As I have mentioned before, I am weary of the endless programmes going out seeking to show that Islam in Britain is peachy and they are ‘just like us’. I do not want to see communal tensions raised either but enough with the damn propaganda.
But what really annoys the hell out of me is when I read yesterday that Prince Charles intends to lecture President Bush and other Americans on how they need to take Islam more seriously and be less ‘confrontational’. Oh that is going to down just splendidly. We have heard this before from Charles closer to home and my view has always been that as Britain is an overwhelmingly secular country and most tend not to take Christianity all that seriously, he has got to be joking if he thinks all too many people give a rats arse about what Islam has to offer global civilisation.
The Prince, who leaves on Tuesday for an eight-day tour of the US, has voiced private concerns over America’s “confrontational” approach to Muslim countries and its failure to appreciate Islam’s strengths. The Prince raised his concerns when he met senior Muslims in London in November 2001. The gathering took place just two months after the attacks on New York and Washington. “I find the language and rhetoric coming from America too confrontational,” the Prince said, according to one leader at the meeting.
And when I regularly read Muslims standing up and openly repudiating putting apostates and homosexuals to death, perhaps I will conclude Islam might be anything other than a blight on any tolerant culture. Oh and please, spare me the tales of how historically ‘tolerant’ Islam can be because it is only tolerant on its own very narrow terms.
It used to be that many Christians would burn or hang ‘witches’, slaughter those who did not share their denomination and kill scientific free thinkers. All of those things were done based on biblical justifications, some convoluted and other much less so.
Yet you would be hard pressed to find a Christian who would regard going back to that as desirable and I doubt many would have a problem if someone stood up and said “Yes, I know it says in the Bible that we should kill witches or people who use ‘evil magic’, but that’s barbaric nonsense and we just do not tolerate that sort of stuff any more”. Of course no one needs to stand up and say that because it goes without saying.
And when I hear lots of Muslims say “yes I know it says in the Koran that the penalty for turning your back on Islam is death, but that is barbaric nonsense and we just will not tolerate that sort of stuff any more”, then, and only then, will I think that Prince Charles is anything other than a fool for suggesting modern Islam could possibly be an overall force for good. I am not a Christian any more but I do not keep looking over my shoulder for a Jesuit with a garrotte sneaking up behind me because I dared to publicly state that fact. Ex-Muslims should feel just as free as I do to publicly repudiate their religion if that is their wish, even if there are social consequences for them in their narrower community.
Khalid Mahmood, the Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Bar, was also at the meeting at St James’s Palace. “His criticism of America was a general one of the Americans not having the appreciation we have for Islam and its culture,” he said.
I have news for Khalid, it is not just Americans who do not have much ‘appreciation’ for Islamic culture. Many aspects of Islamic culture are not something with which people who value tolerance and pluralism should be trying to reach an accommodation. You cannot compromise with something that is inimical and there is nothing illogical about refusing to tolerate the practice of a creed in a way that requires intolerance.
On the nail. Perhaps HRH would like to visit Iran to tell them that ‘wiping Israel from the face of the earth’ is a bit too confrontational. Mind you it is only what Yasser Arafat was saying a little less stidently, and he was a Hero of the BBC. So perhaps ‘wiping from the face of the earth’ is good, multicultural tolerance. Confusing isn’t it?
Well said, Perry!
Apart from anything else, surely to god Charles knows he is going to look like a blithering nitwit in the eyes of our closest ally? Is he connected to reality at all? Who the hell is he to lecture Americans? Who elected him to anything? And whatever happened to royalty keeping its flaming mouth shut? I hope the US media eats him alive, the fool. This man is dangerous.
I agree that it’s a mystery how the “vast majority” of “peaceful Muslims” never seem to condemn the deeds of “the tiny minority”. Behead three little girls walking to school and leave one of their heads on the steps of a church. (Gosh, I wonder if the Indonesian police suspect foul play!) Blow up innocent people shopping for Diwali, murdering over 60, on the very same day. They don’t seem to condemn the laughably named “honour killings”, either. Or female genital mutilation. Or publicly calling for the murder of all Jews. Or mullah and apologists saying there are no innocent victims in terrorist attacks because infidels don’t count as humans. And saying in public that in a jihad, it’s OK to kill women and children if they happen to get caught in the crossfire. What the hey. And it’s OK to kidnap and murder non-Islamic children in Russia. The “vast majority of peaceful Muslims” didn’t seem to get their dander up about what was done in their name in London on 7/7.
I’m baffled by the total silence of “the vast majority of peaceful Muslims”.
I note from Dhimmiwatch that the incredibly brave and clever Hirsi Ali (guarded round the clock because of death threats for aposty) has said the problem in the Netherlands is that the government refuses to understand that it is Islam that is the problem. Not individuals. This problem seems to prevail in Britain, too – not least in Buckingham Palace.
I find myself in an unusually degree of agreement with you, except I would rephrase one of your basic points (besides your basic point that Charles is a tiresome old fogey nitwit who should shut his trap and just waive at the tourists).
I would however explicitly rephrase a number of your refernce to “Islam” as references to “Muslims”. A religion on paper can be used for all sorts of purposes. It’s what the practitioners make of it that counts. And a significant minority of Muslims have made some very bad choices in which aspects of Islam to follow and emphasize and which to ignore and disregard.
It’s never good tactics to attack a religion. As the man said, religion is like a nail, the more you pound it the deeper in, you drive it. Concentrate on the behavior of specific people and groups of people so that the salvageable majority can change their behavior while saving face.
I would even consider reviving the mostly lost language of shame and collective guilt since it’s one that most Muslims are very familiar with and respond to.
It’s not the most ideologically pure method from a libertarian point of view, but it’s much more effective than bashing the religion.
HRH is a buffoon: a walking advertisment for republicanism. My theory is that he likes Islam because he likes the architecture and talking to plants. He built that fancy Islamic themed garden and he’s definitely not keen on modern buildings in the west. Perhaps someone needs to tell him that this is heavily drived from the Persian architecture, which flourished under the Sassanid dynasty before Islam. Then he might develop an interest in Zoroastrianism instead!
As my dear old Dad says; blood oath, Boris!
Aren’t the royals there to amuse us with their lavish weddings and silly scandals – but stay the hell out of politics? I agree with Verity; Charles is going to look like a pontificating buffoon and I too hope the media flays him for his ungraciousness.
Michael Farris: Fair point. I suppose it is a function of my ‘shoulder shrugging agnosticism’ that I tend to conflate the two. In truth I really care little what people believe in their heart of hearts, just so long as the public manifestations of that belief is not monstrous things like literal sharia law and ‘honour’ killing.
Sorry, but I think Michael Farris is talking ethnocentric nonsense.
There seems to be no understanding that he is talking to people who have been brought up since birth in a primitive, rigid, cruel belief system that elevates them above every other person on earth who, in any case, aren’t people. These individuals are fanatics, intent on bringing about Dar-es-Salaam. That is why “the vast majority of moderate Muslims” never speak out. Because they believe that Dar-es-Salaam is destined to come about. They may think some of the methods are a shame and all, but omelettes … egg shells …
How do you think your subtle approach applies to Hirsi Ali, the Somali/Dutch MP who was genitally mutilated as a child and who escaped to Holland, learned Dutch and took a couple of First Class degrees? She has been living surrounded by police bodyguards 24 hours a day for almost a year because she is an apostate. Maybe she doesn’t have your finesse. And that wonderful, witty Canadian apostate. OK. Out of a population of over a billion, that’s two.
From all the terrorist murder since the Olympics in 1972, you have never heard one word of regret.
Re Charles, it is so stunningly rude to enter your host’s home, partake of his hospitality and then read him a lecture on his behaviour that it boggles the mind. And to announce it in advance! Has he taken leave of his senses? What possible significance does he think he has to Americans? Who does this silly, arrogant man think he is? I find this baffling.
Verity, I think there was a university study that showed that bithering nitwits, because they’re blithering nitwits, never know they sound like blithering nitwits. Cruel irony.
We (Americans) are also being told that we like what’s her name. Camilla. Apparently, for the royal family, it’s 1982 (or 1582 or 1952) and we have nothing more pressing to think about.
ak – Well, having announced in advance what a snoozeroo he intends to be, I don’t think Charles and Camilla are going to be the lead item on the evening news.
I think Charles is so isolated and fawned upon that he sincerely believes he has words of wisdom to offer the world. Well, it’s nice that he is going to graciously remind Americans why they had a war to get rid of Britain.
Whooops! News just in. Omar Shariff has received death threats from a jihadi group linked to al-Qaeda for playing St Peter in an Italian tv production. (From Dhimmiwatch.org)
Ok Verity, let’s assume I’m wrong and you’re right.
It’s not that some people are choosing to do evil, but that a billion or so people are following an inherently evil religion and there is no prospect for change for the better as long as it exists. What do you propose be done about that? Especially in the context of European immigration and Muslim citizens?
Verity,
Of course Charles isn’t connected to reality,he is a Prince Royal who was to be King,he is a multi-millionaire who inherited great lumps of England,but if he doesn’t start minding the shop and taking care of the paying customers,he is likely to end up EX all that.
I really don’t Know what old ‘Chazzer’ said. I certainly hope it was nothing like the story that was published in the papers. But that is the major problem with the MSM, you’re never quite sure when you’re being ‘spun’.
Saying that, the Heir Apparent does have something of a track record in ‘Spiritual Matters’, I hope that he and G W will have a nice chat about Islam and how nice a religion it is with really nice (but misunderstood) followers, and how if we all sat down together and read that nice book, the Q’ran, we could all live together and be nice to each other.
(what’s the emoticon for f*****g nausia?)
I think Michael Farris original comment is an excellent one. Religions are nothing without their proselytizers and followers, all of whom are human beings. Moreover, religions are created by humans, and it is up to humans to interpret them.
Why can’t the Prince of Wales devote his time to snappy dressing like his predecessor did?
Frankly, we Americans have a far greater need for sartorial guidance than for loopy sermons on moral relativism.
Michale Farris writes:
“And a significant minority of Muslims have made some very bad choices in which aspects of Islam to follow and emphasize and which to ignore and disregard.”
What, aside of liberal sensibilities, makes you so sure it is a minority, significant or otherwise?
As far as I can see, all the evidence suggests that a very great number of Moslems share an aggressive intolerance of almost everything we hold as fundamental principles in the West.
Or are those street scenes from Iran, Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere just the product of creative camerawork?
Alisa says: “Moreover, religions are created by humans, and it is up to humans to interpret them.”
Religious people think that religions were created by their god or gods; not other people.
The red granger – “snappy dresser” presumably referring to snappy Nazi sympathiser King Edward?
The Prince of self-pity sure knows how to test the mettle of all monarchists.
GCooper, I don’t pretend to understand what Iranians, Pakistanis etc think. I do think it’s a mistake to assume that they see ‘our’ values the same way we do (since their experience of them hasn’t been ours) and religion and political resistance have become entangled in horrible ways in most of the Muslim world.
I’ll repeat my question, if I’m wrong and Muslims are being motivated by an inherently flawed religion that will always lead to violence against non-believers, what do you propose doing about a) Muslims who are citizens of your country b) the rest of the Muslims in the world?
I doubt Chuck will be referencing this bit:
Manfred Nowak, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, presented his report. It includes:
Read it all, it’s short, with responses from Yemen and Libya Eye on the U.N(Link).
Actually it says that a specific government was delegated the authority to enforce such criminal statutes, and that the government in question was eventually dissolved, not to be seen again.
There is a clear dividing line between the relatively brief mission of the Jewish theocratic government and the ongoing mission of the current Church. The Church was founded under a framework of voluntary association and harmless but relentless fisking – not unlike a group blog. There would be no continuation of the theocratic mission that was given to somebody else.
That line was eventually crossed because the State nationalized the Church and perverted Christianity to conform to its own image. The occasional prattle about the alleged destructive force of religion fails to distinguish between public- and private-sector religion. Take any religion – I don’t care what religion it is – and if you make it the official religion of any state it will adopt the worst attributes of its puppet master. It doesn’t matter what that religion’s commandments or rede or eightfold path says; in a theocracy, the Scripture is just a “living document” to be perverted by a bunch of political/ecclesiastical David Souters.
Michael Farris asks: “I’ll repeat my question, if I’m wrong and Muslims are being motivated by an inherently flawed religion that will always lead to violence against non-believers, what do you propose doing about a) Muslims who are citizens of your country b) the rest of the Muslims in the world?”
In the case of the former, stop appeasing Islamofascism and apply the full extent of the law to prosecute where appropriate.
If some Moslems conclude that the UK is no longer a country in which they wish to live, so be it. I will not regret their decision to leave.
In the case of the latter, again, stop pretending that Islam is anything other than how it manifests.
It may be that diplomacy, education and other means might eventually have some effect, but if not, at least the viper will have been shooed out of the living room.
And now, perhaps, you will reciprocate with your proposal? I hope it isn’t appeasment, because it’s perfectly plain that it isn’t working.
A clumsy person typed: “appeasment”
And meant: appeasement.
Perhaps Prince Chuckles thinks Americans should follow the lead of the UK government and appoint senior covert operatives of the Muslim Brotherhood to posts.
Michael Farris, or my I call you Prince Charles? – You write: ” … (since their experience of them hasn’t been ours) and religion and political resistance have become entangled in horrible ways in most of the Muslim world.”
No they haven’t. There is no “political resistance”. The dickshits who beheaded the little Indonesian girls walking to their Christian school in Indonesia on Saturday. They were resisting what, exactly? The 1972 Olympics, the Achille Lauro, the Iranian Embassy, the WTC, the Madrid railway station, the Hindu island of Bali, the Philippines, Thailand for god’s sake, murder on the streets of Amsterdam, blowing up London Transport and, oh, let’s go back 500 years or so. What were their political gripe? They certainly must be the world’s touchiest people!
This is a war of conquest, and while some of the turns splatter their body parts around in a most unpleasant way, the foot soldiers Sikbal Sacranie and all the self-styled “community spokesmen” inch forward on the ground with a prohibition here and a whiny pleading there and the Dhimmi Tony Blair creates new laws against freedom of speech – one of our most ancient freedoms, to placate them. This is a clash of civilisations, not grievances, and it’s been going on for centuries. For some reason, it picked up steam again in the 70s of the last century.
I don’t have any answers. But I don’t pretend not to see what’s going on in the enlightened West (except plucky little Denmark, whose prime minister told them to get lost).
“And now, perhaps, you will reciprocate with your proposal? I hope it isn’t appeasment, because it’s perfectly plain that it isn’t working.”
Well within a non-Muslim country that I might live in, I’m in favor of a very high wall between church and state and not allowing religious/cultural exemptions from civil law (kill your rebellious daughter and spend the rest of your life in jail, you can cover your hair, but not your face on id’s, don’t like what Joe Idiot said about your religion? tough) and making it clear to immigrants (in a pleasant, diplomatic way) that they are guests in my metaphorical house and as such are expected to abide by house rules (making it clear what those rules are before they arrive) or leave.
Internationally, things go on a case by case basis. The first, biggest, distinction to make is between things that are the West’s concerns and things that aren’t.
It’s also necessary to distinguish between religion being used as a cover against a despotic local government and cases where it’s used to further despotic aims.
“Michael Farris, or my I call you Prince Charles?”
Only if I may call you Jeanne-Marie Le Pen.
You obviously missed the part where I referred to your future king as a bothersome fool. And I fully agree that violent political Islam is one of the worst ideas in the modern world (probably _the_ worst idea that’s a going concern since Marxism is mostly dead). I just don’t think labelling a religion (and by extension the hundreds of millions who follow it) as inherently evil is very productive or liable to lead to any good solutions.
Most of your examples have little to do with each other except that in most of them there is a distinctly political (as opposed to purely religious) context.
Alan K. Henderson: it seems that Islam was originally designed as a political philosophy, as much as a religion in a conventional sense of the word. That is to say that theocracy is built-in within Islam, and that is what makes it essentially different from Judaism and Christianity.
Verity: yes, many (not all) religious people would disagree with my statement. However, that is irrelevant to the point I am trying to make, which is that every person is ultimately responsible for their actions (or inaction), not the set of beliefs (religious or otherwise) that they may be holding. If and when we put our hand on one of those people who beheaded hostages in Iraq, and if and when they are put on trial, it is the person, not their religion that will be on trial, just as that person will not be able to blame his religion for his actions.
And Diana was as thick as a plank…………
Sandy P writes:
“And Diana was as thick as a plank”
I thought plankism was banned here?
Does Charles still want to be a tampon?
Verity: “‘snappy dresser’ presumably referring to snappy Nazi sympathiser King Edward?”
Yes. It was a joke, Verity.
Cripes. Sometimes I forget where I am: The blogosphere, where admitting to wearing a Windsor knot means you’re probably a fascist in somebody’s eyes.
Michael Farris and Alisa (with whom I often agree, although not today), as long as you choose to ignore the agenda in the cause of being fair, you will be complicit in the undermining of the West.
I have a feeling neither of you has any familiarity at all with the koran and the hadiths. This “religion” is a religion of conquest and absolutism and has been ever since it was invented. The sheer hatred of other beings that comes pouring out is horrible. Jews are sons of pigs and monkeys – they say, I hasten to add!! Everyone is born a Muslim, so those of us 5bn or so who do not own up to this “fact” are apostates and need to be killed. Or we can “revert” (there’s no such thing as conversion, because you were born a Muslim and you chose to leave Islam). Rape is fine. No biggie. (“Use your slavegirls as you please.”) Paedophilia – no probs. Nine is the age of consent in a girl.
If you don’t want to “revert” to Islam, but are willing to acknowledge its superiority in all things (oh no! – not fashion, surely!!) you will be spared, although you must maintain an air of submissiveness in the presence of Muslims. If you are an extremely good Dhimmi, they may allow you to wear shoes. You’ll have to be in by a certain time in the evening, and not allowed to leave your house before a certain hour. And of course, you’ll have to pay the Dhimmi tax – jizya.
This is an iron-fisted religion of control and conquest. It is not about assimilation. It is about vanquishing and has been for a thousand years. Wakey wakeeee!
Preaching the greatness of a religion is usually done by that religion’s missionaries. So when did Charles convert to Islam?
Goe, just askin’.
goemagog – This seems to be a rumour around the US. They don’t understand how isolated this man is. He’s preaching “tolerance” because he doesn’t have to deal with it. I wonder how many Islamics he’s got working for him. I’m betting – none. He knows it from a romantic point of view – the architecture, the call of the muezzin to prayer on a state visit to Rawalpindi, Sufism, Persian miniatures blah blah blah.
And palaces do attract queens. In my experience, most gays like women and like hanging out with us, but some will be attracted to the mysogynistic elements of Islam and some of these people will be advisors.
Verity writes:
“… but some will be attracted to the mysogynistic elements of Islam and some of these people will be advisors.”
Always a consideration when dwelling on the motivation of Foreign Office Arabists, as well.
Old Charlie talks some sense so give him some slack (at least he’s only a figurative head of state) but Islam/Muslim/followers of Allah/ brothers….blah, etc have tended to kill, murder, blow up or generally be pissed off with infidels for centuries.
Face it: an ever expanding EU will, within a couple of decades, be Islamic. Whether extremist or not, there will be more muslims/moslems than any other members of a religious denomination.
I love being a wholly apathectic, pathetically lapsed Anglican but apathy is a mania’s best friend. I try to be liberal but non-Islamists could be seriously under the cosh, relatively soon.
What gets my goat the most is utter BS, propagandarist bollocks like this, which was subsidised by the submissive British taxpayer!
Yes Charles is almost totally removed from reality.You would be too if you’d had flunkys putting your toothpaste on your brush since the day you were born.
He knows little of anything.
He doesn’t know anything of Britains secularity, because he has never met it, or indeed it’s religiosity because, he’s never met that either.
He thinks he does cos he’s got a degree from Cambridge, with out realising that the rest of us ( back then) let it go through on the nod. Knowing he wouldn’t really have graduated a Polytechnic with those grades.
Do Islamists talk to plants ? New one on me! Except to threaten them perhaps!
But hey you guys, lay up on Camilla.
She is a a great lay, likes a big drink and has a very salty sense of humour.
She may look like Keith Richards and can rock like him too, but I’m sure you Americans will take to her.
As for buggerlugs. Nuff said.
Well stated Perry. I fail to see how HRH can use some perversion of ‘cultural appreciation’ as to whether to favour either USA or Islamic achievement, especially given his apparent love of architecture and art and the Wahabbi fervent opposition to it – their committed destruction of any form of monument, gravestone, elaboration etc.
Perhaps Her Majesty might be persuaded to prevent her slightly errant offspring from handing a republican movement coup to Tony Blair and his slavering minions.
Precisely, G Cooper! That is why I said somewhere above that Prince Charles’s advisors are cut from the same cloth as some civil servants in the FO and State.
It’s a coterie and Prince Charles, operating in a protected bubble, is being advised by them. He will read excerpts from the newspapers that are prepared for him each morning. He will see video clips of the news that have been prepared for him. By Arabists.
Before he decided to chastise President Bush on a state visit, I didn’t think Charles was a bad man or a stupid man; just isolated by his position. Now I think he is stupid, arrogant and rude. We will see how the president reacts. He’s much, much more intelligent than Charles, and being a politician who earned his position by his wits, much quicker-witted.
Should be entertaining to watch Charles being patronised by a president too courteous to effortlessly julienne him in public.
Oh no-o-o-h! Please no-o! Prince Charles is to visit New Orleans! Oh please tell me this is a joke! (Link)
New Orleans, portrayed, inaccurately, in the MSM as President Bush’s Waterloo … Charles and Camilla are going to go and meet “emergency workers” (that must mean federal as the ones employed by NO city were too busy trying on looted shoes for the correct size in Wal-Mart at the time) and “families affected by the disaster”.
Who planned this trip? First Charles is going to lecture President Bush on Islam and then he’s going to New Orleans? Are they insane?
And don’t Charles’s elegant advisors know that the actual hurricane Katrina hit down in Mississippi (Republican administration)? And who advised them to visit a hurricane zone that happened a couple of months ago, eh? There have been two intervening hurricanes since then. Oh, the humiliation when they hit NO and no one has the faintest idea of who they are! Are they expecting bunting?
Will there be any mention on the elegant BBC that George W’s hometown Houston took around 100,000 evacuees in – plus over 900 pets taken in to the Houston SPCA – and Houstonians drove up donating carloads of dog and cat food and kitty litter? And my best friend tells me most of the evacuees have now found jobs in the service industries and are planning to settle in Houston? Making Houston, and Texas, even richer?
And Charles and Camilla are going to visit the losers who were left behind because they didn’t have the git-up-and-go to git up and go and who will not have the haziest notion of who they are.
I honestly do not believe this. I am stunned.
Cripes. Sometimes I forget where I am: The blogosphere, where admitting to wearing a Windsor knot means you’re probably a fascist in somebody’s eyes.
The way to keep your record clean is to avoid the dimple under the knot. Stick your thumb up under, between the front and back segments, and smooth it out.
Verity, about 15K hotel rooms are coming back on line on 11/1, IIRC.
Sandy P – They don’t know that. They are visiting the losers, out of “empathy with the little people”. Like they’ve ever met one. Believe me, this is not an upbeat story. This is going to be ugly. I can’t wait!
Looks like the Prince is doing a good job of irritating his subjects. Could be a ho-hum here in the States. The press here may be wary of fronting this guy lest he be too foolish.
Any expectations that the sycophants in the US media will savage the future king of England is probably misplaced. The only dark spot on HRH is that he dumped the darling of the media, Diana. However, he’s lived out his penance, married his true love, and all is now forgiven, especially if a little royal criticism can be thrown Bush’s way.
I predict no one outside the media will give a rat’s ass about the royal visit, but that any critical quotes of the US by the royals, or any that can be so construed, will be used by the media elites as further evidence for their argument of the widening gap and increasing isolation of the US from our putative Euro allies.
D Anghelone – Pay attention here: we are not “subjects”; we are citizens of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That’s what it says on our passports.
If we were subjects, which we are not, we would be subjects of the monarch, not her eldest son. So you’d still have egg on your face.
Yes, m’Lady. 🙂
Steven,
I don’t expect the US press to dump on him but to see him as too much a wild card to embrace. Or maybe they’re not that smart. We’ll soon see.
Just out of curiosity, when did we become citizens? Anyone know? When I was growing up the Brits were subjects of Her Maj, and most definately NOT citizens of anything. For us to become citizens of the UK there must have been legislation, just as there was when we became citizens of the EuroFraud.
Anyone got any idea of the story here?
Apart from anything else, surely to god Charles knows he is going to look like a blithering nitwit in the eyes of our closest ally?
I doubt it.
Is he connected to reality at all?
Again, I doubt it.
Who the hell is he to lecture Americans?
Oh, he’s got the same right to lecture us as anyone else on the planet.
One of the nicer qualities of Americans is that we extend 1st-Amendment free-speech privileges to everyone else on the planet- saying certain things may get one in trouble with their own government, but generally not with us.
Who elected him to anything?
Damned if I know, he’s your bloody crown prince.
And whatever happened to royalty keeping its flaming mouth shut?
What, and put all those tabloid reporters out of work? The British Royalty keeps a great many media types off the unemployment rolls, you know…
I hope the US media eats him alive, the fool. This man is dangerous.
ROFL! The very notion of the US media eating anyone but a Republican Supreme Court nominee alive is hilarious. Everyone else gets a gentle gumming from baba wawa, at worst.
I’m with Michael Farris (and, I think, Perry) but the question of quantification is interesting. Several of the fiercer commentators lose all capacity for reason when Islam or Muslims are mentioned, but not GCooper. So I suggest this is worth discussing:
Or are those street scenes from Iran, Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere just the product of creative camerawork?
In a general sense, yes. The crowds are real, but they aren’t representative of the majority of the population, who are busy, like everyone everywhere else, getting on with their lives. What we see in such places–which have very tight control of news reporting, and public behaviour–is the official version of the popular feeling, portrayed as fervently critical of foreign iniquity, with attention directed away from any problems at home. If you aren’t going to behave in a manner approved by the secret police, even if it is just sitting drinking coffee and observing the hullaballoo cynically, you will do so out of sight, off-camera.
Daily, three items below the highly important and dignified doings of the King/President as international statesman and wise father of the nation, this stuff is boring and undramatic. We only get these scenes shown in the West because, unlike the ‘popular demonstrations’ of Far Eastern dictatorships, they are shambolic enough to look unstaged when shown occasionally, and because they are appealing, colourful, storytelling elements for our own telejournalists. The leftish telejournalist and his critic hawk both fit these things into their own stories and both give them more meaning than they actually have.
This is not to say that the some or all of the demonstrators do not feel something strongly. But it is difficult to guess what they do feel or what they think is the significance of what they are doing.
If you talk to people who took part in the British “Stop the War” march, they all seem to be convinced that they were doing something important. And most of them appear to be left with their own political views (whatever they were before) reinforced, because they assume that lots of other marchers agree with them. But those views are very various. There is no single coherent account of what the march was for, or what it was supposed to do. That for a publicly organised event in a very open society.
Oookay, now that everyone has had their fun piling on Charles, can somebody please point me to any real evidence that he intends to hector Dubya? On actually reading the Daily Telegraph article, this appears to be a warmed-over repeat of some comments he made over four years ago now to Sir Iqbal Sacranie, et al. All in all, it sounds about as well sourced as the “God told me to invade Iraq” comments Bush was supposed to have made a few weeks ago – and I seem to recall rather more scepticism around here about that. As for the substance of the story, Charles may be a wooly sentimentalist about certain things but I’m quite certain he is far too well mannered to abuse his host in the latter’s own home.
And as for the “no use to man or beast” stuff – when Charles left the Royal Navy he used his pay-off to found the Prince’s Trust, a charity which helps young people to start their own businesses. These days, it’s a multi-million pound operation which according to some estimates helps 1 in 10 of all british businesses founded by people under 30 to get going. Add this to the way he’s turned the Duchy of Cornwall into a highly profitable business, and it’s pretty clear that he’s actually a talented businessman and someone who has done a great deal more for the community in general than most of his critics.
Oh, and he saw through that airhead bimbo he married (the first time) well before most of the rest of us…
State religion was the norm for most of human history. There’s a reason for that. The relationship between a country and the divine was viewed as like that between a vassal state and a much bigger nation that could wipe it out at any moment. Religion was just another form of foreign diplomacy, the sort of thing that was led by governments, not private citizens.
Christianity began in the private sector, and Judaism was eventually forced there by the Babylonian conquest. But Islam appears to have locked itself into this mechanism. I have postulated that Islam can honestly adapt to living in peace with the non-Muslim world only if one can logically demonstrate that Mohammad did not call for Islamic conquest to extend beyond Arabia (or that he explicitly stated that the conquest would stop at a certain point – which is soooo unlike autocrats). I doubt that such a case could be made, but I’d like to see someone try.
Chris Harper,
If you are British born then you are, by birthright, a British citizen. The key difference is the little “Holder has the right of abode in the United Kingdom” stamp, which British subjects do not have in their passports. You may recall the infamous selloff by Chris Patten in the 1990’s in Hong Kong where they sold off British passports at £2000 per go to over 50,000 Chinese, only for the unfortunate beneficiaries to discover that they didn’t have the right to settle in Britain.
The changeover from “subject” to “citizen” appears to have been made with the 1948 Nationality Act, when the process of tightening up the definition of British citizenship to cope with the retreat from Empire began (a British subject was anybody born within the British Empire, regardless of race, creed or geography). It should be noted that traditionally the British found the word “citizen” distasteful – in the aftermath of the French revolution it had much the same sort of negative political overtones that the word “comrade” did in the aftermath of the Russian – and actually preferred the word “subject” for a long while. This sentiment appears to have faded by 1948, however.
The changeover from “subject” to “citizen” appears to have been made with the 1948 Nationality Act, when the process of tightening up the definition of British citizenship to cope with the retreat from Empire began (a British subject was anybody born within the British Empire, regardless of race, creed or geography). It should be noted that traditionally the British found the word “citizen” distasteful – in the aftermath of the French revolution it had much the same sort of negative political overtones that the word “comrade” did in the aftermath of the Russian – and actually preferred the word “subject” for a long while. This sentiment appears to have faded by 1948, however.
Someone should send Prince Charles a copy of Roger Scruton’s excellent “The West and The Rest.”. A short but superbly written gem. It may even set him straight on a few issues, notably, the need for a clear separation of church and state.
The notion of this silly, vain and rather unpleasant man lecturing Dubya is bloody hilarious. George Bush went out of his way after 9/11 to make it clear that he had no quarrel with Muslims per se. Maybe Chuck was too busy bonking Camilla to have noticed.
My greatest resentment is reserved for those who make sweeping generalisations about our modern lives, and grandly inform us that islam can salvage our broken, materialistic existance.
Especially when they themselves are:
1. The divorced son of a woman who regularly sends greeting cards to fellow Britons celebrating their diamond wedding anniversaries.
2. Rarely on speaking terms with his own parents.
3. Unemployed
4. Thick as two short planks.
5. Overwhelmed by panic at every new invention.
That bloody man is a waste of space on the planet earth.
Monty, add this to your list of things about him that get on my goat.
He is often on about environmental issues – this from a man who has been responsible for more personal consumption in his life for his own well being than just about anybody on earth in history. Fuel guzzling cars, convoys of cars, heating huge homes, honeymoons on yachts with just 2 passengers….Let’s see him cut down!
As for the Islam thing, George Bush is a gracious host and will no doubt show the loon respect. But GWB really is not up for this Islam promotion thing – it will just flow over the top of him.
Monty, add this to your list of things about him that get on my goat.
He is often on about environmental issues – this from a man who has been responsible for more personal consumption in his life for his own well being than just about anybody on earth in history. Fuel guzzling cars, convoys of cars, heating huge homes, honeymoons on yachts with just 2 passengers….Let’s see him cut down!
As for the Islam thing, George Bush is a gracious host and will no doubt show the loon respect. But GWB really is not up for this Islam promotion thing – it will just flow over the top of him.
guy herbert writes:
“The crowds are real, but they aren’t representative of the majority of the population…”
How can we know this?
We can make a guess, but in the absence of reporting from other than the the likes of Orla Guerin and her sisters in Christ, what actual information do we have?
Without that intelligence, is it safe to assume that the average citizen of, say, Iran or Indonesia, has the genial complacency of the Muggins family from Surbiton?
At risk of invoking Godwin’s law, would we have been safe to have followed this principle in the (torch)light of the Nuremberg rallies?
Or would we have been better to have seen the signs for what they were and acted accordingly?
Populations do get inflamed and do behave in ways that can only be understood in terms of mass psychosis: at which point wars happen.
Add, on this occasion, the unquantifiable element of religious fanaticism to the evidence that we have (flawed as it is) and I would say it means that we face a threat so great that we simply dare not make generous assumptions.
To put it another way, would those crowds in Tehran dance and ululate the day the Tel Aviv vanished beneath a mushroom cloud?
Dare we take that risk?
Verity: “… “subjects”; we are citizens of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. If we were subjects, which we are not, we would be subjects of the monarch,”
This is something that has always tickled me. The chippyness about being a ‘subject’, it used to be a sure fire means of identifying the firebrands of the left.
Just for the record, we were formerly subjects of the crown. In the UK we used to be subject to the law which was carried on in the name of the Crown. We were all freemen to boot.
Since we have become citizens in the new republic of blairestan, we are subject to HIS whim. That is, we really are norhing more than items on an inventory.
Our glorious leader of Blairestan has passed laws that allow his henchmen to forcebly evict whole districts, whole cities with no recourse in law. His highness has passed (what is in my opinion an) unconstitutional law to suspend the courts in any circumstance of his choosing.
We maybe citizens, but in fact, we really are abject and subject to His whim. Nor are we any longer freemen.
Oh! and as if to confirm our new status. Applicants for citizenship of the UK must know that you need a television license to own a television. This knowledge is a prerequsite of being a citizen in blairestan. They can probably submit this piece of critical information on a form in any of a selection of languages other than english.
Yet another reason why I will continue to wish the Queen good health. Getting that twit Charles anywhere near the throne would be a very bad thing too be sure.
Just for the record, we were formerly subjects of the crown. In the UK we used to be subject to the law which was carried on in the name of the Crown. We were all freemen to boot.
The status of ‘subject’ was much like the American ‘citizen’? Thought of as a status more of rights than of obligations? I expect that’s an affirmative, though in both nations the balance is shifting to obligations.
APL – I wouldn’t mind being a subject, but that is not how I’m categorised on my passport and my irritation springs from the condescending American belief that we are all subjects, often commented on in a pathetic imitation of an English accent. Fan of the United States and the Americans as I am, and as dismissive of Prince Charles as I am, it irritates me equally to hear Americans refer to him as “Charlie”. Most of them do this in the mistaken belief that Charles is a descendant of Bonnie Prince Charles who was a Scot, not a German.
rosignol – When I wrote that this man [Charles] is dangerous, I certainly didn’t mean to the United States! He is dangerous to Britain. He is naive, has bad advisors and is too involved in the Islamic lobby.
Here’s my favorite part of the article Vertiy linked on Chuck’s visit to NO:
Because, you know, Global Warming is 100% relevant to what happened in New Orleans – and we’re all just dying to hear’s Charles’ meticulously researched opinions on the subject.
My second-favorite part:
I feel exactly the same way.
… my irritation springs from the condescending American belief that we are all subjects…
Gee, Verity, that was a tweak and not a belief.
Condescension? I have no basis for condescension.
Personally, I want to know what Charles thinks is the likely direction of the Nasdaq and the gold market next year.
Joshua – That was wonderful! Thank you!
The man is unhinged. Why go to New Orleans, which wasn’t even hit by the real Katrina, which touched down in Mississippi. New Orleans only got the outer fringes, but the fragility and poor maintenance of the levies (due to corruption) is what allowed the devastation to happen. NOT GLOBAL WARMING, CHARLES! Human greed, corruption and ineptitude.
And the visit is such an outrageously politcal act to push an agenda. We have had two hurricanes through since then – Stan (which the Houston mayor and his emergency team handled immaculately; not one death) and Wilma. But oh, no. Katrina is the poster girl of the Gobal Warming One Worlder Party, so of course, Prince Charles, who has no connection with the area whatsoever, has to climb on the bandwagon just as it’s leaving town. How embarrassing!
On your second point, Joshua, did Prince Charles really seem to think he has a bond with the British?
I suppose HRH has an affinity for Islam because it would have considerably simplified his marital problems. He could have had Camilla for whatever it is he does with her, a thought that literally sends chills down the spine of many a strong man, and Diana to produce the heir and spare. Otherwise you get the impression that for him religion is a nice idea that gives the rabble something to do on a Sunday morning, or Friday afternoon, or whenever it is these people perform their beastly rituals.
“Yet you would be hard pressed to find a Christian who would regard going back to that as desirable”
My guess is that you have not spent much time inn red-state America? Much of the U.S. that is not touched by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans would gladly turn to a theocratic ruler, provided he was some sort of christian.
akaky: The bible has many examples of polygamy in it, so far as I know monogamy is a European imposition on christianity, though I could be wrong on that.
Meanwhile, Charles’s soulmates in Iran have just had a major crackdown on … “alluring mannequins” in boutiques and market stalls. One minute the nuclear bomb; the next minute the destruction of Israel; the following minute, banning fashion mannequins. It’s all go in Iran.
Or they refer to him as Charlie to cut him down to size, Verity.
Getting back to Perry’s concern:
Prince Charles and Camilla head to America; British media predict indifference
>
“The trip has been dismissed as a ‘royal bore’ by Americans,” The Daily Mail newspaper said Tuesday, quoting a headline in USA Today.
Royal
They may (or may not) be “citizens” of GB (i.e., legal residents) but they are subjects of their monarch. They didn’t elect her, and she has told them who their next monarch will be: one of her kids.
I don’t know what Prince Charles expects to accomplish- one of the stereotypes given to Americans is that we’re stubborn- and if you’re from the south you’re stupidly stubborn- and Bush is both…I think he’s pretty much set in his ways and if he won’t change for the general population of the world that disagrees with him I sincerly doubt that Prince Charles will be able to work his magic that much. I mean come on, Bush isn’t Camille…
And for the person who mentioned that the red states would like a theocratic leader- I doubt it. There are some who could be easily convinced by a Goebbels personality that this could be a good idea (ie the crazy southern Baptists that feel the need to scream “Alleluliah!” and Amen!” during Church), but for the most part I think America is very much for the “seperation of church and state” and if looked at closely are not very religious at all. In fact it’s gotten to the point of ridiculousness with some wanting to change the American Pledge of Alligence.
God Bless the British royal family… they’re like a free episode of “Geraldo” without even having to turn on your television. If the British Royal Family and Barbra Streisand were to fade from the earth, I don’t know what I’d do…
“In fact it’s gotten to the point of ridiculousness with some wanting to change the American Pledge of Alligence.|
You left out a word, “back”, the “under god” was added in the 50’s (to scare the commies) and totally screws up the rhythm of the thing.
Say both versions out loud and see which scans better.
Michael Farris – Interesting. I didn’t know that.
I love it when blue-staters make such idiotic generalizations about people from the other 45 states (heh!).
I spent 20 years in Texas. I met:
no people who want a “theocratic ruler”;
some people who attend church regularly;
even more people who do not attend church at all;
lots of people who are against abortion;
lots of people who are against banning abortion;
We gots them thar rock and roll stations down thar too; thet’s the devils music.
I guess that’s the view from Oakland, NJ – dim blue.
Bombadil – Yup. I lived in Houston for years and – my sainted aunt! – they all had Hooter’s and dozens of topless places, PLUS gay discos. And dark bars. And lots of people spend Sunday mornings on their patios drinking bloody marys while they read the papers instead of going to church. Liquor stores do home deliveries in case you can’t be bothered to drive the three or four blocks yourself.
I cannot think of anyone, including churchgoers, who would entertain the notion for one second of a theocratic ruler. Red states are very much live-and-let-live type populations. It’s the liberals that want to impose their beliefs on other people, which is why one avoids living in a blue state at all costs.
Tom Wright: I am not entirely unfamiliar with ‘red-state America’. Are you seriously suggesting there is a meaningful constituency for burning witches, the killing of Christians of different denominations and putting advocates of ‘heretical’ scientific theories to death as was the vogue in the Dark and Middle Ages? I did not write that you cannot find Christians who dislike pagans, distrust catholics (or whatever) and oppose the theory of evolution, just that it is rare indeed to find many who think it is ok to kill folks on that basis.
Now I do not doubt there are a few nutters who can be found to support more or less any lunatic notion, but can you actually show me a sizable group who is arguing for a theocracy in the USA? Look, I have no axe to grind here as I am a Godless Apostate myself but a bunch of politicos declaiming about The Lord every time they open their cakeholes, or supporting school prayers and opposing abortion does not a theocracy make! Iran. That is what a theocracy looks like.
Sorry to sound snarky but your distaste for Middle American ‘Jesus Land’ has just led you to say something pretty silly.
APL said:
“Our glorious leader of Blairestan has passed laws that allow his henchmen to forcebly evict whole districts, whole cities with no recourse in law. His highness has passed (what is in my opinion an) unconstitutional law to suspend the courts in any circumstance of his choosing.”
Well, at least you still have your weapons so you can prevent this despotic regression of freedoms… Oh, wait, sorry.
Just like the creeping takeover by Islam, not only the UK but many countries have been placed in a position of helplessness by political manuvering disguised at social concern.
Something about a whimper and not a bang.
“political manuvering disguised at social concern.” Excellent. A snapshot of Britain today. Helpless to fight against the government which will dismiss them contemptuously as racists, little Englanders, uncaring, divisive, ignorant, intolerant, etc, which means, the government doesn’t have to address your concerns because you are not worthy.
Guys, please. I am hostile to idiotic dhimmitude as well and many things sucketh big-time but get a grip, the country is not being ‘taken over’ by Islam!
Perry de Havilland writes:
“…get a grip, the country is not being ‘taken over’ by Islam!”
OK. But could we, perhaps, agree on: ‘is being unduly influenced by’ ?
I’ve lived in Houston for most of my life, I turn 30 soon. And I can confirm opinions on both sides. There are a lot of religious nuts here who would gladly fall for a Christian theocracy. But they don’t seem to be numerous enough, or well enough organized to influence government. Brothels operate quite openly here, but I’ve never yet found a store willing to deliver beer to my door.
Prince Charles,
A good example of why cousins should not marry.
Greg – Given the cost, I don’t know if beer is worth delivering, but there was a place that delivered hard liquor on Buffalo Speedway, left off Richmond outbound.
Is the Queen a cousin of Prince Philip? I don’t think so. Maybe a distant relation, but a first or second cousin? No!
Also, Susan, Charles is not unintelligent. He’s probably about average – maybe a little above. It is his isolation and that he is prey to palace courtiers and has no understanding of normal life that causes him to say things that beggar belief. He isn’t connected to the real world. His news is filtered into précis by his advisors. He only reads extracts. He doesn’t sit down and watch the TV News – even the BBC would better than nothing – and he doesn’t listen to the car radio as he drives to work because he doesn’t drive to work. Everyone he meets is deferential – meaning no one says him nay; no one argues with him – and he thinks this is normal life. And like kings and queens and princes throughout the history of the human race, he is vulnerable to flattery – in his case from the Islamics and the global warming missionaries. I don’t care for him and I think he could, at some point, be dangerous, but he isn’t stupid.
Verity, if you really want to shit your drawers (not literally I hope). I remember reading an article that left the distinct impression that Prince “Oedipus” Charles is more or less a covert convert to Islam (no such thing has ever existed before anywhere, but royalty has its privileges, I guess) His identification goes way beyond liking some bits and pieces taken out of context. Sorry, I don’t have the reference handy, but it shouldn’t be hard to google. Even me (who sincerely personally likes the great majority of Muslims I’ve ever known) finds this alarming, in that it sends entirely the wrong message to millions of unassimilated muslims in Europe.
Maybe he’s just waiting for flesh mommy, now that he he’s married his spiritual mommy, to kick the bucket before making the conversion final/public? At least females in that bloodline seem to live forever unless they make a concentrated decades long effort to kill themselves like Margaret. So there’s probably a few decades before he comes out, by which time, lots of things can happen.
Verity,
Phillip is a cousin of the Queen twice over, but it is true, they are not close cousins. His grandfather George I of Greece was the brother of the Queen’s great-grandmother, Queen Alexandra, and thus the maternal uncle of her grandfather, George V.
In addition Phillip’s great-grandmother, Princess Alice, the Grand Duchess of Hesse, was the sister of the Queen’s great-grandfather, Edward VII.
They share four immediate common ancestors: Victoria and Albert on the Windsor side, and King Christian IX and Queen Louise of Denmark on Queen Alexandra’s side.
It’s not well known, but Phillip is in the line of succession to his wife’s throne. However, since he’s only descended from Queen Victoria’s second daughter Alice, there are about five hundred heirs in front of him.
Pedantically ours,
Susan
Susan – yes. The Queen and her husband are no more closely related than were our ancestors in Britain who lived in villages within a couple or four miles of each other for generations. It produced a doughty, intelligence breed.
You say “It’s not well known….but …”. A secret known only to you and tens of thousands of royal genealogists all over the world?
As you say regarding the Duke of Edinburgh, “there are about five hundred heirs in front of him.” Quite a large gene pool then.
Attack Prince Charles for his naive, arrogant and dangerous thinking, not his genes.
Michael Farris – Ah, yes, the old Prince Charles is a secret Muslim! But of course! He has a secret desire to give up the throne (not bloody likely!) and his position as the head of the Church of England (right!) because he is a secret convert to a primitive religion which offers him absolutely nothing except losing everything. Right. He’s such an aesthetic.
This goes round and round the internet among American posters. No British, Europeans or Ozzies. Just Americans who have personally been taken aboard space ships landing in a Nevada desert.
Charles is not connected to the real world. He thinks it would be a lovely moment if all the religions came together for a big kumbayah group hug. This is a man whose valet puts his toothpaste on his toothbrush for him every morning.
I remember when the scutbut was gay. Frank Sinatra was secretly gay. Prince Charles (again!) was secretly gay. Shakespeare was secretly gay. Now they’re all secretly Muslim. Actually, Cat Stevens is probably secretly a Methodist.
verity,
It was only an (admittedly) weak joke, sorry if I offended you. I’ll ignore your snide asides about Americans as perhaps having an off night! Charles IS very inbred; Phillip’s mother’s family the Hesse-Battenbergs and Elizabeth’s father’s family the Windsor/Coburgs are from the same tiny pool of German princely families who have been intermarrying with each other for centuries: the Hanovers, the Badens, the Hesses, the Erbach-Schonbergs, the Saxe-Coburgs, the Schleswig-Holsteiners, the Tecks etc.
Charles probably inherited his interest in world religions from his grandmother Alice of Battenberg, a deeply devout Orthodox Christian, who in her later years was a nun in the Greek Orthodox Church. Too bad he didn’t stick with an interest in the Orthodox Church but unfortunately developed an in explicable attachment to what Salman Rushdie aptly termed, “the world’s least huggable religion.”
Susan writes: I’ll ignore your snide asides about Americans as perhaps having an off night!
No. I meant them.
Charles probably inherited his interest in world religions from his grandmother Alice of Battenberg,
Can one “inherit” an interest in world religions, or anything else? Did this lady play a large part in his upbringing? I’ve never heard of her before, so think not.
Thanks for letting us know that the heir to the British throne “is very inbred”. Are you including Princes William and Harry in your genetic analysis? Or are they exempt, via St Diana who was, in your terms, also very “inbred”.
You’re good on Islam, Susan. Why not stick to what you know and not try to comment authoritatively on the royal family on a British blog?
He did. He regularly spends time on the Orthodox monastery at Mt. Athos & is said to be close to some Orthodox priests. A few years ago, it was suggested in a newspaper (Sunday Express, I think), that Charles was being instructed in the Orthodox faith.
All the indications are that Charles is a deeply spiritual person & seems to take an interest in almost all religions. This will inevitably include Islam. To go from that and suggest he has somehow been seduced by Islam is a stretch a bit far even for Samizdata.
EG
Who, aside from Michael Farris (and possibly gcooper), is making this suggestion? Note also responses from other regular posters condemning the idea.
“from his grandmother Alice of Battenberg”
Who, I take it, made a damn fine cake.
On a slightly different note, can we start a campaign to find the real King of England? I might be able to put up with the Crown if it sat on the head of someone who actually descends from the original holder, rather than offspring of families periodically imported to prop it all up.
I might be able to put up with the Crown if it sat on the head of someone who actually descends from the original holder…
I was under the impression that was the point of all the cousin-marrying that European nobility seems to be prone to- keeping the family business in the family, so to speak.
Euan is correct about Charles. He seems to have been interested in the spiritual life for decades. Nothing wrong with that, necessarily, though I’d rather like it if Charles became a Buddhist and wore some funky robes. He likes talking to plants, although I recall once doing the same around a friend’s house around 2 am in the morning after a lot of red wine……
Joshua writes: “Who, aside from Michael Farris (and possibly gcooper), is making this suggestion..”
What suggestion? A little context would help.
The context is Euan’s comment – immediately above mine.
The suggestion in question is reprinted for convenience here:
Michael Farris posted a comment suggesting that it was at least possible that Charles has covertly converted to Islam. As far as I can tell, his comment is the only one on the thread that says anything to the effect that Charles has been seduced by Islam – and Verity called him out for saying it. The standard opinion amongst everyone else seems to be that Charles is simply out of touch with reality and can therefore be expected to spout idealistic nonsense in public semi-regularly.
You have a comment up there to the effect that the UK is being unduly influenced by Islam – which I see was based not on one of your comments but on one by Winger – so I should have included his name in the “and possibly…” phrase. In any case, neither of these comments amounts to any assertion that Charles himself has been “seduced” by Islam. I was just including these as a rhetorical flourish.
The point is that there is no basis for Euan’s impression of the discussion here. Aside from one comment by Michael Farris (possibly meant to wind Verity up rather than to make any serious point), the discussion has been mostly about how Charles needs to learn his place – not about any wild assertions that he has been “seduced” by Islam.
There was one phrase that was pretty much guaranteed to make any Englishman retch in disgust and that was the Americans calling Charles and Diana “Chuck and Di”. What do they call Charles and Camilla now in the USA? I certainly hope it sounds better than something like the advertising slogan for a hand grenade manufacturer.
Joshua writes:
“You have a comment up there to the effect that the UK is being unduly influenced by Islam – which I see was based not on one of your comments but on one by Winger…”
Ah, I see.
In fact my comment was a response to Perry de Havilland’s rejection of the idea that the UK is being overtaken by Islam. While I think Mr de Havilland is correct, I also believe that Islam is being given an over-generous amount of leeway by liberals who, if they stopped to consider what they were actually supporting, would find that they were assisting something quite inimical to their worldview.
By extension, I would also suggest that influence now reaches into unwarranted legislative benefits and influence over government policy.
In other words, I was saying that while Mr de Havilland is right, the original claim, while silly, isn’t quite as silly as it sounds.
As for Charles, I find it hard to get exercised about the opinions of this foolish, vain, weak and inconsequential man who, on the whole, seems to have rather too much of the Stuart about him.
Charles had a lonely, unhappy childhood. At Gordonstoun, he was jeered at and bullied by the other boys for being the heir to the throne. He couldn’t call home because his mother and father were always away on affairs of state. He was isolated from his family and ignored or jeered at at school, and he turned inward. I daresay he is also widely read on Judaism, Buddhism and Sufism. Islam has pushed itself forward – right into the faces of the indigenes – which means they have been wily and oleaginous enough to have pursued and flattered Charles. He takes them at face value because he doesn’t have the nous and experience to judge them, knows nothing of taqqya and kitman and wants to believe the best of religion because it has sustained him.
This does not leaven the naiveté that has caused him to pick up the gauntlet of a religion that is a force for evil and then have the towering cheek to lecture his host (who is a realist and knows far more about the real Islam than Charles does) and probably, via his endless letters, British government ministers. I stick by my guns and reiterate that if Charles keeps this up, he could become dangerous.
A period of Trappist silence would be much appreciated.
G Cooper’s post went up at the same time as mine, but I would like to second every word he wrote.
Re a question raised by a commenter above, is there a pretender to the British throne? I think I read once that there is, but I don’t remember anything about him. Le Compte de Paris is the pretender to the French throne and is still treated like royalty. I believe he is addressed as Your Highness. A French person will know. Alice? Sylvain?
is there a pretender to the British throne?
This chap was the last one I remember hearing of…….
Mostly spot on.
Yet you would be hard pressed to find a Christian who would regard going back to that as desirable and I doubt many would have a problem if someone stood up and said “Yes, I know it says in the Bible that we should….”
Clearly you don’t live here in the US where both the church and the state seem to have taken it upon themselves to try to push us back a few decades. Aside from maybe the Unitarians, you’d be hard pressed to find a Christian organization these days who didn’t have a problem with someone not living their way. Supersized religion reigns supreme here.
Oh, god, not another bloody Hun!
Franz is the heir-general of the Royal House of Stuart and thus is regarded by Jacobites as the rightful King of England and Scotland. Jacobites refer to him as King Francis II of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, but he does not use these titles. I say! Damn’ decent of him! A veritable prince of a fellow!
Hey, isn’t Chuckles the future king of that little European country that is shutting down houses of worship, surveilling, and throwing people out for being Muslim? What does he suggest we do? Subcontract to some Jamaicans? Just asking…
This has me cracking up actually. I knew the prince was coming here, but i didn’t know he was going to lecture us. despite what the media reports most americans don’t give two shits about charles and camilla.
Bravo Perry. Perhaps Charles and the Queen of Amsterdam should get together and become the de facto royal puppet couple for Eurabia. They seem half way there anyway.
Thus far I have heard the following about the Prince and Duchesses’ visit:
1. She is bringing 50 dresses
2. He is going to lecture us on Islam
3. They are nervous about how we will like Camilla compared to Diana.
Big Whoop. All of this is in the “celebrity” section of our local papers and not considered a big deal at all, perhaps less than if Russell Crowe came to town. Hey, I’m not anti-royal, but give me a break. I’d love to see him take that lecture to Michael Howard in Australia!
Prince Charles…. hmmm isn’t he the guy that got Princess Diana killed?
Seriously this American couldn’t care less what His Royal Highness thinks… Sam Adams, George Washington and a few other American Patriots took care of that issue for us.
I’m late to this party, so I haven’t had tim to fully read every comment. Excuse me if I’m repeating the thoughts of others.
(1) Amercans liked Di, not him. She actually had something about her which might have made her a star no matter whom she married. As I noted on my own obscure little blog, he is famous and influential only – only – because of the owner of the birth canal that issued him into this world. Nobody at all on this side of the water is going to care what he says. Not Bush, not you, not me.
(2) Not that I care, but maybe the fact that it was a Musllim who replaced him as her boy toy has had some weird effect on His Royal Mediocre-ness.
As an American all I can say is that whether Prince Charles bows at the feet of Bush or attempts to lecture him about Islam won’t matter one bit. If you think Charles has diminished in the eyes of the general citizen of the UK just remember in America he has been enormously meaningless to us for some time.
A Hollywood actor playing a political leader on TV is going to garner more respect and/or media attention than Prince Charles.
To the average American a visit from Prince Charles is about as newsworthy as any other tourist on their way to Disneyworld–only less so since the toursit is probably going to actually spend money in our economy contribute something positive.
So, don’t worry about the Prince giving Americans a bad impression of the UK. To be honest, we really don’t give a damn one way or the other about him…
Oh my Ffffing god, I had to laugh when I read above that HRH would “look like” a blithering nitwit here in the States when everyone, and I mean everyone, I mention this to here in Texas rolls their eyes and loudly states “What a blithering nitwit this guy is!” We don’t exactly say “blithering nitwit” as eloquently as y’all do, but we say the Texas equivalent -> he’s a sandwich short of a picnic; the lights are on but no one’s home; his elevator doesn’t quite go all the way to the top. But y’all know what I mean.
There is some buzz – and has been for some time – that the reason Charles is so gushing about Islam is that some years ago he became a Muslim.
Not entirely meaningless, however. We’ve satirized him numerous times, including here at Mazurland Blog.
If you mean that to “have a problem with someone not living their way” means some Christian organizations don’t like it/don’t approve of it when people don’t share the same beliefs, yes, I’d agree with you. But it’s a loooooong way from “I don’t approve of what you believe” to “I’m going to legislate that you agree with me or else.”
To say that a theocratic ruler would be acceptable to us red-staters as long as he were “some sort” of Christian is to imply 1) a massive falsehood about us, and 2) that Christianity is far more monolithic than it is. Catholics are Christian, and Baptists are Christian, but if you think Baptists would be at all happy with a theocracy styled along the lines of Catholic beliefs, you’re crazy. Same for vice versa, as well as any number of other permutations of Christian denominations. Pretty much the only things you can say are true of all Christians are that they believe in God, and in his son Jesus Christ who died for our sins and then rose from the dead. Issues like how people achieve salvation, and how a believer should behave are widely disagreed upon.
Who cares what Bonnie Prince Tampon has to say, anyway?
Nearly every Christian believer I have known well enough to know their opinion on such things — on the order of a thousand, the vast majority in evangelical churches in the red states — is horrified by “legalism,” period. I invite anyone who thinks that Middle America harbors any significant numbers of Reconstructionists or similarly repellent characters to spend a few weeks out here and try to find any. Good luck; you’ll need it.
On the more general topic of the original post — don’t worry about us; we settled this at Yorktown. ;^)
I will listen, or more accurately read, what he has to say. I will look for ideas, thoughts, perceptions that I wouldn’t have come up with on my own. I will give him the respect he deserves. When all is said and done however I doubt that I will change my mind.
Joe Mama – The “Bonnie Prince” soubriquet was Bonnie Prince Charles of Scotland two centuries ago A completely different family, from a different country, in a different century, so your “joke” doesn’t work.
Donald Senseless – Read the previous comments before posting and demonstrating your profound, and somewhat excitable, ignorance.
Sheesh. I wish you Brits would keep your retarded royals locked up somewhere. On a dank moor, for preference.
Didn’t we see this dimwit in the Monty Python skit ” Upper class twits” ? Could you please keep your inbred loons on your side of the pond?
Verity, Pastor Sensing states pretty clearly on the post he links to that the evidence that the Prince of Wales has converted to the cult of the rock-worshippers is pretty thin, and includes on that post a link to Middle East Forum , whatever that is.
As regards the whole “Defender of the Faith” thing, could you forgive ignorant Yanks like myself if, having observed some of the truly silly things the C of E has done over the past few years, we think that he would be permitted to ascend to the throne despite having become a rug biter? What I mean by that is, it sometimes looks as if anything goes over there.
Might I suggest to my fellow Americans here that, Yorktown notwithstanding, there is such a thing as restraint and good manners, and that some here take offense at having their future Head of State referred to in diminishing terms? I am unkindly disposed towards Islam myself, but that doesn’t mean I can’t hold back from expressing that displeasure to persons who have no direct connection to the impending lecture we are about to receive.
/self-appointed comment policing
We have our own dottering old fool, his name is James Earl Carter, we certainly don’t need the UK’s. As to the media facing him down, not a chance, they are in denial just as HRH is. They’ll swoon all over him.
Mike James – I don’t think we’re much bothered by what Americans say about Prince Charles (he is not our head of state, by the way; that is the Queen), but we prefer that negative comments be informed by fact as opposed to barking, over-excitable ignorance.
Charles has many faults and I personally do not care for him. But if some of the posters had read the comments preceeding their own, rather than racing in yelping, they would know that Charles has had a lifelong interest in religion. He visits Greek Orthodox monasteries for retreats. He has long been a fan of the Dalai Lama and is interested in Tibetan Buddhism. He is interested in religion per se.
I’m not going to rehearse all the arguments above, but posters should pay the rest of us who have written them the courtesy of not racing in to nip at ankles with comments born of ignorance and chippiness when their issues have already been addressed.
How exactly has Bush (or America) been “confrontational”? Is that code for invading Afghanistan and Iraq? Because otherwise I haven’t seen anything but bending over (and bending down) to Islam from Bush and the rest of his administration.
Would like to second Ed Poinsett’s comment. Jimmy Carter is every bit as embarassing to the US as Prince Charles is to the UK. Also think Ed’s right about the treatment Charles will get from our annoying media – though I suspect what few ordinary citizens/subjecs/etc. as notice he’s here will enjoy a good laugh at his expense.
Damnit – did it again! That last comment is meant to be marked “Joshua,” as I’m the one who wrote it. Apologies for the name mixup (second time today – wow – must be under more stress than I thought!).
Charles is a product of an increasingly irrelevant class of humans. He might need to be reminded that it does not take much brain or achievement to be a royal, you just need to be born into it. Much like stepping in dog doodie, its just chance.
Probably not gonna be long until the Queen will be asked to wear some form of head covering in order not to offend Muslim “sensibilities”. Will the Brits realized it then?
I ain’t holding my breath.
‘Pick
I too, like Charles, am interested in Islam.
Where is my rifle?
In America we elect morons as Head of State. I gather the Brits get their morons by birth.
I’m not sure which is the better system.
(BTW I voted for Bush. So I guess I must take responsibility for the lousy state of American politics0
New names for the fabulous duo?
Kitty Whipped and Notorious? A bit ungenerous but accurate.
In the old days I always liked UpChuck and Di.
Possibly Chuckie and the Cheese? Assuming he eats cheese. Has any one inquired?
You know how it is in America. In America we are just as good as anybody else and most of us are better. If we want some one to put on airs we can hire Elizabeth Taylor.
What the Monarchy needs is some one like Clinton who reminded us that there are only people available for the job. What? Already had that and still demand respect for the institution? Well never mind then.
M Simon – Charles isn’t a moron, and I hate it that I am driven to defend him because I don’t like him.
It is irritating that people are deflecting the real argument.
The real argument is: why would someone who is privileged, yet totally disconnected from everyday life in Britain, be accorded the weight of a public voice on probably the most important issue of our time? Who cares what pensées waft down from the ivory tower?
He’s not a moron. He is not inbred. He has changed around 100,000 young entrepreneurs’ lives for the better with his Prince’s Trust. But he is bizarrely disconnected from – to come back to Perry’s article – a critical – self-imposed – issue facing the West: militant Islam. He thinks Islam is misunderstood and that is because the taqqiya and kitman brigade have oiled their way into his consciousness.
I would say that it beggars belief, except Tony Blair has a few comic turns on as his new “advisory panel” on Islam, including Cat Stevens (banned from landing in the United States) and a barrister from Zimbabwe who practices out of a council flat and fiercely believes the world is run by … uh … Jews and Freemasons. Given this company, Prince Charles looks grounded.
The TV news just mentioned the visit. The whole piece was about one minute long and about half was devoted to the deep thoughts of irreconcilable Diana fans. A mildly violent upwelling of indifference was viewed with muted alarm. Keep your twits home, will you?
Good heavens, does HRH think that anyone in this country remotely cares about his opinions? The man is not an idiot, and sometimes, believe it or not I actually find him interesting on some topics. I do believe he has a highly inflated view of himself that we here in the states do not share. (Your post was wonderful and says what I have been trying to put into words for three years.)
A couple of responses:
Home-delivery of liquor? I grew up in Houston (I turned 18 in 1980, when legal drinking age was 18). I never heard of anyplace in Houston that would deliver liquor. Had I known of such a service, their delivery vehicle would have known the way to my house like an old cart-horse to his barn.
Of course, I long ago moved away from Texas, so I suppose it’s possible they’ll deliver now. Bless them if they do. In none of the other states of the union in which I’ve lived has there been home-delivery of liquor.
New Mexico had drive-up windows at liquor stores for years, but that’s been outlawed.
As for American attitudes toward British royalty… I work in a television newsroom in San Diego. A couple of years ago, Fergie, the Duchess of York (right?) was here at the station touting her kid’s book about the anthopomorphic helicopter. You’ve never seen a bunch of more left-liberal folks turn into fawning idiots. Talk about embarassing.
In America, they’re called Liberals, in Europe, Social Democrats.They are usually pretty nice, if a little intolerant of dissenting opinions. And they are utterly isolated from the intended beneficieries of their happy thoughts. The reason that red-necks are dominant in the red states is that we have a much closer contact with the grittier parts of reality. Yeah, we have to put on our own toothepaste. We also, sometimes, have to rely on government programs for things that, for instance, a life-tenured university professor gets in his compensation package. Just one example: When we get old, we are eligible for Medicare, government health insurance for old people. Many of us will also find that we are poor enough to qualify for Medicaid. (Poor people’s insurance.) They aren’t terrible, generally better than National Health. But, NHS gives you a sort of picture, the waiting, the arguing with bureaucrats. Most of us want to live our lives on our own terms, and if we never get anything from the government, it will be because the govs left us alone. HRH, like the rest of the miliions of his sort, thinks he knows best, because his knowlege has never faced the tests of real life. When did he ever have to worry about violent Muslim gangs in the next street over? His visit to America, if anyone notices it at all, should be good for the cause of LIberty, because he’s another Marie Antoinette sort of caricicature We can use all of those we can get. Thanks for lending him to us.
Maybe Charles’s too out of touch to realize that we backwards hillbilly, um, Yanks(?) might be a bit more up to speed on our Qutbist, Wahabbist Salafist and other extremist enemies than he suspects… I’m much more interested in what the Dalai Lama had to say during his trip to the US – DL’s opinion on the War on Terror? “Terrorism is the worst kind of violence, so we have to check it, we have to take countermeasures.” I’ll take fighting Buddhists over some preachy monarch any day.
Damn!It’s late. I botched a line. The reason that red-necks are dominant in the red states is that those states are poorer. Red-necks are peasants. Our necks are red from working out in the sun. Pooreer states have more of us peasants.
Michael Farris and his “Peace in Our Time” crew, who dangle out the tantalizing prospect of reaching a peaceful accord with Islam, have yet to explain how Islam can be moderated and redeemed from its more barbaric exhortations. Recall that every verse of the Koran is considered infallible and that to repudiate part of the Koran is to shake its foundation: if the angel Gabriel was wrong in giving out one verse to Mohammed, where does this flaw stop? When explaining how Islam can be changed without being destroyed, do not use Christianity as an example. Christianity, whatever its historical vices, always had the example of Christ to draw it back from the brink of barbarity to which political leaders often led its faithful by false representations. Is it a false representation to call Mohammed a desert bandit who preyed upon caravans and slaughtered unarmed prisoners? Think hard before you equate the example of Christ with that of Mohammed.
If Islam is a basically tolerant and peaceful religion only recently besmirched by terrorist who have “corrupted” its message to their own ends, then explain to me how Islam expanded so quickly out of the Arabian peninsula in just a few short decades after Mohammed’s death to encompass all of Persia, Mesopotamia, and North Africa? Why was this expansion led by generals who had been his own trusted companions in his own conquest of Arabia?
No branch of Islam can be redeemed unless that sect can admit that Mohammed and his successors were vicious warlords whose deeds included the repressive Pact of Umar and the mass slaughters of cities such as Carthage and Fayum; and upon admitting, repudiating these acts. Would such a sect even be Islamic at the end of doing these things?
Well said Perry. I would just like to comment on the atrocities committed by Christians in the past. Considering Christianity’s founding texts are the Old Testament as explained and expanded upon by the New Testament, it should be pointed out that there is not a single verse in the NT that encourages the killing of human beings, whatever the reason. On the contrary, it’s all about turning the other cheek and forgiving your enemies, with Jesus himself preventing the stoning of an adulteress at one point and chiding Peter for resorting to violence at another. This did not prevent people from klling in the name of the Christian religion but as far as the respective foundational texts are concerned, there is no comparison between the New testament and the Quran.
Verity,
Bush is no moron either.
I take it that makes us even. 🙂
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Isolation is a sign of stupidity. It is such a well known executive problem. If there are no solutions (reading pols isn’t enough) then the organization loses cohesion.
SC:693939 for AC fans
Verity,
You ask why ole Cholley gets so much respect? Human nature.
In America we have actors, in Britain Royalty. Same purpose – different customs.
I think the American way is better. Our lot gets replaced more frequently. We get fresh idiots, yours go stale. Advantage America.
You believe that because he went to the best schools he knows something. We know our royalty is playing lets pretend. Advantage America. Sean Penn in New Orleans was perfect.
You have ritual, pomp and circumstance. We have Bette Midlar. You have important televised events for the Royals to attend. Ours prefer events where multi-partner sexual adventures are a posibility. With the press in attendance – no pictures please.
I will say this – the Chuck, Di, and Cam show was the equal of anything America has produced lately (where is Liz Taylor when you need her?).
American institutions are coarse – not refined. We advise: don’t stand down wind of the manure pile. You decorate it with fine lace.
Personally I like my lunch naked. Matter of taste I expect.
M Simon, thank you for several posts in a row of unalloyed idiocy.
We too have entertainment royalty. We must send Vanessa Redgrave and Harold Pinter over to see you some time.
Also, Susan, Charles is not unintelligent. He’s probably about average – maybe a little above. It is his isolation and that he is prey to palace courtiers and has no understanding of normal life that causes him to say things that beggar belief. He isn’t connected to the real world. His news is filtered into précis by his advisors. He only reads extracts. He doesn’t sit down and watch the TV News – even the BBC would better than nothing – and he doesn’t listen to the car radio as he drives to work because he doesn’t drive to work. Everyone he meets is deferential – meaning no one says him nay; no one argues with him – and he thinks this is normal life. And like kings and queens and princes throughout the history of the human race, he is vulnerable to flattery – in his case from the Islamics and the global warming missionaries. I don’t care for him and I think he could, at some point, be dangerous, but he isn’t stupid.
At first I thought you were talking about Toni Bliar.
John K,
It’s Tony with a y, but your comment was still spot on.
We must send Vanessa Redgrave and Harold Pinter over to see you some time.
Only with the understanding that Michael Moore will be staying in Britain until the both of them go back. The Canadians already export their loonies to the US, we’re not taking the British ones, too.
😉
Uh, if America has to take Pinter and Redgrave at the same time I think a Moore in return is not enough. It ought to be Chomsky and Moore.
Verity,
Glad to entertain. And sorry to hear that you are burdened with actors AND royalty. My condolences.
BTW I stand by my statement that isolation is a well known management problem.