Literally would also be fairly amusing. Although definitely not proper debate decorum.
Malê Rising
- Thread starter Jonathan Edelstein
- Start date
Literally would also be fairly amusing. Although definitely not proper debate decorum.
Whoa boy; a showdown between our queer-badass hero and alt-racist Wilson?
Congress, sell those tickets! (It's not an impeachment, but still..)
Congress, sell those tickets! (It's not an impeachment, but still..)
Hmm, I'm not sure a completely apolitical role like that of the Japanese empire (who has no involvement at all in governance) would be the mostly likely outcome - after the Imperials fall, the Tories will still exist, and might support a less political but still strong institutional role for the monarch, although maybe not King Albert himself. Maybe people would look at a strong executive as a defence against a future Rutherford - what is the heir to the throne like? Or one of Albert's siblings?
Maybe look to the example of the Spanish monarch's role after the Transition to Democracy in Spain - he is involved in politics but all laws he signs are also signed by the relative minister, and it is that minister who is responsible for the contents of that law.
I'd expect the unwritten rules that keep the British monarch to be enforced more strongly - perhaps a written constitution for Britain and the Empire, a way to break with the Rutherford quasi-dictatorship?
I rather think that given the experience with Rutherford, who upended so much of the established order, there will be calls across the political spectrum to codify the "unwritten constitution" of Britain.
Sulemain
Banned
Normally I'd totally disagree, citing the idea that our unwritten constitution relies on the honour of those involved, and thus makes it harder to subvert then a written one. But recent events in OTL and TTL have made me reconsider.
Unfortunately, honour is a relative notion.
And history is, to be honest, pretty unforgiving to polities that trusted the "honour" or their politicians. This, by the way, emphatically includes direct democracies.
(that said, I am Italian, so supposedly "Machiavellian" by default
).
Sulemain
Banned
Unfortunately, honour is a relative notion.
And history is, to be honest, pretty unforgiving to polities that trusted the "honour" or their politicians. This, by the way, emphatically includes direct democracies.
(that said, I am Italian, so supposedly "Machiavellian" by default
Machiavelli, who defended republican government (speaking as a constitutional monarchist myself), liked liberty and basically wrote The Prince as a work of slightly hidden satire? That one
.Machiavelli, who defended republican government (speaking as a constitutional monarchist myself), liked liberty and basically wrote The Prince as a work of slightly hidden satire? Tat one
I've heard that it wasn't totally satirical though?
Sulemain
Banned
Well, I read it a year ago, and while it struck me as good advice for an absolute ruler, it never defend the principle of princes (sorry); of absolute ruler-ship as I recall.
Actually I found the advice rather bad. My interpretation has been it was half muckraking and half satire, expose the practices of princes through a thin veneer of a guidebook.
You are right.
The so called "Prince", while not exactly satyrical, was most likely NOT what Machiavelli really hoped for. Every evidence I know of suggests that he was emphatically in favour of "mixed" Republics.
OTOH, he seems to have preferred strong princes to weak ones.
Anyway, I was joking when I named him.
Washington, November 1918:
There was polite applause in the lecture hall as Wilson finished, and Theodore Roosevelt cast his eyes out to the audience as he listened to his opponent across the table. The junior senator from Georgia and former president of Emory was far from a stupid man, and in most ways he was quite progressive, but he’d been in a panic over the Caucasian race’s imminent death for as long as Roosevelt had known him. He was in this debate to drum up support for his foreign aid bill – the one that would grant an immediate emergency loan to the United Kingdom “for the survival of civilization.”
He reminds me a lot of Rebecca Felton before she met Miss Harriet, he reflected, and suddenly had to suppress a cackle at the idea of Harriet Tubman on this stage. She wouldn’t wait politely for Wilson to finish like Roosevelt was doing, and what she said would be… memorable. But that wasn’t happening, more’s the pity; she had her house on St. Helena Island where the young politicians came to pay homage, and at ninety-eight, she’d probably never leave it again.
“Madam?” said the moderator, recognizing an intense, concerned-looking lady. It should have been Roosevelt’s turn, but the audience was a bit restless, and the moderator had evidently decided to let Wilson field a couple of questions first.
“Yes, Senator. Why are the British having such a hard time with the Indians? Shouldn’t they be able to handle them on their own?”
“Good question, madam. Britain should be able to handle the mutiny, but it has become racially soft. They’ve come to depend on their empire – in the last war, most of their soldiers were from the colonies. Even now, with the jewel in their crown under threat, the Englishmen will tolerate no thought of conscription. They’re soft, easy prey for the dusky hordes.”
“But if they won’t fight for themselves,” the woman pressed, “why do they deserve support from us?”
“It’s not a matter of desert, madam. Maybe they deserve to lose their empire. But this is not a time to wish such consequences upon them. This is a time to stand by them in racial solidarity, because their defeat would be ours too. Let the barbarians slip the leash anywhere, and nowhere will be safe.”
The lady wanted to say something else, but the chair recognized an older, well-dressed man with the look of an academic about him. “Surely, Senator, you must admit that the word barbarian doesn’t truly describe the Indians. They have a very old civilization…”
“A product of the Aryan invasions, sir, and a very dilute one after all this time. One has only to consider the barbarities they perpetrated in the first mutiny and are even now perpetrating in this one…”
“Surely no greater than the one the British perpetrated at Travancore.”
“An excess, sir, and a regrettable one, but sadly necessary. Again, I blame the British for it – the allowed the Indians far too much license for far too long a time, to the point where they must now exercise a very firm hand to regain control. Much as the Negroes of the South Carolina lowlands were allowed far too much license before the war between the states, and we all saw what came of that…”
The moderator held up his hand, stopping Wilson’s digression in its tracks and saving his interlocutor from what looked like a developing fit of apoplexy. “We’ll take more questions afterward, but Mr. Roosevelt has waited very patiently, and we should hear him. Mr. Roosevelt?”
“Thank you, sir.” Roosevelt rose from his chair and walked to the edge of the stage, ignoring the startled murmurs from the audience. “Ladies and gentlemen, how anyone can look at the Indian Revolution and not see the spirit of ’76 is beyond me. You’ve all been to school, so you’ve all read the Declaration of Independence. Read it again. Go down the list of our complaints against George III, and the Indians have all of them against his great-great-grandson. Taxation without representation? They’ve got that. Martial law? That too. Sending swarms of officers to harass the people and eat out their substance? That happened to them in spades. Ten years ago, when the British treated them as partners, they were content enough to remain under its rule – they’re rebelling now because Britain drove them to it.”
Roosevelt was warming to his work now, his informal speech a deliberate contrast to the professorial senator. “Another thing I can’t understand is how anyone who knows the first thing about Indians can call them a lesser breed. Unlike Senator Wilson, I’ve been there. The tiger hunting is excellent, the men are good comrades…”
“I bet they are, Teddy!” someone called, and a titter ran through half the audience while the other half looked appalled. Roosevelt just drove on. “But more to the point, the Indians are a cultivated people, equal to our own great race, whose philosophy is deep and whose creations are beautiful. The British conquered them when they were fighting among themselves, but they’ve got their house in order now, and they want the same freedoms we fought to defend. They’re a better example to our race than the Imperial Party, much as the Senator might say otherwise…”
“I don’t say that, Mr. Roosevelt.” Wilson was angry now, angry enough to speak out of turn. It had become a conversation: so much the better. “The Imperial Party is a party of racial indolence, one that would live off the fruits of the lesser breeds. They appeal to the basest instincts of their people. Had they a firmer will, they’d never have let India slip out of their hands. But now is a time for racial solidarity…”
“Racial solidarity,” Roosevelt repeated. “Two words to forgive all, Senator? I stand for racial solidarity too, you know. The human race. A race of which we and the Indians are fine examples, and the Imperials, as you’d admit, a much sorrier one – which says all that needs to be said about which side we should be supporting.”
“I don’t see how you can be so flippant, Mr. Roosevelt, when the future of our civilization is at stake.”
Got under his skin, have I? Thought I would – professors never like it when someone lectures them. Let’s see if I can do it some more.
“I’m being entirely serious, Senator. If the future of our civilization depends on a party that you yourself hold to be a bunch of lotus eaters, then it isn’t much of a civilization. Fortunately, we are a greater race than that – great enough to share the world with a free India. And tell me, Senator, you say the lesser breeds breed while we do and think?”
“That’s what I explain in my book, yes…”
“Well, we know what the British are doing in India. But when they go picking fights with a country six times their size, I have to wonder what they’re thinking…”
_______
[1] See here and here.
“The second Indian mutiny,” said Senator Wilson, “is living proof of my predictions in The Decline of the White Race. [1] And the white race is declining, ladies and gentlemen. While we build and contemplate, the lesser breeds… breed. Left unchecked, they’ll swarm over us like the Indians are now doing to the British. Which is why we must check them now.”
There was polite applause in the lecture hall as Wilson finished, and Theodore Roosevelt cast his eyes out to the audience as he listened to his opponent across the table. The junior senator from Georgia and former president of Emory was far from a stupid man, and in most ways he was quite progressive, but he’d been in a panic over the Caucasian race’s imminent death for as long as Roosevelt had known him. He was in this debate to drum up support for his foreign aid bill – the one that would grant an immediate emergency loan to the United Kingdom “for the survival of civilization.”
He reminds me a lot of Rebecca Felton before she met Miss Harriet, he reflected, and suddenly had to suppress a cackle at the idea of Harriet Tubman on this stage. She wouldn’t wait politely for Wilson to finish like Roosevelt was doing, and what she said would be… memorable. But that wasn’t happening, more’s the pity; she had her house on St. Helena Island where the young politicians came to pay homage, and at ninety-eight, she’d probably never leave it again.
“Madam?” said the moderator, recognizing an intense, concerned-looking lady. It should have been Roosevelt’s turn, but the audience was a bit restless, and the moderator had evidently decided to let Wilson field a couple of questions first.
“Yes, Senator. Why are the British having such a hard time with the Indians? Shouldn’t they be able to handle them on their own?”
“Good question, madam. Britain should be able to handle the mutiny, but it has become racially soft. They’ve come to depend on their empire – in the last war, most of their soldiers were from the colonies. Even now, with the jewel in their crown under threat, the Englishmen will tolerate no thought of conscription. They’re soft, easy prey for the dusky hordes.”
“But if they won’t fight for themselves,” the woman pressed, “why do they deserve support from us?”
“It’s not a matter of desert, madam. Maybe they deserve to lose their empire. But this is not a time to wish such consequences upon them. This is a time to stand by them in racial solidarity, because their defeat would be ours too. Let the barbarians slip the leash anywhere, and nowhere will be safe.”
The lady wanted to say something else, but the chair recognized an older, well-dressed man with the look of an academic about him. “Surely, Senator, you must admit that the word barbarian doesn’t truly describe the Indians. They have a very old civilization…”
“A product of the Aryan invasions, sir, and a very dilute one after all this time. One has only to consider the barbarities they perpetrated in the first mutiny and are even now perpetrating in this one…”
“Surely no greater than the one the British perpetrated at Travancore.”
“An excess, sir, and a regrettable one, but sadly necessary. Again, I blame the British for it – the allowed the Indians far too much license for far too long a time, to the point where they must now exercise a very firm hand to regain control. Much as the Negroes of the South Carolina lowlands were allowed far too much license before the war between the states, and we all saw what came of that…”
The moderator held up his hand, stopping Wilson’s digression in its tracks and saving his interlocutor from what looked like a developing fit of apoplexy. “We’ll take more questions afterward, but Mr. Roosevelt has waited very patiently, and we should hear him. Mr. Roosevelt?”
“Thank you, sir.” Roosevelt rose from his chair and walked to the edge of the stage, ignoring the startled murmurs from the audience. “Ladies and gentlemen, how anyone can look at the Indian Revolution and not see the spirit of ’76 is beyond me. You’ve all been to school, so you’ve all read the Declaration of Independence. Read it again. Go down the list of our complaints against George III, and the Indians have all of them against his great-great-grandson. Taxation without representation? They’ve got that. Martial law? That too. Sending swarms of officers to harass the people and eat out their substance? That happened to them in spades. Ten years ago, when the British treated them as partners, they were content enough to remain under its rule – they’re rebelling now because Britain drove them to it.”
Roosevelt was warming to his work now, his informal speech a deliberate contrast to the professorial senator. “Another thing I can’t understand is how anyone who knows the first thing about Indians can call them a lesser breed. Unlike Senator Wilson, I’ve been there. The tiger hunting is excellent, the men are good comrades…”
“I bet they are, Teddy!” someone called, and a titter ran through half the audience while the other half looked appalled. Roosevelt just drove on. “But more to the point, the Indians are a cultivated people, equal to our own great race, whose philosophy is deep and whose creations are beautiful. The British conquered them when they were fighting among themselves, but they’ve got their house in order now, and they want the same freedoms we fought to defend. They’re a better example to our race than the Imperial Party, much as the Senator might say otherwise…”
“I don’t say that, Mr. Roosevelt.” Wilson was angry now, angry enough to speak out of turn. It had become a conversation: so much the better. “The Imperial Party is a party of racial indolence, one that would live off the fruits of the lesser breeds. They appeal to the basest instincts of their people. Had they a firmer will, they’d never have let India slip out of their hands. But now is a time for racial solidarity…”
“Racial solidarity,” Roosevelt repeated. “Two words to forgive all, Senator? I stand for racial solidarity too, you know. The human race. A race of which we and the Indians are fine examples, and the Imperials, as you’d admit, a much sorrier one – which says all that needs to be said about which side we should be supporting.”
“I don’t see how you can be so flippant, Mr. Roosevelt, when the future of our civilization is at stake.”
Got under his skin, have I? Thought I would – professors never like it when someone lectures them. Let’s see if I can do it some more.
“I’m being entirely serious, Senator. If the future of our civilization depends on a party that you yourself hold to be a bunch of lotus eaters, then it isn’t much of a civilization. Fortunately, we are a greater race than that – great enough to share the world with a free India. And tell me, Senator, you say the lesser breeds breed while we do and think?”
“That’s what I explain in my book, yes…”
“Well, we know what the British are doing in India. But when they go picking fights with a country six times their size, I have to wonder what they’re thinking…”
_______
[1] See here and here.
This is great!
As an aside, you'll probably receive a PM in the next hours.
Is it too much too ask to see Wilson's reaction when the Indians finally win their Republic?
Dragos Cel Mare
Banned
Is it too much too ask to see Wilson's reaction when the Indians finally win their Republic?
I don't want to see any more of Wilson, thank you very much.