The point is that we all know the UK has a decent, modern armed forces. If you claimed "They swear alleigance to the Queen, ergo they're backwards!" people wouldn't take it seriously. But people are claiming that about China. Should we ignore those complaints, like we'd ignore them about the UK?
That's a dumb point. Neither should be ignored. There are two nation-states I am somewhat attached too: the United States (myself) and the Republic of India (through my parents). Both of these countries would not exist if their founders "ignored" the obvious political backwardness of the British.
Oh I believe a monarchy is backwards. I'm not saying we should ignore it, in general. But when it comes to judging military strength, whether you swear an oath to a party, or a queen, doesn't make your army inherently weaker or stronger.
It's backward because it's not representative democracy. It's inherited political power. Even if you don't believe they have real power, it's still offensive to anyone that believes in representative democracy and selecting their leadership. Englishman here.
If we had ousted the monarchy 100 years ago, I'm absolutely certain that today, it would have been considered a good thing and we'd have a yearly celebration about getting rid of them, and we'd mock other countries for still being backwards and having a monarchy.
But no, we still have a monarchy, so "we" fool ourselves into thinking that it's a good thing. You can mostly blame patriotism for that.
If you really feel like you must swear allegiance to something, swear it to an ideal, not to a person or group. But if you feel like the armed forces need to swear allegiance to a person or group, why can't that be "the people" of the country they belong to? It's pretty much symbolic anyway.
I'd prefer to have a non-political head of state for the UK (like Germany and Ireland), but I'd rather have the current setup with the monarchy over direct control of the military by the PM.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
- US Declaration of Independence
(while the USA is by no means perfect, there's hardly a more "perfect" and succinct expression of human rights than that)
As an expression of human rights, the above quote by itself is useless - it is far too vague. A lot of people would argue that the above is totally incompatible even with the US form of government, for example
Vagueness is its greatest strength, and it was famously incompatible with the political reality it brought into existence (i.e. 1/3rd of the population were slaves).
What if it were specific and stated "all property owning white males are created equal", which is what it practically meant at the time? Specifics were deliberately left out .. it is just an outline of what we should aim for .. Here is what Lincoln had to say regarding this:
I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all men, but they did not mean to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all men were equal in color, size, intellect, moral development, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness in what they did consider all men created equal — equal in "certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This they said, and this they meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all were then actually enjoying that equality, or yet that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact, they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society which should be familiar to all, constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even, though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people, of all colors, everywhere. -Abraham Lincoln
A lot of those people are actually in the USA government. Between the Declaration and any government we've had in my lifetime, guess which I'd rather have gone without?
