Barbados, Formally Casting Off the Queen, Becomes a Republic (nytimes.com) 86
In the early hours of Tuesday, at a ceremony attended by hundreds of masked officials, a prince and at least one pop star, the Caribbean island of Barbados became a republic, cutting ties with Queen Elizabeth II and casting off the last major vestige of its colonial past. The New York Times: The nation swore in its first president, Sandra Mason, a former governor general who had been appointed by the queen. A 21-gun salute rang out as the national anthem played. The red, yellow and navy blue royal flag was lowered -- exactly 55 years after the country gained independence from Britain. "Today, debate and discourse have become action," Ms. Mason, 72, told the onlookers gathered in the capital, Bridgetown. "Today, we set our compass to a new direction."
Ms. Mason received a majority vote in Parliament in October to take on the role. In a speech afterward, Prime Minister Mia Mottley said: "We believe that the time has come for us to claim our full destiny. It is a woman of the soil to whom this honor is being given." The island nation, a democracy of about 300,000 people, announced in September that it would remove Queen Elizabeth as head of state, the latest Caribbean island to do so. It joined Guyana, which gained independence in 1966 and became a republic in 1970; Trinidad and Tobago, which became independent in 1962 and a republic in 1976; and Dominica, which gained full independence as a republic in 1978. Australia, Canada, Jamaica, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea are among the nations that still call the queen their head of state. Barbados will remain part of the Commonwealth, a voluntary association of 54 countries with roots in the British Empire.
Ms. Mason received a majority vote in Parliament in October to take on the role. In a speech afterward, Prime Minister Mia Mottley said: "We believe that the time has come for us to claim our full destiny. It is a woman of the soil to whom this honor is being given." The island nation, a democracy of about 300,000 people, announced in September that it would remove Queen Elizabeth as head of state, the latest Caribbean island to do so. It joined Guyana, which gained independence in 1966 and became a republic in 1970; Trinidad and Tobago, which became independent in 1962 and a republic in 1976; and Dominica, which gained full independence as a republic in 1978. Australia, Canada, Jamaica, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea are among the nations that still call the queen their head of state. Barbados will remain part of the Commonwealth, a voluntary association of 54 countries with roots in the British Empire.
In before Charlie (Score:3)
Re: will remain part of the Commonwealth (Score:2, Funny)
The commonwealth has no legal obligations, it is basically a drinking club. Actually I would expect my drinking buddies to back me up in a fight more than commonwealth members would back each other up.
Re: will remain part of the Commonwealth (Score:1)
What does that have to do with sucking titties?
As absurd as the idea of having a queen is to us (Score:1)
something something don't call me Shirley
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American royalty doesn't want to draw attention to itself.
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America doesn't have royalty, it has the bourgeoisie and nouveau riche. Sometimes the nouveau riche are more powerful than the bourgeoisie, but they don't have the longevity.
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America doesn't have royalty, it has the bourgeoisie and nouveau riche. Sometimes the nouveau riche are more powerful than the bourgeoisie, but they don't have the longevity.
Exactly. The only thing American royalty lacks is the titles.
And this is (Score:5, Insightful)
tech news how?
News for nerds (Score:2)
Re: News for nerds (Score:3)
Canadians is the word you're looking for.
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Re: News for nerds (Score:2)
Lol wasn't that a plot point in Airheads, too?
Naked pictures of Bea Arthur
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tech news how?
It's not! Thankfully it's been extremely well established over the years that Slashdot is not exclusively a tech news website. I guess you've been living under a rock though.
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Oh, maybe I misread "news for nerds, news that matters"
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Slashdot is news for nerds.
That umbrella includes tech news (and comic book, science, etc) that would be nearly irrelevant on a non-niche site, but also major news events that are significant enough that a nerd would care. EG - stuff that matters.
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Ah, tell me again who is interested in Barbados on this site.
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tech news how?
This isn't a tech news site. It's a nerd news site, and nerds quite evidentially love politics.
It's also a good reminder than democracy does not involve storming a government building because you didn't like the outcome.
"I am your new president.." (Score:2)
Strange Women Lying in Ponds (Score:4, Funny)
Re: Strange Women Lying in Ponds (Score:1)
âoeI get that referenceâ. Would of been in caps but blocked by lameness filter :(
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"Would have" you illiterate git. No lameness filter applies.
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Before someone says the monarch is just a figurehead, she gets to review UK laws before they go to parliament and appears to have considerable influence to get them changed to get liking.
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and appears to have considerable influence to get them changed to get liking.
When you say appears, maybe you can post examples of where she has actually had something modified in a such a way? She rarely if ever comments on political affairs and on the few cases where she does publicly voice her disagreement she appears to have done nothing to change any outcome, but I'm far from a UK expert.
Certainly for the colonies she's a complete figurehead in all but the most egregious of government failures. E.g. A governor general has not failed to pass a law nor disagreed with the head of a
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The Guardian has been investigating it for a while. There are examples where laws have very specific clauses that exclude her and her estate from certain rules. I believe there is an on-going legal challenge to have some of the details revealed.
In any case, the practice should be stopped.
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Details of what? All laws in the UK are published for all to see. And the laws don't exclude her estate they exclude Duchy of Lancaster and Cornwall estates which are not her or Charles personal property either.
I would note that the Queen and Prince of Wales do a better job of following COVID-19 rules than her government manage.
1970s Brexit (actually Black Power then, BLM now) (Score:5, Informative)
Quoting the fine summary:
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It joined Guyana, which gained independence in 1966 and became a republic in 1970; Trinidad and Tobago, which became independent in 1962 and a republic in 1976; and Dominica, which gained full independence as a republic in 1978.
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It's really not a Brexit thing. In the 1960s and 1970s there was the "black power" movement which led to these island nations separating from the (white) monarchy. More recently, the "BLM" movement (as opposed to BLM Inc.) rekindled these sentiments.
I wish there was a better name for the movement, the sentiments that have arisen lately around racial issues. Black Lives Matter is the name of a corporation which sells T-shirts. It is led by the founders who call themselves communist revolutionaries, while the leader buys herself four luxury homes with your T-shirt money. I guess they've already progressed to USSR-style communism, where the leader gets four houses and the plebes pay for it.
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It's really not a Brexit thing.
I didn't think it was - I was just making a failed joke.
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What you described is not communism. It's either capitalism or totalitarianism. Can you tell these apart?
Well, they're opposites, so ... (Score:2)
> What you described is not communism. It's either capitalism or totalitarianism. Can you tell these apart?
totalitarianism: The politicians run everything
communism: The politicians run everything that touches money, jobs, buying or selling anything
capitalism: You, the consumer, make your own decisions about money, buying, selling, etc.
Totalitarianism = communism + the govt also runs things that don't involve money in any way
Capitalism and totalitarianism are kinda opposites. Totalitarianism is a superset
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countries like Barbados are questioning why they're paying for a racist old grandma who lives in England
Examples of these payments?
Re:Everyone's got a queen (Score:5, Funny)
The first time I heard about the Kardashians I wondered "When did they take over reality and how did Gul Dukat grow a pair of tits?"
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You have made the common mistake of confusing Cardassians with the Kardashians.
One is a group of vaguely reptilian, leather wearing, amoral beings, who will stop at nothing to further their agenda. The other group, of course, occupied Bajor.
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We've got a royal family right here in the US. Led by Queen Kardashian. They're famous for being famous, contribute nothing to society, leech off honest hard-working folks, and generally make a nuisance of themselves. Yet inexplicably people love them. ... At least we're not crazy enough to give them a role in state affairs.
In the U.S., movie, music, and sports celebrities are our royalty (how the Kardashians got in there, I have no idea). And they do have a role in state affairs. For example, Alec Baldwin uses his fame to promote gun control (even before he shot his cameraperson through the chest). The whole lot of them tell people how to vote. And those people they tell everyone to vote for are democrats. Republicans only get Ted Nugent.
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The Bushs and the Kennedys are two examples, but there are plenty more and they've been doing it since the middle of the 19th century in a few cases.
Gun control and abortion are two of the completely irrelevant issues they use to keep people like you distracted while they carry on doing what they've always done.
Re: Everyone's got a queen (Score:1)
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At least we're not crazy enough to give them a role in state affairs.
No, you elected a demented ex-TV show host as president and the rest of the world will never forget that.
Republics now (Score:3)
Australia, Canada, Jamaica, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea are among the nations that still call the queen their head of state C'mon people ... isn't it about time?
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who else is going to keep the Commonwealth Games going?
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Hell, GP didn't even RTFS. TFS says that Barbados will stay in the Commonwealth.
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Australia, Canada, Jamaica, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea are among the nations that still call the queen their head of state
C'mon people ... isn't it about time?
In Australian, ScuntMo won't do anything unless his invisible sky daddy (or Brian Huston) permits it...
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Also, it could lead to the UK reducing our working holiday visa options, and everyone here knows that the O.E. (overseas experience) is vital for out integration with the rest of the world.
Re: Republics now (Score:2)
Nah, too much work to change, plus a whole lot of baggage. Much of our legal system is based on the fiction of the crown being the personification of the nation. Treaties (especially those involving First Nations and the country are technically between the nations and the Queen, legal decisions are all between whomever and the crown.
Plus, having an apolitical force that realistically only has the ability to dissolve parliament and force an election is a useful safety valve. I certainly wouldnâ(TM)t wan
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In Canada's province of Quebec we tried twice to get out of that joke government but last time in 1995 Canada sent people from other provinces to do a love-in and fast-tracked immigration to boost NO numbers so that separation wouldn't happen. There was about a 1% difference in YES and NO numbers, but NO won.
At least we tried.
Re: Republics now (Score:2)
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They did what any Republic will do - replace the Queen and the Governor general with a President who notably is the ex-Governor General
They just replaced one head of state with another - the only difference is that rather than the Effective head of state being theoretically appointed by the Queen, on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, it's just done directly ...
Re: Not Canada! (Score:3)
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Strictly speaking she isn't a foreigner - she is Canadian, as well as Australian, English, Scottish, Welsh and every other nationality of those nations she is the Queen of.
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yeah sure. You must also still think that Santa exists and lives in the North Pole. Would it make him both Russian and Canadian, by the way?
Makes me think of Puerto Rico (Score:5, Interesting)
Makes me think of Puerto Rico and their vote in favor of statehood that happened last year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].
Too bad American conservatives will never allow that to happen so they're stuck being a "territory" (colony) forever.
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And North Korea is formally known as The Democratic People's Republic of Korea despite being none of those things. Sure, Republicans might make that claim on a website but if you honestly think Mitch McConnel (to name just one prominent Republican) would ever let another state into the union that was likely to vote Democrat as Puerto Rico is you've got no concept of reality.
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I'm an American conservative. I'm perfectly OK with Puerto Rico becoming a state. Remaining residential D.C. should just go back to Maryland though like Arlington/Virginia in 1846/7. It's not impossible for people's attitudes to change.
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However, I like your answer better than that.
There's a perfectly good state right there already that can have them.
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Wasn't the whole point of DC so that no single State would have the US Capitol?
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The problem is the 600,000 residents of the city of Washington that lack representative government above the municipal level.
My grandmother lived just outside of D.C., in Silver Springs before COVID took her, so I spent a lot of time in that area over the course of my life.
The Capitol proper is a small fraction of the District.
I suspect if an analysis were done to see what portion of the land is actual used by the Federal Government
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DC is authorized by the enumerated powers in Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution.
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The Federal Government has the right to cede the territory back to the states.
As parent said, just as the government gave Arlington back to Virginia (that's why DC is not a square anymore) they could give residential lands not in use by the Federal Government back to Maryland.
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I'm an American conservative.
He's not talking about conservative America, but rather the conservative senators. I find "American conservatives" in general to be significantly more level headed than the republican party corrupt fuckwits they elected, but then that it true of liberals as well, and is true of non-American governments too.
I think the GP should have written "the republican party will never".
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The Queen? (Score:2)
My first thoughts were of queens like Máxima or Margrethe.
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My first thought was Freddie Mercury.
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My first thought was Freddie Mercury.
You might wanna check out some of Barbados' home grown music talent. Mr Killa's a good one to start with - There's loads on Youtube. Their videos are usually NSFW.
In the Sun... (Score:2)
I will come
to see Barbados [youtube.com]
Down with (Score:3)
Down with the monarchy! Or something like that
21 gun salute (Score:1)
74 gun salute will follow, when RN and queen learns about it.