You see, the question I always wanted answered is, who gave Harry his Nazi Uniform?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7286-2005Jan13.html
His gran, his grand father, his great grand mother or someone else.
He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, sadly I'm sure if he asked for something there are probably a boatload of people waiting to jump and go get it for him. Yes even for something as crazy as a nazi armband or whatever.
But back to my other thing, why the hell hasn't this country gotten rid of all notion of princes and kings and queens? Nobody would of even cared what uniforms the kid puts on if he wasn't given some kind of title for the sole reason of..he was born.
Originally posted by Surtur
He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, sadly I'm sure if he asked for something there are probably a boatload of people waiting to jump and go get it for him. Yes even for something as crazy as a nazi armband or whatever.But back to my other thing, why the hell hasn't this country gotten rid of all notion of princes and kings and queens? Nobody would of even cared what uniforms the kid puts on if he wasn't given some kind of title for the sole reason of..he was born.
One thing that bothered me though was when Americans were going nuts over the royal wedding. I just didn't get the appeal.
Originally posted by Omega Vision
The Monarchy is actually pretty good for England. It's a massive tourist draw, it costs very little relatively (IIRC, each Briton pays something like 1 pound a year for the upkeep of the Royal Family), and the queen doesn't really get in the way of a functioning democracy.One thing that bothered me though was when Americans were going nuts over the royal wedding. I just didn't get the appeal.
I guess it makes sense from a tourism standpoint. Though yes hearing about the wedding was awful, but nowhere near as bad as hearing about that damn new kid. It made it seem like they thought the second coming of Jesus was about to pop out of Prince Williams wife.
Taxpayer pays bugger all for the royal family- the Queen's income comes from a share of the crown estate, which is land her family owns. They give much of it (85%) to the Government; the rest get used for their expenses. The Prince of Wales (i.e. heir to the throne) similarly gets his money from the Duchy of Lancaster. Of course, some people don't like rich families having land, but that's a much bigger issue than the royal family- plenty of richer landowners out there, and none that I know of that give 85% of their income to their nation's Treasury.
Weirdly, it is also taxed. That's because there was a big uproar about them not being taxed a while back, but it's nonsense because it would be simpler just to not let them keep as much. That's appearances for you.
The rest of the family is all financed by private assets and tourist income from places like Buckingham Palace
I think the only public expenditure is not theirs is that the government pays for their transport etc- but then that would be done for any head of state and family.
Well I wasn't wondering why they are still a thing due to money they get. Just that the current state of the world has no place for kings or queens(especially ones with no apparent power), but the tourism reason makes sense. Though you'd think people would still come tour Buckingham Palace whether or not they had any actual kings and queens left.
As for not taxing them and just not letting them not keep as much..eh I don't live there..but I could somewhat understand people getting pissed, because on paper it comes off like one rule for the rich elite and another for everyone else, despite any practicalities that may of been involved in the decision.
Originally posted by UshgarakRoyalists do say that others do disagree http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/theroyalfamily/10145663/Monarchy-costs-taxpayer-900000-more.html. I've always thought that the bringing in revenue argument is a red herring as France does better for tourism and they... got rid of their royal family.
Taxpayer pays bugger all for the royal family- the Queen's income comes from a share of the crown estate, which is land her family owns. They give much of it (85%) to the Government; the rest get used for their expenses. The Prince of Wales (i.e. heir to the throne) similarly gets his money from the Duchy of Lancaster. Of course, some people don't like rich families having land, but that's a much bigger issue than the royal family- plenty of richer landowners out there, and none that I know of that give 85% of their income to their nation's Treasury.Weirdly, it is also taxed. That's because there was a big uproar about them not being taxed a while back, but it's nonsense because it would be simpler just to not let them keep as much. That's appearances for you.
The rest of the family is all financed by private assets and tourist income from places like Buckingham Palace
I think the only public expenditure is not theirs is that the government pays for their transport etc- but then that would be done for any head of state and family.
Originally posted by Knife
Royalists do say that others do disagree http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/theroyalfamily/10145663/Monarchy-costs-taxpayer-900000-more.html. I've always thought that the bringing in revenue argument is a red herring as France does better for tourism and they... got rid of their royal family.
France also has Paris, amazing food, good weather and warm beaches...
Originally posted by Shinobi Popcorn
I don't support Nazis at all, but I think it's a little silly to make a fuss over this. She was a little girl, doing what the king told her to do.
Right, this strikes me as a non-story.
Reminds me of the picture of te German black kid who wore a Nazi sweater (see, back then, Blacks were so far down the list of 'lesser races' to get around to, that the Nazis were like, "Oh, he'll be useful in helping us administer Africa when he grows up...". Kid was just a kid and was like, 'Uh, ok.' Grown up, he's of course very much not a nazi).
Originally posted by Knife
Royalists do say that others do disagree http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/theroyalfamily/10145663/Monarchy-costs-taxpayer-900000-more.html. I've always thought that the bringing in revenue argument is a red herring as France does better for tourism and they... got rid of their royal family.
Just in brief:
England:
Monarchy
London (Big Ben and such)
Lake Country
Rolling green hills
Cliffs of Dover
Stonehenge
Roman Ruins
France:
Paris (this alone has enough shit to cancel out London AND the Monarchy combined)
Beaches of Normandy
Beaches of the Cote D'Azur
French alps
Brittany
Bordeaux
Provence
the Camargue
Better Roman Ruins
The various wine producing regions (there are a half dozen of them at least)
Nice
Cannes
Any major town on the Mediterranean
Corsica
There's probably more, but you get the point.
Let's also not forget that in removing the Monarchy, France also created a new mythos of sorts with the Revolution, the Reign of Terror, and Napoleon and all that. Visiting the Bastille is very popular, as is the tomb of Napoleon.
By the way, if anyone here is planning on visiting France, my advice is just to avoid Paris. Overrated, overpriced, smelly, full of especially rude Frenchmen.
Go anywhere in France but Paris and you'll be happy, well-fed, and relaxed. Try Languedoc--it's Provence's less well-known, more relaxed neighbor. Normandy is awesome too.
Originally posted by Knife
Royalists do say that others do disagree http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/theroyalfamily/10145663/Monarchy-costs-taxpayer-900000-more.html
Err, that link does not actually disagree with me in any way. It confirms what I said- expenditure £36.1 million, Crown Estate profits £240.2 million. So the government made over 200 million that year.
You see if the 36 million was the total cost, I'd have no problem however hidden costs like protection etc. Put it at probably nearer 100 million some people claim it's much higher and of course the Jubilee celebration cost 1.3 Billion at the last estimate.
Republic for example have published an alternative royal budget which puts the real annual cost to the taxpayer at £200m – more than five times the figure acknowledged by Buck House.
The group says we ought to include other small grants from government, the money spent by local councils on accommodating royal visits, the cost of security, and lost revenue from the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall.
Re: The Crown Estates, the deal only looks good for the tax payer if you ignore the fact that parliament took over responsibility for paying for civil government from the king in 1760 as part of the deal.
In other words, if we decided the current arrangements were bad for the taxpayer and we wanted to turn the clock back to 1759, we would lose all that money from the Crown Estate. But in all fairness we ought to expect the Queen to start shelling out for half the cost of running the government of the country.... Which would be far more.
in other news... check out all these nazi kids from america
Originally posted by vansonbee
I don't blame the Queen for anything, she was a little lad back in the day, not knowing anything about the wide world.The positive out of all this, I didn't know Hitler was well respected before the war.
There were mixed opinions. Some liked him, some knew what was up even then (if maybe not to the extent!).
When Captain America #1 came out- before the US entered the war but after fighting had already started- having Captain America punching Hitler on the cover was controversial, and Timley (Marvel's predecessor) got hate-mail threatening the company, saying we should be on Hitler's side, there were menacing groups of people hanging outside their offices to the point that police protection had to be provided. On the flip side, New York's mayor sent a letter supporting Joe Simon and Jack Kirby for making him.