JamesHackerMP

Altai, this is a public forum where anyone can respond to posts with the freedom to do so; just as long as they're respectful. You can't just ignore someone because you disagree with them, or they point out a flaw in your reasoning. If you do so you'll find you will be entirely isolated pretty quickly. But if you want me to f*** off, I'll ask you one final question. You said you hate criminal actions....um, is an Israeli child who was just born today a "criminal" by your definition? I asked something similar before and you dodged the question. While your documentation is impressive, I disagree totally with your interpretation of it. I am free to do that on this forum.

Wouldn't be the biggest tragedy of all, would it?

Altai, I'm not even going to respond to that kind of hatefulness and hypocrisy. You do your countrymen no favor by representing them this way.

Rue, that's damn decent of you to apologize like that. I'm impressed with your sense of humility and compassion. Not many people can do that. I've gone too far on messages boards before (not here but on others) and always felt that when I did, an apology was the right thing to do. We're all human and our strong opinions can simultaneously be our strength and our weakness. I salute you and I fully appreciate your olive branch! I am also gratified by your appraisal of the efforts of the United States, especially the military, since so many of my friends and family are in it. As far as the criticism of Israel's foreign policy, I only do so because I want the State of Israel to survive. Probably I am just not very articulate, as I said, and I try to say one thing, and it comes out as another. I don't want to see it "pushed into the Mediterranean" as so many of her neighbors and enemies have sworn to do; and that's exactly what they have sworn to do. I can understand why Israel reacts to its threats the way it does, but it doesn't always do credit to her People or fully benefit her long-term survival. We live in a day and age where the television is mightier than the sword. Both Israel and the United States have to learn how to fight what is now an information and even a propaganda war on many fronts. Sometimes the Israeli government reacts in such a way as to ignore that fact, and may eventually lose the war, which will be just as disastrous as any losses of men and materiel in a physical war. Now, Altai, take note: the people who live in Israel now, who were born just this moment, have no way of knowing the ancient history of the Middle East, the modern history or Israel, nor should they be made to answer for it. They have a right to exist, regardless of who may theoretically "rightfully" own Israel & Palestine based on relation to ancient ethnicity. I'm not saying the past is irrelevant--as a student of history and political science I hold history in the highest regard and necessity--but the present and future are more important.

What of it?

And we get more mocking. Very nice. Speaking of justice, "if you can't play nice don't play at all". I said nothing of the sort. I'm sure that's a very nice song, but I've never heard it, which is not surprising considering I do not speak Turkish. You say that, yet you stated above about the ancestors of the Lebanese having a greater claim on the area than modern Jews, right? I'm confused.

Indeed.

I agree with that, too. See, this is why it's best to hear someone out before mocking them.

Who on the ignore list?

Good point Argus! My whole point was that I don't care who "was there first". The Jewish Israelis are there now. People who were born just now in Israel cannot help the fact that someone else doesn't think they deserve to be there.

Rue, first of all, I do not agree with Altai's assessment of the State of Israel. In fact, I disagree with her plenty and have said so. I believe the State of Israel has a right to exist, I just made that clear in my last couple of responses to Altai. I also believe that, whatever the ancient pedigree of Jews or anyone living in what one could call "the Levant", what matters is more so the present than the ancient past. In the present, Israel has won her independence in the 1948 war, and reaffirmed it in a host of other conflicts with her neighbors. Whether anyone on the planet likes it or not, Israel is here to stay, and rightfully so. As for my (apparent) complete ignorance on the subject; I've come in contact with Israelis on campus when I was in college, and I've taken international relations courses that included extensive discussions on Israel and its neighbors. Does that make me as well informed on the subject as someone who lives in the Middle East, or Israel specifically? No. But I'm far from being ignorant, and very, very far from being hostile or "mocking" toward you or your people. I might have put things in a way that you would not have, but I'm not Yasser Arafat come back from the grave to mock (or destroy) the People of the State of Israel. I do not always agree with every action Israel has taken, but I'm not being hostile or mocking, and I support fully Israel's right to exist. Actually, I'm wondering whether it's just that you saw I'm from the US and figured "Oh, he must be ignorant of the world. You know how those yanks are, eh?" I'm also not Mark Antony. So sue me for not being as incredibly articulate an orator as yourself. Now, you can either continue this silly personality conflict you've started between the two of us, or you can calm down and participate in this forum like an adult. You're not doing your people any good by being rude, especially to someone who hasn't been saying anything nasty about the State of Israel or the Jewish faith in general. Your knowledge on the subject is certainly impressive and anyone here could benefit from that knowledge, myself included. But that won't happen if you continue to mock back someone who never did it to you (and/or your People) in the first place. You're turning people off and not doing Israel any good in the process.

LOL! I hope that isn't technically legal in Belgium...

Well, define an "illegal state"? Is America an illegal state? We seized a load of land from the indigenous tribes already living here. Should the UN call for the disbandment of the United States?

Roger that.

Wow. It's not very polite to celebrate a wedding in the middle of the street. Festive, yes but somewhat impractical. My father went on a business trip the Magic Kingdom (Saudi Arabia) in 1993. He said a typical Muslim wedding ceremony lasts 3 days. (is that true? must be pretty elaborate!)

OK I don't know that many Israelis but I doubt they really care who was there first. They're there now. Rue: that is basically what I said: Zionist Jews, Jewish settlers from the Zionist Movement. (Kind of like Judean People's Front vs. People's Front of Judea.) Ch****, I don't know how that offended you enough to mock me. What the hell did I say wrong???

So, speaking of the GG again, the representative of the crown in your country, how much authority (or power perhaps) does he really have? Also, why do you call the (titular) head of a province a lieutenant governor? In Australia they call the heads of the six states governors for some reason. (The reason I ask is also because south of the border a "lieutenant governor" means the governor's deputy. Some states prefer not to have a Lt Gov at all, seeing the post as rather superfluous.) Also: does a Canadian province's Lt Gov have the same authority (but not much power) as the GG? The same sort of mostly ceremonial role?

Um....Rue? What the hell are you going on about? I didn't read your entire, rather lengthy post, because much of it seemed to mock me. Also, if we were having a conversation face to face, I'd have to say your rather verbose and flatulent reply was motivated by "selective hearing" and gross assumption of what I was trying to say (rather than what I actually said). And that's The Right Honourable Secretary of State for Administrative Affairs, thank you very much. Yeah, I can see you being thrown out of the Knesset...or the House of Commons for that matter. lol

I do not remember any Israeli claiming to have been the first inhabitants of the region. Throughout the history of the world, people have moved around a lot. The Phonecians who inhabited the area in ancient times moved, too; else the state of Carthage would not have come into existence. According to the Bible--and much of the Bible, Jewish and Christian testaments, is full of illustrations of a larger point rather than precise events and precise people--the Canaanites were in Lebanon/Palestine/Israel area first, before the children of Israel. So I haven't heard anyone Jewish--of Israel or not--claiming they were "there first".

So basically, Altai, youre sayiing that the Palestinians have more right to the land comprising the State of Israel than the Jewish settlers from the Zionist movement?

I know someone who lived at a retirement community when I worked there--a very upscale one with good medical care--who was only 66. She went in the hospital with pneumonia, a fairly mild case. By night she was gone. If it's your time (not getting religious, just medical) then your doctor doesn't always have much say in it. Even with the best medical care, 90 is still a delicate age to be. Then again, there's Burgess Meredith's character in Grumpier Old Men who explained how, at 99, he drank a pot of coffee, ate a pound of bacon every morning, and smoked a pack a day; death, he insisted, had forgotten him. So who can say? Personally, I have to give H.M. kudos, not only for doing it for 64 years without fail, but for performing her duties 25 years after the rest of us would have reached the normal age of retirement. I'm not sure what it is she does on a daily basis, perhaps some of you could clue me in, but good for Her. Our heads of state only have to do it for four to eight years, and they actually do it by choice (which proves the Queen must be more sane than any President). I've been watching The Crown on Netflix.

Wow, i seem to have started quite a thread! Sometimes I wish our chief of state was a monarch, if only to avoid the embarrassment of having the highest representative of the state (even if in theory) a politician. I believe Margaret Thatcher once said that anyone willing to make a politician their ceremonial head of state should spend some more time around politicians.

Probably a good point. No democracy to my knowledge has been able to totally eradicate corruption. I doubt the US is that much more corrupt than a lot of other countries simply by virtue of its being a presidential republic instead of a parliamentary one. Both systems, it seems, have their own massive flaws. Writing a democratic constitution is not unlike being diagnosed with a severe, but treatable, illness. The doctor advises the patient he has a choice between several different medications, each providing a unique set of side effects. The pill the patient eventually decides to swallow is the one with the side effects (s)he can live with, with the least difficulty. About royal-watching: have any of you watched the show The Royals? It's about a fictitious British royal family. The king decides to ask parliament for a referendum to abolish the monarchy. The Chancellor of the Exchequer comes up to the Queen (Elizabeth Hurley) and asks her, "What will the monarchy do without the People's money?" She replies: "What a pity we'll have to have the wedding in the Hamptons instead of Westminster Abbey. Hmm, what did our last royal wedding bring in? Six billion pounds in tourism alone? I think you should be asking what will the People do without the monarchy's money!" Whoever said that people like watching royals--especially Americans--is spot on. I strongly suspect that if there is any group of people, in the UK at least, who are staunch monarchists it is likely the proprietors of tabloid newspapers. About the 1975 constitutional crisis Down Under: Sir John Kerr took great personal risk firing the Whitlam Government and replacing him with the opposition leader as caretaker. He ended his days abroad, likely for good reason. It would not surprise me if he had received repeated death threats, though I haven't read that anywhere (just a hunch). The move was unpopular and was seen as meddling in the democratic process. Of course, the crisis was unlikely to have simply resolved itself. Take notice that since then, the PM's of Australia (I am told) jealously guard and monitor the kind of authority more proper to a head of state, so that sort of thing never happens again. In both Canada and Australia--again, from what you have all told me---it seems that the head of state (or the person acting as head of state within the realm) is being appointed by the head of government, which is in theory a no-no in parliamentary democracy, especially since you want a neutral, apolitical figure who can make sure the PM "doesn't go bonkers." Since the GG is therefore virtually appointed (in a de facto sense) by the the PM, it's unlikely he or she will be anything but the PM's b****. I must admit that the process of "writing" the unwritten British constitution has been a long, gradual process of the aggrandizement of Parliament at the Crown's expense. It has developed more "organically" than its American counterpart. Perhaps that's the strength of retaining a figurehead monarchy? Even Japan has retained theirs, but he's not only as powerless as the Queen of England by tradition, he's actually as powerless as the Queen on paper as well. I guess that gives Queen Elizabeth and her 15 governors-general a little arbitrary "wiggle room" in an emergency or unforeseen constitutional situation (as in 1975); the emperor has no such wiggle room. His ceremonial limitations are pretty airtight. That said, even this American has to admit that constitutional monarchies tend to be more stable countries than some republics, even presidential ones. We seem to be one of very few presidential republics that haven't had one coup d'etat after another. So the whole point of having a constitutional monarch--if we boiled it down to a simple oversimplification--is to prevent the rise of an absolute one? Not so much what she can do, but what she cannot, is paramount?

I said in my very first post that I was seeking information exchange here. As an American, I'd like to know Canadians' thoughts on the institution of constitutional monarchy, both in general, and how it relates to Canada. The issue raises the £64,000 question: what's the purpose for retaining modern constitutional monarchy in commonwealth realms? Is it still useful; or is it a relic of a bygone age? What does it really do in the modern world, particularly in your country, that the Canadian People have not long since abolished it? A few former commonwealth realms have done precisely that. Most recently in Australia, but it was rejected by the voters (by a fairly narrow margin, wasn't it?) With the crown being a figurehead in the UK and its associated commonwealth realms, is it useful to still have it? Or is it just maintained nostalgically "for old time's sake"? OK, that was questions, plural. Hope some of you could help me understand this one. I'm sure there's a purpose to it, but I'd rather hear the views of people who actually live in a country with a constitutional monarch as the legal head of state.