I can’t sing and don’t know all the words to my country’s (US) anthem. Armed forces and US federal employees swear to support (or support and defend) the constitution. I deplore the US media depicting the spouse and children of a president as “First” anything. They are irrelevant to governmental administration. They, and the president, are just US citizens like me. The president works for me! And I voted to fire the ass of the last one.
I suspect that elevating a monarch, president, tribal chief, etc. above the others in the group is an atavistic response to the need for social carnivores to have a leader to most efficiently organize decisions. I hope we have outgrown this.
When thinking about the UK monarchy, I think that centuries of media manipulation of the public (fear, respect, allegiance, pride, awe, etc.), planning wealthy and powerful alliances with other wealthy and powerful families (perfectly natural, some would say), and deliberately entangling a family’s role with that of actual governance (crafty and self-serving), combine to make a whole which is difficult to separate into parts. These are selfish and all too human motivations. I see these things in my own country, a little differently played out.
I suspect that the UK monarchy will eventually end. My understanding of UK government is that it is already representative, with Parliament members directly and the PM indirectly elected to office by citizens’ vote. If the monarchy members all died or disappeared, it would make no difference to the actual governance of the country. The monarchy fills no actual governmental role which would result in a void if it disappeared. The monarchy, like many extremely wealthy families across the world, are selfish blood-suckers. (Thus proclaims the unwashed Proletariat!)
