[VIDEO] Abolish the Monarchy! - A response to CGP Grey | Shaun

[Thelurker1234]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiE2DLqJB8U

Everyone's favorite monotone is back <3

[a shovel]

TLDR: "Now what I'm going to do is fixate on that one opinion of yours and extrapolate from that way more than is logical or necessary."

[Thelurker1234]

cant wait!

[Reagy]

Eh good chunk of the points raised are valid but at the same time, shooting themselves in the foot with some.

Like the one about how they were given more to "pay" for "fixing their house" yet, its a national monument.
It wouldn't matter if we didn't give them more money or not in that point, the tax payer would still be paying for the repairs of a national monument like we already do, that point is basically a non-issue point, it just means that instead of directly paying for the repairs, its put into the big pool that is used for all of their stuff.

Other than a few silly non-issue points its not a bad argument and does pick apart Grey's claims.

[a shovel]

Good morning, here's my rebuttal. If I didn't mention anything, it's probably because it's an irrelevant tangent.

0:45 - His first point is that he doesn’t like the royal family because they inherit wealth, status and influence.
We’ll come back to this one at the end, for dramatic effect.

Next point is at 6:50 – that the real cost of the royal family is in the low hundreds of millions.
This section is actually a good point. I find it amusing, though, that “low hundreds of millions” doesn’t necessarily mean “more than 200 million”, so he can’t even say that the revenue from crown land doesn’t cover it even then.

(less serious note: 7:03 – “none of what I’ve said actually matters”: Then why did you waste our time telling us about it?)

7:40 – The claim is that, should the royal family just disappear, the land would still exist and would still be useful, so the government isn’t getting anything at all for paying for these royals.
Actually, Shaun wants you to think he’s claiming that. He’s not. What he’s really claiming is: “should the royal family just disappear, the land would still exist and would still be useful, and the government would continue to receive the revenue from the land, so the government isn’t getting anything at all for paying for these royals,” which is a much more tenuous/ridiculous position. Britain only gets that 200 mil because they pay for the royal family.

8:27 – Claim: Grey backs away from “what if we kick the royals out” to “what if the govt. stopped paying for their expenses”.
No he doesn't. See my note on 9:51.

8:47 – Claim: Grey’s version of “kicking them out” somehow leaves the royals with their stuff.
Well duh? You want to kick them out and stop paying for their expenses, not just steal all their stuff, Shaun.

9:07 – Claim: The crown estate is not the monarch’s private property, so they can’t end the arrangement regarding it.
That’s unprovable until they actually try it. Like many things to do with the British monarchy, the crown estate an absolute mess and is almost certainly legally sui generis (in a class by itself).
I think it’s important to keep in mind that the Crown Estate is worth literally billions of pounds. If relations between monarch and government sour to the point that the monarchy risks being abolished, both parties will absolutely be willing and able to spend unlimited amounts of money on lawyers to assert ownership. I think that the monarch coming away from this with some or much of the estate isn’t ”ludicrous.” They might be able to argue something along the lines that the handing-over of revenue is voluntary and not required. Who knows what legal status the crown estate will be in in 20, 50, 100 years?

9:33 – “My version of kicking the royals out involves confiscating all their stuff.”
Shaun that’s called stealing. Stealing is bad Shaun.

9:38 – “It’s not their stuff because they inherited it from someone who stole it.”
That is unfortunately not how the world works. If you can keep it in your family for a few hundred years, it's probably legally yours, regardless of who you killed to take it.

9:51 – “It’s wouldn’t be kicking the royals out if they still own huge parts of the country.”
Yes it would. Also, huge is relative. How much land needs to be stolen from them for them to stop being monarchs? (The answer is obviously “none,” but I want to know what you think.)
This brings up a really interesting point. In Grey’s video, the hypothetical opponent of the monarchy wants to abolish it solely to save money on taxes, so Grey approaches the topic from that angle to show why it’s wrong. Shaun, on the other hand, wants to abolish the monarchy on ideological grounds, and also steal all their stuff, and approaches the topic from that angle. The thing is, I don’t think Shaun noticed this disconnect.

10:08 – “Grey says, ‘After we’ve abolished the monarchy, the monarchy will respond with etcetera’”
No he literally doesn’t.

[Completely irrelevant tangent about fossil fuels goes here. Like, seriously, it has nothing to do with the rest of the video. Maybe he accidentally pasted it from another video he’s working on?]

After this point, Shaun generally stops being wrong. His points about tourism are good points. But then he says:
15:20 – “The family would still exist, and still be wealthy.”
And that brings us right back to the beginning.

0:45 - His first point is that he doesn’t like the royal family because they inherit wealth, status, and influence. What’s weird about the “solution” of kicking out the royals is that it won’t actually fix any of the things he doesn’t like about them. If you kick out the royals, they’ll still exist. They’ll still have fabulous wealth from those duchies that you mention at the end. They’ll still be internationally known celebrities, and will probably still be thought of as the Royal family for as long as you live. They’ll still be able to make speeches about whatever political ideas they want. You may not have even saved any money.

So that’s a pretty fundamentally flawed argument, right off the bat.