Weiyang Luo
Why I think Republic is no better than constitutional monarchy

Having watched a lot of debates and documentaries concerning monarchy(The British monarchy in particular),I would like to take the audacity to challenge some republicans(not referring to the US political party ).
I begin with the definition of democracy , which according to Wikipedia , is a form of government in which all eligible citizens participate equally----either directly or indirectly through elected representatives ----in the proposal ,development , and creation of laws.The key words to me are that it’s a form of government ,hence anything out of government is irrelevant to the nature of democracy.Constitutional monarchs ,therefore,not being a member of the government ,have no harm on democratic values.
Plus,constitutional monarchs merely have ceremonial functions ,so do some unelected people in republics.Take the first lady in the United States, she carries ceremonial duties and attends state occasions together with her husband without being elected to do so.She also lives in the White House,the presidential residence,not on her own merit.But when political decisions are concerned ,she has no say on anything.I hardly see any difference of her from a constitutional monarch,except that one obtains the position by birth,the other by marriage,neither being elected.With that said,if you attack monarchy for not being put in position by election ,you may as well need to campaign against the US president’s family except himself ,for they appear on state occasions without election,too.
Another point ,even the Holy Scripture of antimonarchists,the Declaration of the United States of America,indicates people are entitled to overthrow a government if it becomes destructive of the ends on life ,liberty,and the pursuit of happiness,not if it’s a monarchy.People take up arms against tyranny ,be it a mocnarchy or republic.Some peoples rebelled against moncharny,US due to taxation,France bread,Germany postwar Chaos…..Others rebelled against their republic rulers ,the Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union because of political persecution,Spartacus because of slavery ……Unlike today’s antimonarchists who attack the institution purely for the sake of it.
Most convincing of all are statistics,which are independent of any personal opinion.According to the Democracy Index,the most democratic country in the world is Norway,a monarchy.And for years,number one has been a monarchical country,most time being either Norway or Sweden. Moreover ,4 out of top 5,7 out of top 10 are monarchies .How can one say constitutional monarchy is undemocratic while the most democratic countries are largely monarchies?Incidentally,the bottom of the list is North Korea,a republic.One could say North Korea is a republic only in name,but constitutional monarchies are only in name too ,are they not?
Some may argue that one set of data alone is a conincidence.Then here are some more,the Human development Index is topped by Norway,Educational Index by New Zealand,Life Expectancy Index by Japan,GDP per capita by Qatar,Corruption Perceptions Index by Denmark.Contrary to that,the 30 most underdeveloped countries in the world are all republics,unaminously.With all the data ,I hardly think monarchy is not only not inferior to ,but better than republic.
My last point ,some(not all) monarchists are slightly bigoted.They will never change their opinion whatever they hear.I am open to change my mind.If a monarchy throws dissenters into jail ,leaves its people in starvation or exercises any form of tyranny on its citizens,I will support the downfall of them,but until that happens,God save the queen.
I would defer to all that leave a comment.Most importantly,please help me correct any linguistic mistakes I have made.Thanks. 

 

Apr 25, 2014 7:29 PM