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AlisonW

Giving the Royal finger

2020-01-14 20:09:07 - by alisonw Meta Comment

I am a Royalist. And a Parliamentarian. I believe that democracy tends to be better than dictatorship though true communism (everyone working for benefit of all) is good too. I believe in people as individuals trying their best to survive and improve their lot. I believe people should have choices; from how to live their life, where to live, who to live with, and about their employment.

I can choose those views, but nobody gets a choice about being born into a Royal Family. Many countries still have Royalty, from the absolute monarch ruling some diving right of kings, like Brunei, through to a titled family with little or no power, like France. In between there are the constitutional monarchs, like the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, where the Monarch may be a figurehead for state occasions and maybe some residual nominal power.

Being born into such a family though means you have little of those choices I listed. Especially if you are the first-born child of a monarch you are almost certainly expected to become monarch in your turn when your parent dies, and on the 'heir and a spare' principle you probably have brothers and sisters too. All of you are going to be followed by the media and talked about ad infinitem. And when you decide to get married it will get worse as the press pick apart your intended.

Then we come to the UK's Royal Family; Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II had a sister, Princess Margaret, who chose to spend most of her time (after being stopped from marrying the man she wanted) in the Caribbean. The Queen's children of heir and spares have had their problems kept in the public eye too, as have their children in turn.

And just like Margaret before him, Prince Harry already knows he will never succeed to the throne (unless something very major happens). His 'duties' as 'spare' are over; his older brother has procreated the next set of royal children. He joined the army and did two tours in Afghanistan.

And so Harry married a woman he loved. She happened to be a divorcée, but thankfully unlike his great-uncle he didn't have to leave the family and be banished to France, but like the press rumblings so long ago about those events his marriage to Meghan (née Markle) was frequently attacked in the British press, usually by the gutter right-wing mass-market redtops the Mail and Express.

And unsurprisingly, he's had enough of them. He wants his life back and, frankly, he deserves to have some peace from the incessant racism the press has promoted. And make no mistake it is racism, as this article comparing the treatment of Harry's wife with that of his brother's makes abundently clear. The papers disgust me.

Three cheers for Prince Harry and his wife Meghan!

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ellievhall/meghan-markle-kate-middleton-double-standards-royal