Duke of Edinburgh dies

[Taunton Blue Genie]

Exactly.

One poster in this thread wrote about a semi-deified group of people who are put on a pedestal merely due to their being born in the right bed. I would ask anyone who has posted in this thread to search their hearts and ask themselves would they have preferred to have been born into that group of semi-deified people (i.e. the royal family in this case with all their wealth and status) rather than the family in which they find themselves? I for one am eternally grateful that I was not! Likewise I am eternally grateful that I was not born into abject poverty like a child in Yemen.

Surely it's yet another reason in abandoning a system if the public is infantilised on the one hand and those bowed down to are unhappy with their gilded cage on the other hand, a dehumanising situation for both parties perhaps.
Other royal families in Europe took a step down from such semi-deification and retained a great deal of wealth so it's not as if they have no choice whatsoever.
Unilaterally bowing to another human being or referring to them as 'Your Highness' is absurdly medieval in my opinion.

[Gofer Blue]

Surely it's yet another reason in abandoning a system if the public is infantilised on the one hand and those bowed down to are unhappy with their gilded cage on the other hand, a dehumanising situation for both parties perhaps.
Other royal families in Europe took a step down from such semi-deification and retained a great deal of wealth so it's not as if they have no choice whatsoever.
Unilaterally bowing to another human being or referring to them as 'Your Highness' is absurdly medieval in my opinion.

I met the queen when the company I was with at the time won the Queen's Award to Industry and myself and two colleagues went to Buckingham Palace to collect the award. As a Christian I will not bow to another human being so I simply shook hands with the queen and it was fine (by me anyway!). I can confirm that the Duke could be a grumpy old codger as he asked me to repeat the name of our company as he didn't hear the announcer. When I gave it to him he replied in a rather gruff manner: "Never heard of them"!