Kingdom Remains United, But Alas Still A Kingdom

The votes are in, and Scottish independence is officially Not A Thing.

I approve of the country staying intact, for what little my approval means. It's the "Kingdom" part that bugs me, not the "United."

The notion of privilege - a material or social advantage over others that a person receives by virtue of birth alone - is backwards and primitive and inherently anathema to a free society. Racism and sexism (both still very rampant) create privilege by bestowing an advantage on the members of one group (white, male) at the expense of other people. Hereditary wealth of any sort creates privilege by giving an obvious advantage to the born-rich over the born-poor. However, privilege truly comes to a head (of state) where monarchs are concerned.

Yes, I know, tradition and all that. I'm not opposed to the idea of a truly ceremonial monarch. The problem is that a truly ceremonial monarch must be stripped of absolute power and the fruits of the past exercise thereof. Her Frownyface, Queen Lizzie may not wield absolute (or any) power herself, but she retains control of property and wealth inherited from ancestors who did— Buckingham Palace is the product of an absolute monarch's power and allowing any control or possession of it (no matter how limited) to any monarch (no matter how impotent) perpetuates primitive notions of blood superiority and legitimises the idea that it's fair and natural for people to have "economic success" or "economic failure" written on their birth certificates.

Every one of us would understand that "you are among the richest people on the planet because you are an absolute dictator" is inherently unjust. "You are among the richest people on the planet because you are the child of an absolute dictator" is not an improvement. Why, then, can a society that calls itself free believe exactly that by simply switching "child" for "descendent?" Does the passage of time make the taint of absolute monarchy fade?

Why should anybody receive £40 million annually simply by virtue of being born? I was born, where's my 40 million quid? Sure, I can't claim that my great-great-great-etc grandfather was an absolute monarch and tyrant but I don't see why that should matter. We've moved beyond holding people responsible for their ancestors' crimes, haven't we?

I want to see a vote to bring Britain into the 21st century as the United Republic. Or at minimum, tell the queen that the end of absolute monarchy is now retroactive and she'll have to find a nice cottage somewhere like an ordinary pensioner.

If you agree that no one should be handed unearned riches by the accident of their birth, and that government should be by the people, not by the people on behalf of a symbolic dictator who is parasitical upon society, consider supporting Republic.

I Have A New Computer!

Yes, I have been using a decade-old computer I found for free in a bin, but no more! My local computer store offered me a deal too amazing to pass up! (By which I mean I found another computer for free in a bin.)

As of a few days ago, my local computer store (the bin two streets away) has furnished me with a five-year-old Macbook with nothing but a head crash separating it from a long(ish) career as my primary PC.

As of now, it has a brand new hard drive and is running quite happily. So a hearty thank you to whoever didn't realise that hard drives could be replaced or that a hard drive failure was the reason their magic box stopped working, and decided to chuck it where I could find it.



Now I get to experience the thrill of computing luxuries as yet unknown to me, such as a reasonably up to date version of Firefox and a flash player that's still reasonably serviceable! (The PowerPC maxed out at 10.1, while this happily runs Flash Player 11.3, a version that was still supported within some semblance of recent memory.)

The PowerPC has been demoted to Computer I Can't Use Without Getting Out Of Bed status, but I'm keeping it anyway; turns out I'm not willing to abandon ShadowWraith and Diamonds 3D and other wonderful games just because they can't run on Intel hardware.

Vital stats:

Computer: Newer
Date: Today
Current Mood: Bouncy
Sleep Status: Not a wink
Word of the Day: Lurid
Platform: Macintel
Browser: Actual proper Firefox now.
RAM: 2 GB
No, the RAM on the table: That was the broken one from the old computer.
Why?: Well now it's my bookmark.
Oh: Yeah, it's not very useful as RAM anymore but it holds my place in books.
Redundancy: A bit.
Do you has?: Five bucks.
Boond you like?: No.
Favourite character: The Doctor
Doctor who?: I believe his name is Graben.
Sayan?: No, and the demonym is "Siana."
Rambling: Yes
More: No