Why is the Queen our "Head of State" ?

[JFKvsNixon]

Oh, the Americans were 'allowed to go free' because King George was fighting wars in other places? I suppose you could similarly say "the Russians were allowed to enter Berlin because Hitler was fighting wars in other places.".

The King did not allow them to go free. The British army got kicked out. Obviously there were reasons for that, but it doesn't change the basic reality.

 

I wouldn't say allowed, but at the time the American colonies were not very profitable, they may well have been loss making, and were hard to defend. The West Indian colonies were extremely profitable, and being islands were very easy to defend. You can see where the priorities were at the time, it's worth remembering that nobody knew what the American colonies were going to evolve into.

[splodgeyAl]

The Queen is our head of state because the people of the UK allow it via our elected politicians, she or her title could be removed whenever our elected politicians wanted to.

 

She is also the head of state of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize, Antigua and Barbuda, and Saint Kitts and Nevis.

At her coronation, she solemnly promised and swore to govern the Peoples of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Union of South Africa, Pakistan, and Ceylon, and of your Possessions and the other Territories to any of them belonging or pertaining, according to their respective laws and customs, and the signed into law our joining of the EU, in direct contradiction to that promise.

[Mel's Mum]

Semantic trickery. All you have demonstrated is that the UK has a political structure, which you are calling a constitution. Wel I have a constiution as well. However, if we move away from your source of information on these matters (Kids net. dictionary) It has always been my experience that in common usuage of the English language, when someone refers to a 'national constitution' it is generally accepted they are refering to a single written document.

 

The constitution of England and Wales is too complex to sum up in a small forum post - have a look in the library at the text books on the subject. The one I used when I studied my law degree was about 3 inches thick and I only read a small percentage of it (enough to cover the coursework topic). But in a nutshell, we have no written constitution as our country is ruled on a framework of separation of powers and the legal system is derived from statute and common law alongside EU treaties. That's just a small part of it but there are plenty text books out there on Constitutional Law if you want to really get into it

[JFKvsNixon]

At her coronation, she solemnly promised and swore to govern the Peoples of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Union of South Africa, Pakistan, and Ceylon, and of your Possessions and the other Territories to any of them belonging or pertaining, according to their respective laws and customs, and the signed into law our joining of the EU, in direct contradiction to that promise.

 

She isn't the head of state of Pakistan though, so she could stop being the head of state here and still carry out her promise. Not that I'd want her to though.

[Harleyman]

There was an interview where she said that the US should stand with their North Korean Allies.

 

Are you questioning the wisdom and insight of a woman whose knowledeg of international affairs was gained from seeing Russia from her back door on a clear day?

[Harleyman]

At her coronation, she solemnly promised and swore to govern the Peoples of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Union of South Africa, Pakistan, and Ceylon, and of your Possessions and the other Territories to any of them belonging or pertaining, according to their respective laws and customs, and the signed into law our joining of the EU, in direct contradiction to that promise.

 

She couldn't have very well refused to sign could she?. As far as I know she still has the right to be consulted by the government and also advise but when the government make it a done deal she has no alternative but to go along with it.

[flamingjimmy]

That fact is the point you were trying to make, and you were wrong. Accident of birth is entirely random because nobody can possibly influence to whom they are born.

 

The fact that people cannot choose there parents does not mean that 'accident of birth is entirely random', not at all. Repeating yourself doesn't make it true.

 

It's not random at all, it largely predictable. For example I can tell you that the next Monarch almost certainly has roughly 50% of the Queens genes and 50% of Phillip's genes. Guaranteed. That it not random.

 

The only way that accident of birth is random is if you believe in souls, and that these 'souls' are randomly assigned to bodies upon birth, then it is not random. I can't think of any other way which it could be. A point that you have ignored twice now.

 

What it is definitely not, is 'the most random choice of all [for picking a single person for the job]' as you claimed. That is a false statment. A lottery would be almost infinitely more random.

[spooky3]

Genes alter with age, illness influences, state of mind, dominance, there's many factors which do make each and every new conception random.

[flamingjimmy]

Genes alter with age, illness influences, state of mind, dominance, there's many factors which do make each and every new conception random.

 

Yes, there are many factors that make it quite random. However HN did not claim it was a little bit random, he claimed that "Accident of birth is entirely random" and that it is "the most random choice of all".

 

Neither of those statements are true. It could be made much much much more random by introducing 60 odd million other factors, ie' by making it a lottery.

 

Instantly it would become literally millions of times more random.

[donkey]

]Not really - we won virtually all the actual battles. [/b]If we had stuck at it' date=' and had not been concerned about keeping so many troops at home (remember, we were essentially in a perpetual war with other european powers around that time and we were also involved in war in india) then we would, eventually, have won in the americas. It should also be noted that the attitude was not particularly anti-british - there were many who supported the movement purely on the basis of no representation and would have been quite happy remaining with the motherland if only that issue could have been resolved[/quote']

 

'We'? You make it sound like a football match. Do you really feel represented by a tyrant king who died two hundred years ago?

 

Anyway, from your own post, it's clear he (or as you put it 'we') had bitten off more than he could chew. He faced in his lifetime, a revolt in Scotland a revolt in Ireland (do the inhabitants of thiose countries count as 'we' or are they 'them?') and a war with the French on several fronts. He pulled out of America because it was either that or loose some more strategic territory closer to home. The American rebels picked their moment and they won