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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think seeing an older lady curtesy to KM is sad to see

375 replies

Julia2016 · 20/05/2016 13:05

Just saw a photo of an older lady curtesying to Kate Middleton, I felt so sad to see it. Sad as to why anyone would feel the need to bow down to another human being.

Every day I shake my head with who people admire in this world and how the general public swallow all these pr machines. 😒

OP posts:
derxa · 21/05/2016 08:42

Yes and I wear a Union Jack suit. I have three special rooms for my collection of royal commemorative china and photographs of me with the royal family.
Grin

IrishDad79 · 21/05/2016 09:24

Thank God I live in a republic. We don't bow or curtsey for anyone, and no one has any "titles" just because they were born into a certain family. What an antiquated system.

IrishDad79 · 21/05/2016 09:25

Thank God I live in a republic. We don't bow or curtsey for anyone, and no one has any "titles" just because they were born into a certain family. What an antiquated system.

Katie0705 · 21/05/2016 09:37

I think you will find Prince William does have a proper job; a highly skilled job at that.

I find your attitude really offensive. Why are you so obnoxious and angry?

Please consider and respect others when writing your comments. As a supporter of the Royal family, you have offended me with your attitude and nastiness.

acasualobserver · 21/05/2016 09:44

As a supporter of the Royal family, you have offended me with your attitude and nastiness.

Smile
Katie0705 · 21/05/2016 10:07

Yet another attack on Kate. What a bunch of snobs....Or do you mean knobs, Dexra?

derxa · 21/05/2016 10:12

Snobs She doesn't come from the right sort of background as far as some people on here are concerned.

Katie0705 · 21/05/2016 10:12

They aren't Time - I am just jet lagged and in a pissy mood

Well fuck off and come back when you can be a decent human being.

BonerSibary · 21/05/2016 10:30

Please consider and respect others when writing your comments. As a supporter of the Royal family, you have offended me with your attitude and nastiness.

Erm, I hate to break it to you, but I don't think there are going to be many fucks available to spare on your offended feelings. You'd probably also have done better if you hadn't followed up your little respect lecturette by telling people who say things you don't like to fuck off.

blindsider · 21/05/2016 10:35

Irishdad79

You are delusional, Ireland has one of the most classed based societies imaginable.

blindsider · 21/05/2016 10:37

And don't get me started on all the bowing and scraping to the Roman Catholic Church..

acasualobserver · 21/05/2016 10:37

Yes, Katie, you used the F-bomb. I think you'll find the Royals don't even know that word.

Pangurban1 · 21/05/2016 11:06

Lots of tribes have or have had hereditary chiefs. It might give more food for thought if you had to crawl towards them and their family prostrate on the ground.

I would worry more about meddling and influence simply because of their position in the spending of taxpayers money.

POW's commissioned report on complementary medicine, esp. homeopathy delivered without peer review would be one of these. Tax money should be spent where there is evidence based therapeutic effects. By the expert bodies set up to evaluate such things.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4179954.stm

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/prince-charles/11358546/Prince-Charles-silenced-Professor-over-row-on-complementary-medicine.html

Professor Edzard Ernst said he was edged out of his job and took retirement early. He had the Chair in Complementary medicine in Exeter university. He was very critical of the report commissioned by the POW (but paid for by 2 independent charities; I wonder who were the people behind them) and said it was not just rubbish, but dangerous. He was on the radio a few days ago. I think he said the draft report had been issued but had not been peer reviewed.
" When the generally admirable NHS Choices rewrote their advice on homeopathy (the medicines that contain no medicine) the new advice took two years to appear. It was held up in the Department of Health while consultations were made with the Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health." From the Spectator blog below.

blogs.spectator.co.uk/2015/05/prince-charless-letters-reveal-the-extent-of-his-lobbying-for-dangerous-alternative-medicine/

That is interesting too. The bit about the 'consulting with your contacts' to Tony Blair about herbals.

In short, people who want to kow-tow, crawl, kiss feet or rings can do so. Other don't have to. But you don't want undue influence over your tax money spend or interference in health care systems 'cos of personal hobbies.

sleeponeday · 21/05/2016 11:11

Presumably, if that were the situstion, there would be nothing preventing the former Royals disposing of the assets though? Yes, the same condition would apply in terms of state costs which you might argue would reduce the value of the asset, but even so, I'm sure they could live comfortably on the proceeds of a sale - owning that much land in GB would be a very attractive proposition to overseas investors.

No they couldn't live comfortably on the proceeds of the sale because the money is not and never was for their personal use. There wasn't the same division between public and private because, in the past, the court was public; the monarch ran government. For that self-same reason we now allow them money for the buildings in public service and for their own duties. But they cannot argue that they "own" the Crown Estates in a personal capacity because they never did. They were trustees of it for the benefit of the people.

The best analogy would be for someone to point out that the trustees of the National Trust can't personally benefit from the turnover, and someone else to respond that "presumably nothing prevents them from selling some of the assets; I'm sure they could live very comfortably off the proceeds." Erm, quite a lot prevents them, because they are legal owners as trustees and not beneficiaries. It isn't theirs to sell.

chilipepper20 · 21/05/2016 11:49

You are delusional, Ireland has one of the most classed based societies imaginable.

there is apparently more social mobility in ireland, and yes the bowing to the RC is a bit off.

so is our own personal bowing.

But I don't know, I just want to see us maintain something that is part of our culture, or whatever you want to call it. I want us to have our queen and our royal family. It's nostalgic nonsense I know, but I feel if we lose them we lose a big part of our identity.

I am not british and I can tell you that externally (at least in the circles I am in) it's not the first thing people think of.

Also, we (now I am british!) have loads of heritage to be proud of and celebrate. Why focus on one of the ugliest parts? the institution should be evaluated on its merits as it costs an absolute ton to support. Momentum is never a good reason to keep such things.

sleeponeday · 21/05/2016 11:49

On the comments below: you couldn't be more republican than I am, and I still find some of the more misogynist personal attacks horrifying. An example: when someone accuses Kate Middleton of "flashing her boobs", what they actually mean is that she was in a private setting, alone with her husband, miles from any other house or even a road, and a creepy little shit saw fit to sneak images of her topless and sell them to anyone who would pay. In this country, someone who did that to anyone reading this would be committing an indictable sexual offence which could potentially earn time on the Sex Offender Register. And rightly so. To sneer that a woman subjected to that lacks dignity is utterly disgusting victim-blaming and I can only regard such comments with the revulsion and disgust they deserve.

The need to demonise members of that family to justify republicanism is weird and also incredibly stupid. By getting into arguments on personal merit you are conceding the argument, firstly because in most cases assessments of that kind are subjective, anyway, and secondly because in this context they are irrelevant. Arguing that these people are cunts who don't deserve their position is implicitly to argue that, were they not cunts, they might. They could be the Holy Host and they still wouldn't deserve to be in a position of deified glory based solely on their emergence from the correct birth canal. It is absolutely bonkers as a means of selecting a head of state - craziness beyond description - and the likeability and decency of the family members can't alter that in either direction. And if you work on the basis that they are people like any other and the sanctifying and worship is nuts, then you also concede that they are people like any other and the dehumanising and hatred of them is the flipside of the worship. Both attitudes are, frankly, mindless. There is a basic level of respect every human being deserves. I don't care who they are.

I'm not talking about cost, or financial behaviours, or political interventions, or even work record (though you're on dodgy ground to an extent with the last two where the Queen is concerned, given her only recorded intervention was against Thatcher over apartheid, which I imagine most of us would applaud, and similarly the Queen does personally work hard, because the engagements are just part of her role; she also has the workload of a cabinet minister in paperwork terms... I just don't think that matters, when the selection process is remembered). But making personal attacks on another woman based on her legs showing in the wind, and being stalked by someone who took shots of her topless in private... that's pretty sick, and the snobbery aimed her way is wince-inducing, too. Similarly the attacks on the younger girls for being plain Janes was cruel - that's beyond their control. None of it is remotely relevant to their position.

The royal family entrench snobbery in the system. It's also been a system of male-preference primogeniture. Those are two of the things I loathe about it as an institution - so seeing snobbery and misogyny wielded as weapons against it makes me sigh. It's depressing, quite how reflex those things are in people, and in people who loudly proclaim their freedom from the instincts whilst openly displaying them. Some things are just... wrong. And context does not alter that. They aren't okay used against those you dislike, but abhorrent in those you dislike. They are wrong and that is all.

Julia2016 · 21/05/2016 12:37

Op here. Interesting debate. I think it is true that demonising one member of the royals doesn't give a good arguement for a republic. However the individuals represent a collective and it is ok to not respect one or more of them against ones own set of values.

I don't agree with km being called a brood mare or abusing her over nude photos that shouldn't have been taken. I think people should think about their motive for saying these things.

For me, royalty is absurd, bowing is absurd. The royals have extraordinary privileges for what they give, it's unjust but then the world is. I've wondered whether I envy them, on the whole I'm not sure, who wouldn't love a life free of money worries, connections that could obtain you anything, see the world, meet outstanding individuals, every whim catered for, who among us wouldn't say life would be easier.

I think with KM the trouble is with how she got to her position but then you could say that about lotto winners! Personally as a 36 year old woman I've got to where I am on my own two feet and hard work, like most people. I admire that. I admire the character it develops. So that's why I don't respect KM as an individual, to me she didn't achieve anything on her own and you would wonder deep down does she truly admire herself as a person.

I was called an ageist. I don't believe I am. I admire any age group, I admire people. I was however brought up to respect those older than me. The lady who curtsied is also from a generation who on the whole hadn't it that easy and so I do automatically admire them. Perhaps that's wrong.

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bolleauxnouveau · 21/05/2016 13:01

It is astonishing how one set of subsidised people are deified for making the minimum effort in ideal circumstances while another set is villified rather than helped. That's snobbery, and manipulative PR.

derxa · 21/05/2016 13:08

I don't think the DoC does have it easy. She's fallen into a trap.

Julia2016 · 21/05/2016 13:16

You serious Derxa? Just interested in how you think she fell in?

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bolleauxnouveau · 21/05/2016 13:19

I can think of plenty of people who deserve my sympathy more.

sleeponeday · 21/05/2016 13:20

Julia I have no argument with those criticisms of her. I think they're fair.

sleeponeday · 21/05/2016 13:21

It is astonishing how one set of subsidised people are deified for making the minimum effort in ideal circumstances while another set is villified rather than helped. That's snobbery, and manipulative PR.

Yep. The way families with disabled kids are treated, versus that lot - and the relative sums at stake - speaks volumes. We can't afford adequate SN provision in schools, but we can obscene luxury for these people.

derxa · 21/05/2016 13:25

There's often a big difference between a privileged life and a happy life.

Julia2016 · 21/05/2016 13:27

You know I think what's really bothering me is how twisted our world has become. I don't include everyone in this but wow our values are just so skewed these days and it's just so sad.

I just worry my daughter will end up admiring people who quite frankly don't deserve to be admired and are kept in a positive life for vacuous reasons and by smart PR people.

I really hope she admires the nurse in our local hospital, the volunteers at the local animal shelter, people who work hard, who are kind, who see that wearing a £3,500 dress is a kick in the face for people who haven't enough to eat. Our world though seems to value and promote the vacuous as something to be envious of, how do you protect them from that.

Ok I need a glass of wine, far too much thinking for one morning. :)

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