Over at the Guardian, Graham Smith debunks John Gray's relatively sensible piece, mentioned previously at this blog.
Now, there's a point in monarchy not preserving freedoms, especially in modern times, since it has not stood in the way of the politicos. What whould, however, have been the result of the opposite? Little imagination is needed to see that there would have been an outrage. As it is said: Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Also, Mr. Smith has a point when expressing concern for the enormous personal power of the British PM and "sovereignty of Parliament," but that's a consequence of the unfortunate devlopment in the United Kingdom based on the flawed concept of popular sovereignty, which Mr. Smith praises, a concept which in the form it has taken accepts no other authority than the popularly elected House of Commons.
Moreover, Mr. Smith might be right in that monarchy per se is a neutral factor when it comes to liberties and civil rights. Democracy and monarchy are about who governs. How it is governed is a different matter. However, there are tendencies in human nature that make monarchy preferable to democracy. Even the seemingly nonexistent powers of today's European monarchs may be missed come a crisis.
Mr. Smith does not comment on the conflict of liberty and democracy. It should be added that even democracy per se is neutral vis-à-vis liberty. However, there are tendencies in human nature that indeed make democracy perilous for liberty.
Mr. Smith seems to be praising written constitutions as a protection of liberty. History suggests that these paper tigers are just that; paper tigers. At least in modern, universal suffrage democracies, where the myth that we rule ourselves has all but erased the distinction between the rulers and the ruled, and hence resistance against rule has all but vanished. A written constitution may have some substantial effect in a milieu where there is a considerable conception of distinct parties to this constitution. Otherwise it is likely to be just a paper tiger.
Mr. Smith remarks in parantheses that kings and queens have resisted freedom. Mr. Smith does not make the typical rebublican argument that history is a fight for freedom between princes and the politicos, the latter being benevolent freedom fighters, and hence the resisters should be dethroned and the freedom fighters enthroned with no checks at all. Sorry, of course, I mean checked by a nonresisting electorate, whose majority of course is completely disinterested – not to speak of uninterested – in oppressing minorites. That the nouveau régime has less resistance is of course completely irrelevant.
It is those who talk of the excesses of monarchs of old, which I do not deny, without including the excesses of politicos and electorates of new in their analysis, who are the Sleeping Beauty, who has not woken up to modern day tyranny. Are not they the ones living in the past? (Mr. Smith does not seem to be concentrating so much on the past, but he sure seems to be ignoring the pervasive government of our times, with his praise to modern day "liberty constitutions.")
May I suggest a study of Martin van Creveld's The Rise and Decline of the State?
Have I now disturbed an "intelligent and sensible" discourse? That was my intent!
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