Queen Elizabeth, one of the longest reigning monarchs in history, has died, with her son, King Charles III taking over as the British Monarch. BBC. The Queen died peacefully at her Scottish estate. Elizabeth's reign lasted 70 years and spanned 15 prime minsters. She took the throne in 1952 and has reigned since. The Queen was beloved in the UK and had traveled to every commonwealth country at least once. King Charles III has taken the thrown at age 73. A state funeral is being planned for sometime in the next two weeks.
My Comment:
I've got mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, reigning as 70 years is a huge accomplishment and most people consider Queen Elizabeth one of the best monarchs the UK has ever had. She's beloved by the UK and it's a huge deal that she has died.
On the other hand, as an American, I have to realize that our entire country was founded on ignoring the royal family. Usually, when some incident happens with the Royal Family, I just roll my eyes and move on. I couldn't care less about the various royal weddings, royal scandals or royal daily happenings. As an American it affects me in no way.
But with that being said, I do think that the Queen's accomplishments are worth noting. She always seemed like a good person and a decent leader for the United Kingdom, even though her power was mostly non-existent. At the very least, she is worth a blog post.
Some people have made utter fools of themselves by celebrating the Queen's death. These people, mostly social justice warriors, say that the Queen was a "colonizer" even though she reigned during the period of decolonization. Some of these people have been rightly blasted for these attacks for both their tone deafness and inaccuracy. When Jeff Bezos comes off as the more reasonable person, you have screwed up badly.
As for King Charles III, he's going to have a lot harder time being as beloved as Queen Elizabeth was. Unlike her, Charles is largely considered a joke by the UK and some people haven't forgiven him for the situation with Princess Dianna. Plus, he's going to have a lot less public goodwill when scandals pop up, most notably Prince Andrew and his connections to Jeffrey Epstein.
The Queen is going to have an epic, and expensive, state funeral. That might be controversial at this time of economic tension. On the other hand, it's Queen Elizabeth. She's getting a huge state funeral and I don't really think it's up to anyone. It's not something they are going to cheap out on.
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