Ilana Mercer Quotes
Like or dislike her, the British Queen is harmless. Her role is purely ceremonial. Conversely, life and death are in the hands of the monarch who sits in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Mercer, Ilana. "The Monarch at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue." WorldNetDaily, 8 Jun. 2012.
Actually, Queen Elisabeth II, at that time the Queen of England, was very sophisticated about the policies of the nation. Chomsky’s point was not that the Queen was ignorant; it was that her role is ceremonial and it is not critical or even material that the monarch in a Constitutional Democracy understands or approves of the government program that is being presented.
Adams was one of those who felt that the President and Vice President should have some Title of official respect like “Your Highness.” That was a very controversial issue at the time. See {586769}. However, most public opinion thought that was a throwback to monarchy. Adams was thereafter derided for being a monarchist.
This was the President’s original role regarding legislation. However, in the 20th century, Presidents have become more active and suggest laws and often initiate the process and then end it by signing the law that he suggested and shepherded through the Congress. But this was never the vision of the Founding Fathers, but since it is not addressed in the Constitution is not an unconstitutional process.
This letter was written shortly after the Constitution had been signed by the convention delegates. This difference between Adams and Jefferson would be at the heart of the first great partisan struggle in American history. Adams, as the second President, tried to increase and use the power of the Presidency. Jefferson opposed him, especially when Adams tried to run for a second term. The Adams-led Federalists were pitted against Jefferson’s Democratic Republicans in the first, and perhaps still the most bitter partisan struggle in American political history. The Jeffersonians accused Adams and the Federalists of trying to unravel the American Revolution and revert to a monarchy. The people not only sided with the Democratic Republicans, ousting Adams, but also turned out most of the Federalists. It was the end of the Federalist Party, and a new conservative party—without monarchial tendencies—the Whigs became the new opposition party.
Cromwell was not opposed to monarchy per se as long as it was reasonably checked. He saw Charles II as a terrible monarch. After deposing Charles, he and his associates had to come up with some form of government. As “Lord Protector” he was a de facto monarch without the trappings.
He was commenting on the Constitution that had come out of the 1789 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia and did not yet have the Bill of Rights.
Ilana Mercer is a paleolibertarian writer, author of The Trump Revolution: The Donald's Creative Destruction Deconstructed, Into The Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America From Post-Apartheid South Africa (2011) and a columnist for The Unz Review. She was born in South Africa and raised in Israel, where the family decided to move after her father's anti-apartheid activism led to harassment by South African security forces. She lived in Canada before becoming a permanent resident of the United States.
