Jo of Palatine
Heir Apparent
- Joined
- Feb 7, 2006
- Messages
- 3,323
- City
- Munich
- Country
- Germany
DoM You could not articulate my thoughts more concisely.....I have been feeling this way since day one, (Actually for the last few years) but have been "beaten" over the head for expecting the royals, semi and demi royals to behave a bit better than the rest. I feel some expect them to do as they please and still be respected because the accident of their birth allows them to belong to a segment of the society "above" the masses.
By association (IMO) their long term girlfriends and boyfriends are tossed in the mix whether they like it or not.
Odette, neither DoM nor I said that we think this way, we both just described the mechanism which might be the reason why people feel that way. It's very interesting to hear that you actually feel that way - thank you for your contribution!
But it's interesting that people seem to feel that way even after a switch from monarchy to an elected head of state. I recall that the scandal when it turned out that the Head of State of the republic of Austria, Bundespräsident Kurt Waldheim, former UN-general secretary turned out to have had a Nazi-past as a killer was enormous in its importance worldwide but he lost next to no support in Austria. People there said that it was in the past and that the past was over. But when Archduke Karl, eldest son of Otto von Habsburg and a member of European parliament for Austria back then ebcame involved in a political scandal, he lost the support of first his party and then of his voters and thus his mandate at the EU parliament. And this was quite harmless compared to Waldheim ot to the things other Austrian politicians had come away with. So why did the people punish Karl? My explanation is that their expectations are much higher because Karl is today the official Head of the House of Habsburg-Lothringen and that makes the disappointment in him much more pronounced. IMHO, of course.