Monarchy

One recent event in the news was that a recent trip by Prince Charles to Canada received little notice.  To a large extent what goes on with the status of the monarchy is not our concern.  The institution has little impact on politics abroad and less for people of our country.  Monarchy has little chance of being re-established for the U.S. and for very good reason.

That having been said, it is interesting to see how other political systems evolve.  For example, it would be interesting to see if a constitutional monarchy would counteract the tendency of elected officials, who serve for limited terms of office, to have a very short term outlook.

It seems that the main distinction of our own political system from others is the tradition of the filibuster in the Senate.  This makes it more difficult to pass legislation, and probably goes a long way toward explaining why we have less of a social welfare state in this country.  On the other hand it also explains why social policy in our country tends to vacillate quite a bit less.

One problem that modern societies pose for a monarchy, even one that only serves a symbolic purpose, it that the press will not keep scandals a secret.  As time goes on, it becomes more and more difficult to restrain the press, and any story about sexual misconduct by royalty will be good at attracting an audience.  For this reason royalty need to be much more restrained than they were in the past.