As I watch news accounts about the joyous celebration of Queen Elizabeth II's diamond jubilee as queen, I rather envy our British cousins.
They have the best of both worlds -- a great parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy that embodies in a living person a representative of state and nation.
They are also blessed the head of state of the United Kingdom and 15 other commonwealth states for these last 60 years has been Elizabeth Regina. She is a gracious, dignified, and dedicated woman who also has a very cool website. A fact not mentioned there, which has always impressed me, is that the woman who would become queen aided the war effort as a car mechanic and driver during World War II.
I almost feel like shooting a patriotic "ER" on the wall of my sitting room. Fortunately, I do not own a gun, for my wife would not be amused at this Sherlockian outburst.
God save the Queen!
I have to agree with your post! Though I am no means a Royalist and won't be itching for a piece of the Jubilee knicknacks, but I am an Anglophile that is quite impressed with the example of a working constitutional monarchy. In many ways, it is working better than our democracy, imho, but that is another subject I will not get into here.
ReplyDeleteShe is a living symbol the people can rally around. She has faced hardship and happiness like us all. She has certainly learned to adapt and change, but also keep the tradition and ceremony of what it means to reign in the 21st Century.
Well said, Valerie!
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