Here, have some disconnected thoughts.

[lisefrac]

I pray my dad never discovers Groupon.

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I dreamt I was playing a large-scale, live-action version of Crusader Kings. ... oh, wait, that's called the Middle Ages, isn't it?

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Earworm of the day: Rammstein's "Stirbt nicht vor mir."

Click to view

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I think I am going to do Camp NaNoWriMo this July, to jumpstart my new novel, A Lioness Embarked. Anyone

Comments

[huggyrei]

Also wanted to add:

Right now, it's extremely difficult for people who are born poor to not stay that way. Despite the American dream, social mobility - over here as well - is pretty darn difficult under the current system. To a large extent, it's still a hereditary dictatorship, and it's still harsh on the people at the bottom and really difficult for them to not be that way. Lots of resources are spent by political parties to try and stay in power and glorify themselves, or join pointless wars. The party based system means that the people in power don't expect to keep in for that long, so it encourages short termism rather than long term investment. Corporations are built to see employees as an abstract resource to be squeezed. And I don't know about you, but over here it's basically two parties, neither of which I actually like, and I don't exactly feel like 'the people' get much of a say. And yet the problems are much less obvious and visible; rising up through the ranks of wealth may be difficult, but hey, it's not feudalism right, so it can't be that bad! At least a monarch knew who was next and could train them accordingly. And now there's not the emphasis there used to be on the obligations to look after those underneath (not that this was really enforced in feudal times either, but still...).

Please note: I'm really, really not in favour of absolute monarchy, and I'm pretty ambivalent on the whole UK constituional monarchy thing. I'm just saying that it's really not that clear cut. I quite like the current thing, although I think there should be less party focus and have some system that means I can vote for a smaller party without feeling like my vote is wasted. I also think our House of Lords and Monarchy veto things are not bad ideas; they're part of checks and balances in place, which is why they're elected in a different system to the House of Commons. As you say, no system is perfect - but I'm not convinced the monarchy was fundamentally terrible.