this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2024
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Summary

Dawson City in Canada is facing a crisis as the new mayor and councillors won’t take the required oath of allegiance to King Charles.

They refused in support of an Indigenous councillor who opposes the oath due to the Crown’s history with Indigenous people.

Without the oath, their election could be canceled, and they can’t make official decisions.

The council has asked for a different oath, but Yukon law requires the pledge. Authorities are now looking into the situation.

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Imagine swearing fealty to a monarch in 2024.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I'm jelly of Americans, who will never have to deal with that bullshit. Nope, not at all!

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 hours ago (4 children)

Hey now, pledging allegiance to an inanimate object makes way more sense.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 hours ago

...By a country that largely claims to follow a belief system wherein it is explicitly and plainly laid out: "Don't swear oaths (Matthew 5:34). Don't make idols / worship images or objects." (The second commandment)

Anerican patriotism is a cult lifestyle brand.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Not just an inanimate object - an idea that that object is meant to represent! We're about one level of abstraction away from the pledge of allegiance becoming a meaningless mantra of words with no meaning or relation to one another strung together to make a pretty song that is always sung off-key by grade school children.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 hours ago

I mean bag on the pledge of allegiance all you like, but using the flag as a synecdoche of the nation as a whole doesn't seem like it is as great a leap of logic as you are making it out to be.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

Metaphysics is weird and not at all fun.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I really hope this is able to set a precedent. Would be great to not inflict this guy on people.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

As a Canadian I say send them to the stocks until they learn fealty to the king!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 hours ago

You make a compelling argument I hadn't considered. I will, however, counter by saying we should have a Kaiser instead.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 8 hours ago

Toss the tea in the harbor!

[–] [email protected] 37 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

As an American I 1000 percent approve!

[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 hours ago

Many though seem to want King Donald the First.

[–] [email protected] 127 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Québec has gotten rid of the royal oath requirement, surely Yukon can think of something.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I am only a Canadian, and not a Canadian lawyer, but I don't think it will be as simple for Yukon. The biggest reason I can think of is that Yukon is a territory, and not a province, and so has different constitutional standing. From the government webpage:

There is a clear constitutional distinction between provinces and territories. While provinces exercise constitutional powers in their own right, the territories exercise delegated powers under the authority of the Parliament of Canada.

I'm not saying it isn't possible, just that the same legal maneuvers Quebec used may not be applicable.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Also, doesn't Québec have some special considerations above the rest of the provinces? I seem to recall we deigned them a 'nation within a nation' or some such back in the mid 00's. I'm not sure if there were any legal ramifications to that, though.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

They might, but I can't say for certain. I didn't mention it because, again, I'm not a Canadian lawyer, and the basic info on provinces vs territories was far more accessible.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 35 minutes ago

Quebec law is unique in Canada because Quebec is the only province in Canada to have a juridical legal system under which civil matters are regulated by French-heritage civil law. Public law, criminal law and federal law operate according to Canadian common law.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_law

[–] [email protected] 62 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

Based . I would do the same fuck Charles .

[–] [email protected] 17 points 8 hours ago

I am your king!

Well, I didn't vote for you…

[–] [email protected] 16 points 12 hours ago

fuck Charles

You may not have a choice.

[–] [email protected] 85 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

Monarchism is a anarchronism and should have been thrown out with the rest of English colonialism. I am annoyed as fuck that I had to apply to "His Majesty's Passport Office" for my passport.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (2 children)

Sorry, when did we throw out colonialism? We're still doing it just as hard as ever.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

It's not 100% over, but claiming is going just a strong as ever is a bit hard to swallow given that the UK was once the world's largest empire.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

Colonialism has changed significantly, but it has only grown in terms of net value being transferred from natural and human resources into private ownership. Governance in Canada is still based around the needs of capital with a thin veneer of humanism to give the air of credibility.

(For clarity, I am approaching this as a resident of Canada, I imagine the perspective is different from someone in the UK who feels that they missed out on the British Empire.)

[–] [email protected] 10 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

You're not wrong. But I was talking about the era in the 1960s when Britain shrank substantially by giving up so many overseas territories.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 hours ago

I was talking about the era in the 1960s when Britain shrank substantially by giving up so many overseas territories.

Awkward Canadian history here, but that time period is when our colonialism was anything but fading.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 12 hours ago (5 children)

Weren't people a bit more positive about monarchy back when Elizabeth II was alive? I feel like she had a sort of mystique that made her feel more legit for some reason.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (1 children)

He's widely unpopular in the UK because he's very politically involved via the massive amount of lobbying efforts he personally funds; something that the crown specifically promised not to do. Then there's Charles' hush money payments to cover up Prince Andrew's "indiscretions" with their family friend, Jeffrey Epstein.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Rumour has it that Charles is incredibly angry about the whole thing and Andrew is very much in danger of being cut off completely if he doesn't keep his head down, so while Charles has paid people off, he has not forgiven or forgotten.

There's also that he wasn't king at the time he made those payments and may have been protecting their mother rather than his brother at the time. Andrew, idiot though he is, was the Queen's favourite.

Had the Queen already been dead and Charles been king at the time the news broke, he might well have let Andrew suffer the consequences.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Uh huh, but then he paid hush money. But he is angry! He is furious about "the whole thing".

Dude, come on.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

I never said what he did was right, only why he might have done it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago

The rumor and further theorizing that had he been king during the "whole thing" he would've punished him somehow, makes you seem sympathetic instead of acknowledging that hush money was paid, he is still part of the "family" and isn't in jail when he should be.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 hours ago

The Queen's face and name has been on everything for decades. There are Canadians in their 70s who never knew anything different. That's just the way things were. It was tradition. That's how I saw it anyways. Anyone who complained about it was just complaining about a symbolic action we've all been doing for generations. Nobody is actually swearing their life to the queen--it's just a tradition. Then she died.

Now some random old guy's face and name is going to be on everything. If we're going to change everything anyways, then why not change it to something different? The argument that was seen as a small complaint before now makes a lot of sense. If we're changing the words to our oath anyways, then why not change them to words we can all agree on?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 hours ago

She was more relatable. She had corgis. She loved cows. She was an ambulance driver and mechanic during WWII. Nobody likes Charles.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 hours ago

Everyone loved the powder pink lizard queen.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 13 hours ago

Cause fuck him, that’s why.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 12 hours ago

Dawson city is so based. Toyed with the idea of moving there for years

[–] [email protected] 7 points 12 hours ago

Call second elections so that people can vote for them again.