Your argument makes absolutely no sense considering you conveniently left off the very next part of my sentence that states that "on the other hand, he has no real power."
As a Canadian, the whole thing is so bizarre because he is the supreme leader of our country. It literally says I must pledge allegiance to him on my citizenship certificate. Yes, of course I understand the whole thing is theater and he has no actual power, but that's why I think the whole charade is bizarre to begin with.
> considering you conveniently left off the very next part of my sentence
Sorry, it wasn't meant as a direct comment to you, more of a comment on the thread in general.
Still though, using the words "supreme leader" about any constitutional monarch in a liberal democracy sounds so weird to me, that's a title for dictators, which is the complete opposite of what they are. They're heads of state, and they are completely dependent on popular support for their reigns.
> As a Canadian, the whole thing is so bizarre because he is the supreme leader of our country.
I agree, I don't understand why any former colony would want to keep that.
The case for the UK is that they've been doing the king thing for 1100 years now, it's an integral part of the land and the people and the history, and that gives it symbolic value that contributes to the power or cohesiveness of the nation state.
The royal rituals (that the common people are forced to participate in) definitely are consistent with the "supreme leader" thing. They're dictators on paper, and despite what you say, they're not dependent on popular support for their reigns. I'll give you that they're dependent on popular indifference for keeping the heads on their shoulders. If people hate them enough all those allegiance swearing would come to an end.
> I don't understand why any former colony would want to keep that.
Me neither, but Canada was specifically formed by people who wanted to keep that. Otherwise they would have just joined the USA at the start...
I think it makes sense as a local minimal during a process of iterative compromise. They arrived at 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' and shall stay there until changing conditions break this stability.
What you are saying, that Britain and other countries keep monarchies around because "if it ain't broke..." I understand, though I still think it's pretty weird.
The comment I was responding to, which makes no sense, made the non sequitur that "Americans seem to think that constitutional monarchs are like the president of the US" because he only read the first half of my sentence.
IIRC the last time the Brits tried to get rid of their monarch it didn't end well and the people decided the monarchy was better than that chaos.
QE II wasn't a bad monarch, and that was probably a big factor in the UK keeping its monarchy during the 20th century where democracy was the big trend.
As a Canadian, the whole thing is so bizarre because he is the supreme leader of our country. It literally says I must pledge allegiance to him on my citizenship certificate. Yes, of course I understand the whole thing is theater and he has no actual power, but that's why I think the whole charade is bizarre to begin with.