German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt has banned a major faction of the far-right “Reichsbürger” movement. Some leaders of the group, the “Kingdom of Germany,” have been arrested, including its self-declared king.
German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt has banned the far-right group “Königreich Deutschland” (“Kingdom of Germany”), a faction within the so-called “Reichsbürger” (Reich Citizens) movement, accusing it of trying to establish a “counter-state” within Germany.
The ban came as police on Tuesday conducted raids on the properties of key members of the group in seven German states, making four arrests, including that of Peter Fitzek, the self-declared monarch of the “Kingdom.”
Security authorities believe Fitzek to have founded the group in 2012.
All of those happen in modern nations, doesn’t say much about the nature of monarchic rule rather more about the nature of power itself. Again I never said monarchic rule was preferable to democracy, I just said it is not as terrible as we like to paint it through our modern lens. Monarchy has a coherent political and ideological system, unlike fascism or other forms of totalitarian governments. There are very few, if any, examples of totalitarian monarchs. They had to balance their decisions between the interests of all groups in society.
There’s plenty of democratically elected leaders that fill that same description. But yes your argument for violence is a good one, that is indeed how democracy solves the problem of violence when a ruler goes rouge. But once more, I never said monarchy is preferable to democracy, it’s just not inherently bad like most people think.
The difference is that monarchs are hardly ever totalitarian rulers because the structure and source of royal power is different from dictators. Look, find one dictator/totalitarian ruler that doesn’t pretend that they run a democracy. Find one. Their entire basis for power is the creation and perpetuation of crises driven by propaganda and misinformation. A monarch doesn’t need that shit to justify their rule, and their job and lives are much much better if they simply let the people be and step in when shit gets out of hand. Otherwise their lives tend to be very short and violent.
The thing people like the least about monarchies other than the violence that you rightly mentioned is how hierarchy is baked into the system and social mobility is almost inexistent. But increasingly that’s becoming the case under democratic liberal rule, so it’s no wonder that people would start looking towards monarchies again since that at least has the benefit of the ruling class being able to implement long term plans that benefit the nation instead of the shit that happens in polarized democracies where there is no long term vision for the nation, and no plan to reach any goals except to keep things humming along by patching crisis after crisis with duct tape.
I think democracy is the best system in practice, but I don’t think monarchies are the worst form of government either. And a disfunctional democracy is worst than a monarchy imo.