New York Needs a Monarchy

Andrew, I hope you will forgive me if, in this one instance, I criticize you as old fashioned, behind the times and attempting to turn back the clock.
I refer, of course, to your quaint reference to amending some provision or other of the US Constitution. These days, one simply finds five lawyers on the Supreme Court to say what you want, and shazam! This also saves the bother of tracking down all possible relevant provisions of said Constitution and making sure they, too, have been properly amended. In the instant case, equal protection of the laws might also be implicated by instituting monarchy, but all such concerns are banished with the five lawyer work around.
Also, it might speed things up if you would mention that you only want monarchy “for the children.”

I thank my legal counsel Fiendish for bringing me back down to reality. Amendments have gone the way of formal declarations of war… and yet, we seem to change the constitution and wage war even more these days.

Of course, we all accept that permanent revolution and perpetual war are all, at the end of the day, for the children.

I like the idea of a National Monarchs Association acting as a counterpart–counterweight?–to the National Governors Association.

Dear Andrew:

I of course support a restoration for New York. As a start, we might look at rebuilding lost royal structures. Berlin is going to rebuild the Stadtschloss (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berliner_Stadtschloss), and Paris is seriously contemplating bringing back the Tuileries (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuileries_Palace). All New York need do to keep up is re-erect a copy of the equestrian statue of George III at Bowling Green, and replace the little crowns on the fence thereat. So much cheaper, but just as effective!

Charles

Well, I don’t know that we need a monarch just to have industry awards. In fact, the Dept of Commerce established an award for quality in the ’80’s, the Malcolm Baldridge Award, which is presented by the president himself (I know this b/c my father’s company won it in 1990 & had to work really hard to get it). I believe there is another one for excellence in entreprenurship but I forget the name.

Face it, Americans like other people’s kings and queens (I know lots more about the British royal family than my Scots-Canadian dual-citizen husband), but when it comes down to it, nowadays, we wouldn’t even put up with the “monarchial” trappings and addresses that contemporaries tried to get George Washington to adopt.

“presented by the president himself ”

That’s just the point, if its presidential:

1- No one will pay attention (who the hell cares about those “Presidential Medals of Freedom” which are our highest civilian honor and which are doled out to everyone and their mother?).

2- Since the president is an elected partisan official, in any given term probably half the population are going to be against him.

And your second point is self-defeating. If we Americans wouldnt put up with monarchic trappings, why on earth did we try to get George Washington to adopt them?

Restoring the monarchy in New York would simply mean that we would have at the state level a parliamentary government with a state prime minister who nominates a governor for the Queen to rubber stamp. I like the idea. On the other hand, republican notions are too entrenched here, I think. Far better to work to restore the French, German, Italian, Russian, Austrian, etc. monarchies.

Cheers on a rainy Friday.