Sir Patrick Stewart

david.emery was one of a few folks who noted that Patrick Stewart can now be referred to as Sir Captain as he will be knighted by the Queen. This should bring balance to any future X-Men movies.

Abolishment?

[Stuart Gibson]

And people ask what the point of having the monarchy around is.

Re:Obligatory

[lorg]

Never. So I guess this will finally put the debate to an end; final verdict is in ... Picard > Kirk. ... I know ... Wishful thinking ...

X-men

[heffrey]

I seriously doubt the knighthood was anything to do with the vacuous X-men/Trek work. Much more likely to be related to his work on the stage. I recently saw him in Waiting for Godot (alongside Sir Ian McKellen) and he was magnificent even though I've not got much time for that particular play.

Re:Abolishment?

[Jurily]

Considering the state of the world, I don't think some people would mind trying having temporarily having a king to kick the asshats out of government.

Personally, I think we should get rid of the notion that everyone is qualified to vote. It may have worked back when the whole country was ten thousand people, everyone knew you, and your words actually meant something, but that's obviously not the case with 300 million people.

Just think about it: there was nobody better suited to lead a country, than Clinton, Bush or Obama? And how the hell did Bush get reelected?

As a 49 year old feminist grandmother

[Anonymous Coward]

I was surprised when I read an article about Stewart saying that space exploration isn't a good idea right now because of starving children in Africa. I mean seriously, judging by that logic Albert bloody Einstein should've beaten his work desk into a primitive farming tool, given up physics and dedicated his life to working a rice paddy to help feed some orphans. But that's just my opinion as a 49 year old feminist grandmother.

Re:Abolishment?

[selven]

Just break up the US into states, and then further. Groups above about 150 people [wikipedia.org] are unsustainable anyway.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Great actor

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not a Star Trek fan (I've only watched a few episodes of the original and nothing else)

Then you have not watched star trek!

Re:Pedantic, but...

[maxume]

What about "Yo, Dude!"?

I mean, I haven't recognized the crown yet, so I'm not sure why I should worry about the things the Queen says and does.

Re:Abolishment?

[TheRaven64]

Other than demonstrating that you are willing to kill people for holding an opinion, did you intend to provide some argument to back up that assertion? We used to have the quaint idea that rights came with responsibilities. The right to vote should come with the responsibility to be informed of the issues on which you are voting. I would have no problem with requiring that people who exercise their right to vote also demonstrate in some way that they are going to make an informed decision (irrespective of whether it's the same decision that I would have made).

Vacuous Star Trek? Not Stewart.

[OpenGLFan]

I know this will sound like hopeless fanboyism, but Stewart was no slouch in ST:TNG, and he didn't just phone it in. I can't think of many other actors who could have pulled off "There Are Four Lights", or the episode where he lived an entire life in another planet and learned to play the flute (can't remember the name.) After a few seasons, the writers realized just how good "that Shakespeare guy" was, and they wrote some demanding episodes for Stewart.

Watch the first season, just watching Picard: it's a textbook example of how a talented actor can take a largely untried cast and some occasionally shaky writing and forge a solid character.

Re:Abolishment?

[LanMan04]

Perhaps Citizenship and the right to vote can be secured through some form of Federal service. I'm sure I saw that is some horrendous film based on a classic sci-fi text somewhere...

Oh, come now, that film was GREAT! Satire in its highest form. Skewers jingoists quite nicely.

Do you like RoboCop? I put both those movies in the same category.

Diplomacy

[Sycraft-fu]

The Queen is a first class diplomat, which is her function as Chief of State. Britain is like many nations in that the Chief of State and the Head of Government are not the same person, as they are in the US. There the Head of Government is the Prime Minister and that is where the executive power resides. The Chief of State is a seperate person, the monarch in this case, and is basically a figurehead. She meets with diplomats and gives them, literally, the royal treatment. Works rather well.

Not saying there's anything wrong with the US system of unifying the Chief of State and Head of Government in to a single President, just that it isn't how the whole world does it. Britain is not the only country with the division.

Also tradition has its place in human affairs. It is important to who we are as a people, and helps give us a sense of purpose, and something to look to in difficult times.

Re:Abolishment?

[SpeZek]

The point of the monarchy is that you have a check for politicians. The Queen has been in the government for her whole life; she served in the second world war, watched how the economy works throughout the ages, and knows politics inside and out (having dealt with a dozen PM's in her life, of differing views), but doesn't subscribe to any one political party. She's neutral -- she's, ironically, the real voice of the people in gov't, not just the voice of the majority party, in a perfect system.

Re:Abolishment?

[AmberBlackCat]

Health care, ACTA, and the DMCA are three things that immediately come to mind, when I think of cases in which we would have been way better off if everybody got a vote. Only allowing certain people to vote, will only work for you if the people who agree with you are the ones who get to vote. I think a better idea would be if people only got to vote on matters concerning themselves. For instance, if the Patriot Act only applied to people who voted for it.

Re:Abolishment?

[mdwh2]

What do you mean by "check"? Certainly not a veto - the moment she vetoed any legislation, would be the end of her power to veto. And even if she happened to veto a law I also didn't want, I would be very wary of one person having that power. What happens when she vetos a law I do want?

We already have a much better veto system, as I said here [slashdot.org] - the House of Lords serves as an unelected house that provides a check. Improvements could be made, sure, but focusing the veto system on a single person chosen through birth is not one of them.

If you don't mean a veto, then what check do you mean?

She's neutral -- she's, ironically, the real voice of the people in gov't

So because she doesn't say anything, that makes her the real voice? That's a lot of use!

I don't see she's anymore neutral than many citizens who also either have no views or keep their views to themselves.

Also note that just because she might not endorse one political party doesn't mean she is neutral in her views (e.g., she gets primetime opportunity to give her views on political and other issues, particularly on religion, in the Christmas speech). And other members of the royal family also use their position to give opinions on political matters (e.g., http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/hunting/Prince--Ill-leave-Britain.2363203.jp [scotsman.com] ).

Please don't tell me the Queen is neutral when she's sitting on primetime national TV on Christmas Day telling us of the virtues of faith - including people of all faiths, whilst ignoring agnostics and atheists (and this is also a political issue in the UK right now, when you consider issues of things like "Faith schools").

Re:Then Obama should knight William Shatner

[Anonymous Coward]

"Has Been" was a great song too.

Re:Meaningless without money

[thetoadwarrior]

Money isn't everything but life sure as hell sucks when you don't have any. Ask the homeless.

Re:Correction: it earns considerably MORE...

[biglig2]

I always say to people who complain about how much the Queen costs, exactly how much do they think President Blair and his First Lady would cost?

Re:Abolishment?

[internic]

We used to have the quaint idea that rights came with responsibilities. The right to vote should come with the responsibility to be informed of the issues on which you are voting.

Many people in the US had the idea that people, "...are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights... That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed," to quote the declaration of independence. Under this view, rights are inherent by natural law, not earned. It isn't that people afforded the ability to vote because they deserve it but rather that natural law gives them the right to liberty and the only way a government may (morally) exert power on them is by their consent.

While people do use the phrase, "with rights come responsibilities," it probably makes more sense to say that privileges come with responsibilities. Under the above view, rights are not given by man and, therefore, can't have any conditions imposed by man. Whether you accept that view exactly (and it definitely has problems), I think it's fair to say that generally rights are supposed to be inherent and vital, while privileges are granted by others conditionally, and that's what separates the two. Generally the only grounds for depriving someone of a right is if it would infringe upon the rights of another.

I would have no problem with requiring that people who exercise their right to vote also demonstrate in some way that they are going to make an informed decision...

We used to have literacy tests to vote in the US. The consensus view is that they were mostly used to keep minorities from voting, so since then it's not been a very popular idea here among anyone who knows history. The flaw is probably much more general, though; if people in power write the test that determines who can vote, and the vote determines who is in power, then you have created a positive feedback loop. This feedback will tend to make the system unstable and drive it toward some extreme point, at which point either it will say there (to the disadvantage of many in society) or there will be some major social upheaval (such as a civil war, riots, etc.) that will bring the system back into balance.

I think it's important to bear in mind what Winston Churchill said, that, "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried." Democracy doesn't necessarily always (or even often) produce the best solutions to problems. It's chief merit is that it is relatively stable. It usually keeps things from getting too bad for any particular group, so it removes the need for the assassinations, coups, civil wars, and so on that are common under other forms of Government. Adding in voting tests would likely undo this main benefit.

Re:Abolishment?

[Locke2005]

The reason we abolished monarchy is that sometimes the king IS the asshat. Give temporary "absolute power" to someone, and his first act will most likely be to extend the period of time that he is in power for.