Prince Philip has died aged 99, Buckingham Palace announces

[bilby]

In the US a good American despises monarchy and all that goes with it.

He was a human and one can feel empathy for the people that actually knew him and are mourning.

But the institution he was a part of is despicable.

There are many in the US however that worship the monarchy of England like mindless children.

Oprah?

Yes, there are also many in the US that worship Oprah like mindless children.

Celebrity worship seems to be a very common trait amongst humans. It's a key element of tribalism, and the central plank of demagoguery.

It was useful when humans lived in small bands and villages, where submission to the will of those who had achieved reknown allowed those small bands to work together under a single warlord more effectively, despite the warlord himself being a distant figure rather than a close friend or relative.

But it's counterproductive today. Fame is toxic, and is no longer even vaguely correlated with ability, knowledge, or even strength. But people are still wired to respect the famous, so they take health advice from Gwyneth Paltrow or Dr Oz, and accept that the opinions and person of the Duke of Edinburgh are more respectable and important than the opinions or persons of those of lower aristocratic rank (or none).

Replacing the aristocracy with the famous and wealthy isn't as big a change as many of those nominally opposed to monarchy would like to think. The whole business of fame needs to go - or at least be restricted to respect for those who actually achieve something, and even then, only for their actions in their field of achievement.

Prince Phillip was a naval officer during the war, and did some brave and impressive things - as did plenty of other men in similar positions. He grew into a bigoted old git - as did plenty of other men of his generation. I am sure his friends and family are very sad at his death. I am equally sure that those of us who never met him shouldn't care, and that if we do, it's symptomatic of a deep seated failure of human society that elevates this individual so far above the hundreds of thousands of other people who died in the same twenty four hour period, many of whom contributed more to the good of humanity and their communities than he.

 

[Trausti]

If you are saying that Oprah's world view is on the level of a child and that is one reason she has such wide appeal I would agree.

She had a big interview with the succubus who cut off Harry’s balls.

 

[untermensche]

If you are saying that Oprah's world view is on the level of a child and that is one reason she has such wide appeal I would agree.

She had a big interview with the succubus who cut off Harry’s balls.

Oprah is where she is based on her talents.

Not based on her parents and order of birth.

That Harry does not think the monarchy is for him speaks well of him.

 

[crazyfingers]

I do not understand why people in the US are so interested in British Royalty. This is not to say that the British should not be. I understand that there is a fair about of debate about the British Royalty in the UK. But why do US people care so much? At least it's harmless I suppose.

It might have to do with childhood fairy tales. Little girls want to be princesses and they want little boys to be their prince charmings or knights in shining armor.

Could be. For me I do feel an affinity toward England perhaps because of the old movies that I enjoy and that many of my ancestors came from there - over 300 years ago. But Royalty? Na. I can't be bothered.

 

[Trausti]

Tribe in South Pacific who worshiped Phillip as a god.

 

[Trausti]

What a life.

[TWEET]https://twitter.com/GrantTucker/status/1380506872562737154[/TWEET]

 

[ZiprHead]

View attachment 32780

Too soon?

Did you swipe right or left zipr?

I'm a happily married man. I don't know what swiping means.

 

[ZiprHead]

I do not understand why people in the US are so interested in British Royalty. This is not to say that the British should not be. I understand that there is a fair about of debate about the British Royalty in the UK. But why do US people care so much? At least it's harmless I suppose.

It might have to do with childhood fairy tales. Little girls want to be princesses and they want little boys to be their prince charmings or knights in shining armor.

Could be. For me I do feel an affinity toward England perhaps because of the old movies that I enjoy and that many of my ancestors came from there - over 300 years ago. But Royalty? Na. I can't be bothered.

I'm half British and Half German. Supposedly on the British side I have a royal bloodline and our family has a castle. Other than a fun story to tell, that's as far as it goes for me.

 

[crazyfingers]

Could be. For me I do feel an affinity toward England perhaps because of the old movies that I enjoy and that many of my ancestors came from there - over 300 years ago. But Royalty? Na. I can't be bothered.

I'm half British and Half German. Supposedly on the British side I have a royal bloodline and our family has a castle. Other than a fun story to tell, that's as far as it goes for me.

Ya that's about me. England, Austria and Germany. My great uncles on both sides traced the ancestry back a ton. There are 1140 ancestors in my family tree which I entered into Family Tree Maker. My mom's side goes back to 8 of the original Mayflower Pilgrims. One is William Brewster. Once you get there his lineage is readily available in published form. There are all kinds of Kings on that side back to El Cid. But I'd bet that by now at least have of all people who descended from English ancestors have some ancient royalty along the way. It's doing the digging that's hard. I was lucky that that digging was done for me.

 

[bigfield]

Lizzie will probably last another twenty years. Once Charles is king (assuming he also lasts that long) we can have another run at republicanism in the former colonies.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Tribe in South Pacific who worshiped Phillip as a god.

I thought you claimed there was no such thing as white privilege.

 

[Trausti]

Tribe in South Pacific who worshiped Phillip as a god.

I thought you claimed there was no such thing as white privilege.

That’s Prince Privilege.

 

[bilby]

Could be. For me I do feel an affinity toward England perhaps because of the old movies that I enjoy and that many of my ancestors came from there - over 300 years ago. But Royalty? Na. I can't be bothered.

I'm half British and Half German. Supposedly on the British side I have a royal bloodline and our family has a castle. Other than a fun story to tell, that's as far as it goes for me.

Ya that's about me. England, Austria and Germany. My great uncles on both sides traced the ancestry back a ton. There are 1140 ancestors in my family tree which I entered into Family Tree Maker. My mom's side goes back to 8 of the original Mayflower Pilgrims. One is William Brewster. Once you get there his lineage is readily available in published form. There are all kinds of Kings on that side back to El Cid. But I'd bet that by now at least have of all people who descended from English ancestors have some ancient royalty along the way. It's doing the digging that's hard. I was lucky that that digging was done for me.

You only need to go back a few hundred years to be related to everyone in Great Britain, if you have any ancestors from that island. Go back anothe couple of centuries, to around 1450, and everyone in Europe is a relative. Relatedness, even back in the Bronze Age, is a 'small world network' - most people marry and have kids with people who were born nearby, but a few very long distance connections, via traders and invaders, mean that everyone's quite closely connected when you go back even as few as ten or twenty generations.

A person alive today who can trace his ancestry to Queen Victoria is fairly rare. But a person who can trace his ancestry to the Tudor kings isn't; and it would be difficult to find a white person anywhere on the planet who's not a descendant of the Plantagenet kings.

Similarly, few people are NOT descended from Ghengis Khan.

Working out exactly how is difficult, but statistically it's highly unlikely that there's no connection, even though it might be difficult or impossible to document that connection.

 

[bilby]

Lizzie will probably last another twenty years. Once Charles is king (assuming he also lasts that long) we can have another run at republicanism in the former colonies.

She certainly could, but there's also plenty of precedent for nonogenarians whose spouse dies after many decades of marriage dying themselves within a few weeks.

That said, an average woman in the developed world needs to reach 108 years old before the actuarial probability of death before their next birthday reaches 50%, and HM the Q has a far higher standard of medical treatment available to her than the average (and has had for her entire life), so it wouldn't be a total shock to me if she reached her 115th birthday.

 

[Eldarion Lathria]

Tribe in South Pacific who worshiped Phillip as a god.

He was just 'Fella Belong Mrs. Queen.'

Eldarion Lathria

 

[Politesse]

Philip wasn't "worshiped as a God", or out of ignorance of British politics, though he was indeed venerated as a powerful figure and intentionally kept up reciprocal positive relations with Vanuatu for many decades.

There's a hierarchy, in Melanesian thought, that undergirds all life and certainly all human relations. A web of both magical and political power (which always run together) in which all living things and certainly all people play a role and have a set of natural oblgiations stemming from their position in that hierarchy. Philip would have been considered important for obvious reasons, no matter what he'd done. He was powerful, in every literal sense. But he earned their special respect by showing uncommon politeness and deference to their customs while on a state visit, and the rumor started going around that he was one of their own returned to them, a demigod who had left to seek a powerful spouse in a foreign land according to legend - a "king under the mountain" kind of story. That his "return" coincided with the cessation of war, and that he was willing to keep up a respectful exchange of gifts over the decades sealed his place in people's esteem. It was and no doubt still is also seen as a useful political tool by the other paramount chiefs, who profit by their association with someone with so much personal magical power -- but no land claims. Philip was venerated for the same reason John Frum was; as a powerful outlander whose friendship was free, whose political support could be curried without actually threatening the existing political hierarchy of the island. It's a bit silly to be sure, and can easily be viewed cynically, but I don't think it's siller than anything else that goes on in politics in any country, once you get past the illusions of ethnocentric thinking.

Before you fall prey to delusions of racial superiority, remember that a third of Britain is right now choking up over the death of a stranger because they were taught to see a bunch of stuffy royals they've never met as "part of the family" and somehow symbolic of all the best elements of British nationalism. Politics are always a bit ridiculous. But when you're looking objectively at the flow of capital and power, it isn't usually all that hard to understand. The parasocial nonsense surrounding Philip's death serves essentially the same purpose in England and Vanuatu - confirming some myths of state, earning some people some money or prestige, and making the average citizen feel simultaneously close to, yet far "beneath", a person they have never met and now will never meet.

 

[untermensche]

When you are a rich parasite you have freedom.

You can do good things or bad.

Who cares?

 

[EvoUK]

A very old man, who is neither a friend nor even an acquaintance of mine, or even of anyone I know, has died.

That's not newsworthy. It's a daily occurrence.

I am sure it's very sad for his family and friends, and I am not unsympathetic to their loss.

But it's not something that holds any particular interest to me.

A quarter of a million people a day die around the world. I literally don't have the time to mourn those I don't know, and nor does anyone else.

Quite.

I'm not going to argue with you, as your thoughts largely mirror my own. However, regardless of how ridiculous I find it as a concept- by virtue of being at the top of our antiquated social hierarchy, Prince Philip dying is newsworthy, despite the fact that I don't believe this should be the case.

 

[lpetrich]

In honor of HRH Prince Philip - a big collection of Prince Philip's gaffes.

Queen Elizabeth II was born on 21 April 1926, meaning that she is 95 years old today.

She and her husband have lived through a *lot*.

Queen Elizabeth ‘will never abdicate,’ source says: ‘She made that commitment in front of God’ | Fox News

"The queen will never abdicate, full-stop," True Royalty TV co-founder Nick Bullen told Fox News. "She made a commitment not just to this country, to the Commonwealth and her family, but also to God. Faith is very important to her. And when she became queen, she made that commitment in front of God as well. So she will do this job until she is no longer able to do this job."

While royal experts have insisted it is unlikely Elizabeth will ever abdicate given her lifelong commitment to public service, she has already started to turn over more responsibilities to her eldest son Prince Charles, 72, who is first in line to the throne. The process is likely to accelerate following Philip’s death.

 

[Politesse]

What a sacrifice to make on behalf of one's divine commitments! Continuing to rule a country, all for the sake of Faith! How noble, to retain one's immense wealth and power in the name of Jesus. The carpenter's son, who mocked the powerful and valorized the downtrodden, would be so proud of her giving heart.