MPs take 13 minutes to double Royal family income and approve £360m Buckingham Palace refurbishment - Polidicks

[QUOTE=joshthesmith;51911886]Without a monarchy a lot of things would have to change in Britain which would be pointless. There is no Buckingham Palace without the Monarchy being here, it would just be another old building. A lot of tourists come to see the Palace Guards as well and without a Monarch, well, I feel like I am repeating myself now.[/QUOTE] The history of the building is what people come to see. People will always come see it, just like they visit castles that no longer hold any actual "power". As for the palace guards, they could still exist to protect the actual building without the monarchy. I just think there's a lot of really bad justification for handing a family millions of pounds to satisfy tradition.

[QUOTE=Duskin;51911893]The history of the building is what people come to see. People will always come see it, just like they visit castles that no longer hold any actual "power". As for the palace guards, they could still exist to protect the actual building without the monarchy. I just think there's a lot of really bad justification for handing a family millions of pounds to satisfy tradition. [/QUOTE] No mate, people like the royalty just as much if not more than the buildings.

[QUOTE=Duskin;51911893]The history of the building is what people come to see. People will always come see it, just like they visit castles that no longer hold any actual "power". As for the palace guards, they could still exist to protect the actual building without the monarchy. I just think there's a lot of really bad justification for handing a family millions of pounds to satisfy tradition.[/QUOTE] I think the police would be the ones who make sure the "riff-raff" stay out as the Palace Guard are there to protect the Monarchy. Only the most elite of the armed forces are guards there. There may be some bad justification, however there is a lot of a good justification as well. Could turn into a catch-22 scenario so all I have to say is that it does look good, a building which has people living in it from a royal bloodline. Without the people living in it, it's just another old building rotting away with no real purpose. I personally believe that without a Monarchy living in it, it would not be anywhere near as appealing to tourists

[QUOTE=Duskin;51911893]The history of the building is what people come to see. People will always come see it, just like they visit castles that no longer hold any actual "power". As for the palace guards, they could still exist to protect the actual building without the monarchy. I just think there's a lot of really bad justification for handing a family millions of pounds to satisfy tradition.[/QUOTE] But that's why you're not the person in charge of handling those decisions, your government clearly prefers to take the cash in

[QUOTE=joshthesmith;51911886]Without a monarchy a lot of things would have to change in Britain which would be pointless. There is no Buckingham Palace without the Monarchy being here, it would just be another old building. A lot of tourists come to see the Palace Guards as well and without a Monarch, well, I feel like I am repeating myself now.[/QUOTE] Yeah, things would change for the better. The main argument I hear from monarchists is that we get tourism from the royals, yet I don't believe there's actually any solid proof to back this up. People don't come to see the royals because for the most part, the royals are in Sandringham, not London. People come to see the history of the country - something that would exist without the monarchy. Then people usually resort to "well they don't have any real power. They do - they represent the entire country to the rest of the world, and if they fuck up, the country fucks up. We've been fortunate to have Elizabeth II as the Queen, who is stable, but what when this changes to someone more along the lines of Philip or Charles, who both are far more involved in the government than neccessary? Simply on a matter of democratic principle should we not want an inbred family as the Head of State just on the basis of tradition. You cannot, and should not, call yourself a democrat if you support the concept of a monarchy in the UK; they are conflicting, juxtaposed principles.

[QUOTE=Sanxy;51911909]Yeah, things would change for the better. The main argument I hear from monarchists is that we get tourism from the royals, yet I don't believe there's actually any solid proof to back this up. People don't come to see the royals because for the most part, the royals are in Sandringham, not London. People come to see the history of the country - something that would exist without the monarchy. Then people usually resort to "well they don't have any real power. They do - they represent the entire country to the rest of the world, and if they fuck up, the country fucks up. We've been fortunate to have Elizabeth II as the Queen, who is stable, but what when this changes to someone more along the lines of Philip or Charles, who both are far more involved in the government than neccessary? Simply on a matter of democratic principle should we not want an inbred family as the Head of State just on the basis of tradition. You cannot, and should not, call yourself a democrat if you support the concept of a monarchy in the UK; they are conflicting, juxtaposed principles.[/QUOTE] I don't consider myself a democrat, long live the Monarchy! No but really, the government wouldn't have been so quick to make this call if they didn't serve an actual purpose. There is money with the Monarchy, the government know what they are doing

From an ethical standpoint I'm still opposed to the idea of people being literally born into wealth and fame, but I can see their value from a practical standpoint. There's also a lot of people besides the royal family who are literally born into wealth and/or fame, either way.

[QUOTE=elowin;51911931]From an ethical standpoint I'm still opposed to the idea of people being literally born into wealth and fame, but I can see their value from a practical standpoint. There's also a lot of people besides the royal family who are literally born into wealth and/or fame, either way.[/QUOTE] And unlike most of the people born into wealth and fame theirs is more or less tied to the nation. Obviously they still would be rich without being monarchs (unless their property was taken away too), but if the queen was not the queen her wealth would mean nothing to the UK.

[QUOTE=Daniel Smith;51909658]iirc the uk earns more from royal tourism than they lose[/QUOTE] Has been debunked multiple times.

[QUOTE=Noss;51911126]I'm strongly opposed. I understand the economics of it, but it is still wrong to have a royal family, whether empowered or not, within a democratic society.[/QUOTE] that's why we have a constitutional monarchy. we can have both together working well

those assholes came to my country for a holiday that we taxpayers all paid for. We did not get any money back, but some other assholes sure made a lot off tourism.

[QUOTE=CruelAddict;51911995]Has been debunked multiple times.[/QUOTE] This is the point where I make like a russian and ask for proofs

[QUOTE=bitches;51909614]Can some UK FPers help me understand how the locals justify arbitrarily making one family rich by bloodline?[/QUOTE] I think it's fascinating how almost every time a thread about the royal family pops up, there's at least one American poster being just puzzled about the whole concept of royalty and its place in the modern world, sometime this neutrally, sometimes by throwing a confused tamper tantrum.

[QUOTE=elowin;51911931]From an ethical standpoint I'm still opposed to the idea of people being literally born into wealth and fame, but I can see their value from a practical standpoint. There's also a lot of people besides the royal family who are literally born into wealth and/or fame, either way.[/QUOTE] Thing is, I'm only opposed to people being born into wealth and power when they abuse it for personal gain at the expense of others, reared from birth to further poison our world and culture while pursuing their own selfish, harmful interests. Which is a lot of the time since a fair bunch of humans are shite parents, regardless of wealth. But, if someone is born into wealth and fame but RAISED RIGHT, raised to respect the world and not just pursue profit by any means necessary, and most importantly are NOT spoilt rotten, they could potentially use their position of power to benefit humanity while also making a tidy honest sum for themselves. Sure, examples of such virtuous noblemen are rare, and most of them climbed the ladder instead of being born so very high up, but when they DO appear they can be fantastic. Wealth and fame isn't inherently "evil", it is merely a tool like so much else in the universe. What matters is how you use it.

Meanwhile people stay in poverty and we dont have enough money to fund the prison and police services properly

Every time we have this discussion someone posts that poorly researched cgpgrey video and then this one gets posted. [Media]https://youtu.be/_2IO5ifWKdw[/media]

[QUOTE=bitches;51909614]Can some UK FPers help me understand how the locals justify arbitrarily making one family rich by bloodline?[/QUOTE] They mostly act as diplomats and so on, and tend to do quite a good job of it. As for why they're paid such an insane amount, well it's because the tories just raise their income under everyones noses and hope nobody notices.

It's rather shit that they get a budget increase whilst the rest of the UK's families are going to expect benefit cuts, more austerity measures and probably won't even have a council bothering to spend a penny on even cutting the grass as they can't even afford that minor luxury. The thing that annoys me isn't really the unelected head of state though, actually despite them being unelected they don't piss me off as much as the elected conservative party and it'd make this country great the sooner we ditched the elections when you think about it. But hey, democracy and that, we'll probably have a chance at an elected government that works in everyone's favour eventually, for now the Royal family is at least assured safety in the UK.

[QUOTE=Ltp0wer;51912246]Every time we have this discussion someone posts that poorly researched cgpgrey video and then this one gets posted. [Media]https://youtu.be/_2IO5ifWKdw[/media][/QUOTE] Except it has the exact same problem as the first one, citations fucking needed.

Personally I think there's value in having a head of state that isn't tied to politics.

[QUOTE=Anteep;51911469]Mostly tradition, it's sad really.[/QUOTE] Tradition and cultural heritage are not bad things.

[QUOTE=Duskin;51911877]They don't though, not at all. It's like saying people travel to America to specifically see Trump instead of seeing the White House itself. It just doesn't happen.[/QUOTE] bollocks. Look at the tourism for France's castles then look at ours.