The Monarchist 1.0
Defending the British Crown Commonwealth and the English-Speaking Peoples
[+] HONOURING OUR PATRON, SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL, VICTOR OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES
[+] HONOURING OUR QUEEN, ELIZABETH THE SECOND, ON THE 80TH YEAR OF HER BIRTH (1926 - 2006)
[+] HONOURING OUR KING, SAINT EDWARD THE CONFESSOR, ON THE 1000TH YEAR OF HIS BIRTH (1005 - 2005)
[+] HONOURING OUR HERO, LORD NELSON, ON THE BICENTENNIAL OF THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR (1805 - 2005)
[+] HONOURING OUR SONS, THE QUEEN'S COMMONWEALTH SOLDIERS KILLED IN THE 'WAR ON TERROR'
Chief Warrant Officer Robert Girouard, 46, Royal Canadian Regiment, Nov 27, 2006 (Afstan)
Staff Sergeant Sharron Elliott, 34, Intelligence Corps, Nov 12, 2006 (Iraq)
Private Jacob B. Kovco, 25, Royal Australian Regiment, April 21, 2006
[+] HONOURING OUR VETS ON THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE VICTORIA CROSS (1856 - 2006)
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Monarchists are red, Royalists are blue
No, this is not another variation of the old doggerel poem, roses are red, violets are blue. This inquiry goes deeper than that. It begins over at my sister site, monarchy's other cheek, The Royalist. I say my sister site because The Royalist indulges the female side, the personal side of monarchy. It seems to be read mostly by women, royal watchers like Marilyn at Marilyn's Royal Blog, who confesses that she is not really a monarchist at all, just fascinated by royalty. This is unlike The Monarchist, where most of our readers and commenters happen to be men. It would seem more often that not, royalists are women and monarchists are men. No doubt this is because women are more fascinated by the personal nature of monarchy, the glamour and the gossip, whereas men are more fascinated by the stately nature of monarchy, its history and heroes. But enough of my crude and sexist generalizations.
What's interesting is that The Royalist blog is blue. It's instinctively blue, just as I instinctively chose red for The Monarchist, even though politically I'm much more comfortable wearing Tory blue. Why do you suppose that is? Well, I chose red because monarchy to my mind represents the red carpet pomp and pageantry of state -- it just seemed a more natural fit. We know that red is associated with the statist left in our political culture, that it is the preferred shade of communists, socialists and left-leaning liberals, whereas blue is the political shade of Commonwealth conservatives. The conservative parties in the UK and Canada use blue, and so do the New Zealand Nats and Australian Liberals, the closest thing to Tories Down Under. On the other hand, leftist parties usually adopt a logo-ish red, such as the left-leaning Liberal Party of Canada.
The Royalist reminds us why that is. Historically, the Tories were the Royalist Party in the days of Cromwell, when the English Civil War created the first real political divide in the country. Prior to the civil war, there were no political parties, just an executive monarch. In other words, people and society were not yet politicized; as subjects, they were just expected to get on with their lives and be loyal to their King. The moment that loyalty split under the reign of Charles I, society became quite visciously divided, spawning Tories and Whiggamores and creating the English political landscape. The Tories were the die-hard Royalists who couldn't countenace defeat; the Whigs were the constitutional monarchists who were adamantly opposed to an absolutist King.
And that is the tradition we continue to follow: To this day Tory conservatives still colour themselves blue and focus on the individual to improve society (the person is King), and Whiggish liberals still colour themselves red and focus on the government to improve society (the state is King). And so continues the never-ending dichotomy, the irreconcilable dichotomy that is politics.
POSTED BY: The Monarchist AT 12:13 a.m. | LINKS |
No, this is not another variation of the old doggerel poem, roses are red, violets are blue. This inquiry goes deeper than that. It begins over at my sister site, monarchy's other cheek, The Royalist. I say my sister site because The Royalist indulges the female side, the personal side of monarchy. It seems to be read mostly by women, royal watchers like Marilyn at Marilyn's Royal Blog, who confesses that she is not really a monarchist at all, just fascinated by royalty. This is unlike The Monarchist, where most of our readers and commenters happen to be men. It would seem more often that not, royalists are women and monarchists are men. No doubt this is because women are more fascinated by the personal nature of monarchy, the glamour and the gossip, whereas men are more fascinated by the stately nature of monarchy, its history and heroes. But enough of my crude and sexist generalizations.What's interesting is that The Royalist blog is blue. It's instinctively blue, just as I instinctively chose red for The Monarchist, even though politically I'm much more comfortable wearing Tory blue. Why do you suppose that is? Well, I chose red because monarchy to my mind represents the red carpet pomp and pageantry of state -- it just seemed a more natural fit. We know that red is associated with the statist left in our political culture, that it is the preferred shade of communists, socialists and left-leaning liberals, whereas blue is the political shade of Commonwealth conservatives. The conservative parties in the UK and Canada use blue, and so do the New Zealand Nats and Australian Liberals, the closest thing to Tories Down Under. On the other hand, leftist parties usually adopt a logo-ish red, such as the left-leaning Liberal Party of Canada.
The Royalist reminds us why that is. Historically, the Tories were the Royalist Party in the days of Cromwell, when the English Civil War created the first real political divide in the country. Prior to the civil war, there were no political parties, just an executive monarch. In other words, people and society were not yet politicized; as subjects, they were just expected to get on with their lives and be loyal to their King. The moment that loyalty split under the reign of Charles I, society became quite visciously divided, spawning Tories and Whiggamores and creating the English political landscape. The Tories were the die-hard Royalists who couldn't countenace defeat; the Whigs were the constitutional monarchists who were adamantly opposed to an absolutist King.
And that is the tradition we continue to follow: To this day Tory conservatives still colour themselves blue and focus on the individual to improve society (the person is King), and Whiggish liberals still colour themselves red and focus on the government to improve society (the state is King). And so continues the never-ending dichotomy, the irreconcilable dichotomy that is politics.
POSTED BY: The Monarchist AT 12:13 a.m. | LINKS |
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