Is this the thread where everyone chooses odd hills on which to die?

One or two certainly do seem to be overdoing it a tad on this one.

🤷‍♂️

Yet other countries who have removed their previous rulers-kings/queens and put their faith wholly in the people, live, in comparison to the UK, a utopia. With good health service, high wages and a high standard of living.

…and there are other countries who have removed, disestablished or executed royal families that live, in comparison to the UK, a dystopia: Democratic Republic of Congo, Russia, Libya. I am a republican, but it’s important not to exaggerate how bad things are in the UK, or how much a republic alone would improve things. That’s just Brexit/Scot Nat thinking

Its not just the king cougar

I don’t think he’s proclaimed himself King Cougar yet. But he certainly reckons he’s the smartest person in the room.

I don’t think he does, it think it’s more a case that he’s looking for objective answers where there are some or else admit it’s an emotional argument. Same as me and more cash.

The position has been laid out several times, read what we’re saying, none of us are saying one thing and meaning another. My mum does this all the time and gives 4 dimensional answers to questions I never asked.

He has been given objective answers with the evidence.  Its not an emotional argument for me.  Its a political and environmental one

I am a republican, but it’s important not to exaggerate how bad things are in the UK, or how much a republic alone would improve things. That’s just Brexit/Scot Nat thinking

I’m a “Scot Nat” and also a republican. I’m also well aware that there are many nationalists who would like to keep the monarchy. I speak to them on the doors regularly and respect their wishes. Nowt like a sweeping “Scot Nat” statement.

If there needs to be a criminal investigation then let’s push for that,

thats the point – the police cannot investigate properly on royal estates ( not just Sandringham) because they have to ask permission first meaning any evidence can be covered up – and if you think the raptor killings are not done with the consent of the head of the royal family …….

That’s just Brexit/Scot Nat thinking

FFS – not this old canard again

Brexit and scots nationalism are totally different with totally different motivation, effects and benefits.  Ite really pretty insulting to say they are the same

Brexit is xenophobic inward and backward looking – Scots nationalism pro european, outward and forward looking

he certainly reckons he’s the smartest person in the room.

Doesn’t everyone? Who rocks up to a discussion with an opening gambit of “I’m a bit thick, me, but…”?

he’s looking for objective answers where there are some or else admit it’s an emotional argument.

Bingo.

He has been given objective answers with the evidence.

Wrongo.

No-one has evidenced anything, which is my entire point.

You’ve handwaved editorial articles that have no substance beyond allegation, other posters have yelled variations on “just google it!!” Well, Google what? No-one seems to know.

It’s not my place to disprove your claims, it’s your place to back up your claims otherwise they can simply be dismissed with “no it isn’t”. Which is what I’m going to do for the remainder of this thread.

I have backed up my claims.  Its all public knowledge now.  Plenty of evidence has been given

I just do not get why you are arguing this?  Its bonkers.

You even defend the right of the royals to interfere in the democratic process

Facts

!) We know – numerous refernces above that the queen and Prince charles as he was then interfere in the democratic process.  You even said you thought this a good thing so yo accept it happens
2) we know raptors are regularly killed on the royal estates and the police cannot investigate properly

Both these are facts, evidenced on this thread

he certainly reckons he’s the smartest person in the room.

Doesn’t everyone? Who rocks up to a discussion with an opening gambit of “I’m a bit thick, me, but…”?

I am fully aware that there are plenty of people smarter than me but it doesn’t necessarily make them right imo.

I know that it is popular on here but I don’t work on the assumption that anyone with a different opinion to mine must be thick.

Obviously anyone who argues a point generally believes that they right. I believe that the term for not doing so is called trolling.

So in answer to your question, no.

Deep breath,

I have backed up my claims.

No you haven’t.

Its all public knowledge now.

No it isn’t.

Plenty of evidence has been given

No it hasn’t.

I just do not get why you are arguing this? Its bonkers.

I’m not arguing.

You even defend the right of the royals to interfere in the democratic process

No I didn’t. I posited that they are part of our so-called democratic process.

Facts

Uh-huh.

!) We know – numerous refernces above that the queen and Prince charles as he was then interfere in the democratic process.

“We”? You claim you know.

You even said you thought this a good thing so yo accept it happens

I think free cake would be a good thing. Oddly, I don’t have cake. That’s a really weird leap of logic.

2) we know raptors are regularly killed on the royal estates and the police cannot investigate properly

I already answered this. And most of your other arguments, which you’ve ignored.

I had a bit of a surprise yesterday. At a local festival, maybe 150-200 at the comedy stage when the compere decided to try out a royal joke.

Asked who liked the royals, got less than half a dozen responses.

Asked who didn’t like the royals, again, less than half a dozen responses.

Asked who couldn’t give a **** about the royals, the rest of us cheered.

Outside the Singletrack bubble, it’s really not a priority for a surprising number of people.

I just find it weird that we accord rights and priveleges that are way in excess of the average person’s means to a bunch of people according to whose birth canal they came out of. In the 21st Century FFS. Elect of god? Really? Is that still the best claim that can be made?

And, if a sportsperson say, doesn’t sing a daft song with gusto they are pilloried. I mean, begging a mythical being to uphold unearned privilege and often being harragued into doing so? It’s all a bit subservient and demeaning, TBH.

The fact that being republican also winds up Brexity gammons is an added bonus.

Brexit is xenophobic inward and backward looking – Scots nationalism pro european, outward and forward looking

Scottish nationalism long predates Brexit, apart from a historical tendency to hope that European support will help the Scots get rid of English rule, which so far has ended in disappointment.

Scottish nationalism long predates Brexit

It doesn’t long predate the moronic, inward-looking, xenophobic, backward-looking English nationalism that caused Brexit, though.

Wales? Inexplicable that they would vote Leave – too many magic mushrooms at supposedly druidic ceremonies…?

I saw a thread the other day about STW setting up a womens forum.

Maybe we could also have a forum for those that like to bicker incessantly?

I’d read some where the King could give every single person in the uk £1m and still be fantastically wealthly.  Probably bollox, but I could imagine dividing out the total wealth concentrated on a few would really help out with the cost of living …..

Maybe we could also have a forum for those that like to bicker incessantly?

Already taken care of. It is called ‘The Forum’.

I’d read some where the King could give every single person in the uk £1m and still be fantastically wealthly. Probably bollox, but I could imagine dividing out the total wealth concentrated on a few would really help out with the cost of living …..

That’s the basic issue for me right there. The king only has access to this wealth because he came out of a certain birth canal. It is wrong, outdated – a total anachronism. Invoking god? Well, might as well double-down for the gullible, I guess.

But that is not really the thrust of the main bickering on here. The main thrust is that one poster has gone full-on “prove it, show me the evidence, in my hand, down the pub this evening – I want fully audited accounts and an independent ombudsman there too – with an up to date CV so I can check they had no royal affiliations in the past”. Whilst others have indulged in a bit of rumour-mongering amongst a few generally accepted examples – but, and this is another key point – the monarchy is intensely secretive about it affairs in general. Sure, there are some titbits put into the public domain, but much is not – we can either accept at face value that everything ‘bad’ we know is literally all there is to know or we can extrapolate from those examples to postulate what goes on.

If you accept at face value what the rich and powerful say, you need to be very happy with your decision, because you will likely end up poorer than you need to be – but I guess ignorance is sometimes bliss.

What’s up @Cougar ? Way back when you used to help us computer dunces with fixing our computers (thanks), then you became a moderator and a very good one at that (thanks), then you gave that up (wisely) and became a regular member. Recently your contributions make depressing reading.

Please put your moderator hat back on for half an hour and read back through your own contribtions to this thread. Well?

What’s up @Cougar ?

I’m not very well right now.

Well?

Well what?

The forum: wild unsubstantiated claims which on a different thread would be routinely torn apart

Me: Are you sure? Can you back that up?

The forum: we’ve told you once, personal insults

🤷‍♂️

We’re all quick to challenge opinions that we don’t agree with. As soon as they’re opinions that we do agree with, the logic wheels fall off.

Brexit and scots nationalism are totally different with totally different motivation, effects and benefits. Ite really pretty insulting to say they are the same

Again, with the 4D answers* to things nobody said.

It’s not the outcomes that are the same, it’s the arguments. Jam tomorrow, in whichever flavour fits the argument. The book of dreams was exactly that, one party’s vision of a future, there were no assurances in fact for the vast majority of it and was ultimately why the whole venture failed.

This has also been explained many times.

*this is seemingly a thing that divides people into two groups, those who say exactly what they mean and those who say what they expect other people to understand. Where both meet there is confusion and ultimately frustration since one takes things at face value whilst the other tries to derive further meaning where there may not be any.

It’s just a forum on the Net. A disparate bunch of people with a connection to mountain biking past or present (present in my case). There’s good, there’s bad  there’s non sensical, there’s reason, there’s prejudice, there’s openmindedness and all the ills of life in a society.

Don’t let the barstards grind you down, Cougar, it doesn’t matter. You’re one of the good guys remember, above all this shit.

Thank you.

I’d disagree with the “… net” argument (because I have to disagree with something, right?😁) It’s still real people at the other ends of the wires and it’s easy to forget that sometimes.

… I was going to DM you, but it looks like the profile page formatting is bollocksed so I can’t get to the ‘message’ button. I’ll try again later.

divides people into two groups,

Everything does that, really time we got past binary. Let’s argue in hexadecimal from this point on.

I think the daft thing for me about these sorts of arguments is the idea that “That’s that settled” Even if you got shot of the monarchy there would be a sizable proportion of the UK population who’d still want it back. In fact the last time we tried it, the Military dictatorship that took over was eventually so wildly unpopular, the celebration when Charles returned involved London paying for the taps to run with wine instead of water for a week.

the Brexit comparison is a valid one, there’s any numbers of folks who honestly believed that getting out of the EU would solve all our problems, and would usher in a fabulous new shiny democratic future Britain filled with opportunity for all.

That ended well.

Is there room for a slimmed down Monarchy? Personally I think so, but then I know folks for whom the pageantry and pomp are the whole point, it’s perhaps not a popular opinion but I don’t think that our country is so badly organised that it’s needs constitutional reform from top to bottom, and I’m not sure that it would solve anything anyway. The are countries without monarchies that ae just as ****, and there are countries with monarchies that seems to do OK.

the Brexit comparison is a valid one, there’s any numbers of folks who honestly believed that getting out of the EU would solve all our problems, and would usher in a fabulous new shiny democratic future Britain filled with opportunity for all.

That ended well.

Is my big concern. Which abolition did you vote for?

Is there room for a slimmed down Monarchy? Personally I think so

Absolutely. It’s the “how” and the timescale that will cause yet more arguments.

I think the daft thing for me about these sorts of arguments is the idea that “That’s that settled” Even if you got shot of the monarchy there would be a sizable proportion of the UK population who’d still want it back.
…
the Brexit comparison is a valid one, there’s any numbers of folks who honestly believed that getting out of the EU would solve all our problems

The problem to my mind is that for want of a better explanation, sweeping usage of words like “just” do heavy lifting way beyond their station.

Let’s “just” abolish the monarchy.

Let’s “just” leave the EU.

Let’s “just” cut out this tumour with a breadknife.

Some, all or none of these things might be a fantastic idea. But you can’t “just” do them, they need a degree of thought and consideration. We “just” leave the EU, great, but then what, what are replacing that function with? Who’s going to do all our admin? Hey, who remembers “fruit”?

I wouldn’t shed a tear over losing the monarchy and reallocating their ill-gotten gains. But you cannot “just” do it, that’s idiotic. Who’s going to be our head of state now, Sunak? Or some other new role, a President perhaps? Who’s going to own and maintain the land others were complaining about earlier, what’s to stop the incumbent management from razing wild habitats to the ground and selling them to Barratt once the boss has been deposed? Etc etc, and indeed, etc.

“Just.” Bugger off.

It’s true that it would take some work but it’s not impossible either

Have a presidency – 2yr tenure, why not have it a public application like jury service? The job description is ‘make sure parliament are doing their job’ so that can be a mix of the weekly meeting with the PM only this time it’s all on record, responsibility for the parliamentary standards and privileges and ethics committees etc. Part of the role is to prove that you have no political history like being a MP or councillor. Small support staff, part of the Civil Service. Irish Republic presidential office costs about 5million Euros a year which a sh1ttonne less than the current jokers we have.

The Duchies and crown estates etc are handed back to the nation but they continue to run themselves in the same way but are auditable, the national trust gets the buildings and the staff within them to run in the same manner, added bonus that all the hunting stops straight away, they could rewild the moors etc

Parliament likes the monarchy because it has it exactly where it wants it. Changing the monarchy is only really practical as part of a wider package of constitutional reform. But it is difficult to see how the current owners of the constitution (Parliament), would agree to any reform, as any sane reform would reduce it’s power. A bit of a prob.

Crown estate is not owned by the royals. George 3rd gave that up when defence spending got too much.

Regarding their other big private estates – are we just picking on the Royals or do we intend to grab the estates of all the other big landowners?

I mean Anders Holch Povlsen owns lots of Scotland and that seems unfair, so lets grab that and give it to the nation. My house might be bigger than yours, will the nation try to grab that too?

I mean Anders Holch Povlsen owns lots of Scotland and that seems unfair, so lets grab that and give it to the nation.

Under the land reform act the community has rights over buying land – but the poulsons are good landowners looking after the land well.

too many magic mushrooms at supposedly druidic ceremonies…?

This is exactly the kind of ethnic stereotyping that shows the hegemonic, imperialist nature of Little Englander Westminster British nationalism under whose yoke the Celtic peoples… (continue for several dozen self-righteous paragraphs).

If you want to know how much money the crown is making / taking / spending, all of this stuff is in the public domain, isn’t it?

Nope.

Imagine being one of those cretins deluded enough to even attempt to try and defend the Royal family. Its terrifying that there’s still people out there who despite everything can’t work it out for themselves. Tragic really.

There’s not even any point in engaging with them.

If you’re prepared to publicly throw your support behind a family of paedophile sympathisers, thieves and highly likely to have at least one nonce in their own ranks, (paid 12million quid to someone he’d “never met” and “doesn’t know” – biggest admission of guilt ever) then their mindset is already far too warped to reason with.

Keep waving those flags and pray all the nasty stuff all goes away. My, what a pretty gold lavish horse drawn carriage you have. This makes everything ok. Carry on.

Imagine being…

Cheers dits.

Anders Holch Povlsen owns lots of Scotland

He owns a bit of Scotland, hardly ‘lots’

He owns 890sq k/m. Scotland is 77,910sq k/m

220,000 acres is quite a lot

Nobody is saying it isnt.

Anyway, back to the royal sponge.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/22/royal-secrecy-public-money-crown-estate-king-charles

Nice balanced bit of journalism from Graham Smith, CEO of Republic and author of “Abolish the Monarchy: Why We Should and How We Will”.

This is exactly the kind of ethnic stereotyping that shows the hegemonic, imperialist nature of Little Englander Westminster British nationalism under whose yoke the Celtic peoples… (continue for several dozen self-righteous paragraphs). just a little light-hearted piss-taking

FTFY.

“Just.” Bugger off.

Fine by me. 🙂