant that anyone should care about a pro/con list created on September 12, 2022.

When we erect a statue, it's not some forever judgment that a certain figure from history is the GOAT of people. It's a piece of artwork commemorating something - a moment, an idea, an inspiration. Nothing could possibly stand up to continual litigation and a changing world.

[quote=miami_fan;3377318]I think all of us have that problematic family members or friend who have maintained some of the standards of their day.[quote]

I've written many times that introspection is one of the more valuable traits people can have. If you're too much a product of the zeitgeist when you were first convincingly aware of the zeitgeist, that can be a problem.

So if we continually hold life as it was in the past to the zeitgeist, nothing holds up or ever will hold up. Even the best of us today won't hold up ten years from now if we don't change.

We can't commemorate anything, ever, by these standards. It's really quite unsettling how entrenched this is right now. And what's particularly worrisome is just how alone people are these days - it's so easy to tune into the Twitterverse and learn the zeitgeist, but never actually interact in person with another human being.

In short, this whole cancellation thing has become an avatar of today's overwhelming misanthropy.