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Bill Gates to be Knighted
gexen writes "According to an article in the Telegraph Bill Gates is going to be knighted by the Queen of England for "services to the global enterprise." She's just handing them out like candy these days!"
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Don't you need to be British to become a knight?
No, but you need to be a Commonwealth "Citizen" for it to give you the right to use the title "Sir".
He will be knighted, just the same as everyone else (visit to Buckingham Palace, sword on the shoulder, medal, etc), but he's not a British national so he couldn't use the full title of 'Sir...'. However, he would be able to use the initials "KBE" (Knight of the British Empire) after his name.
There's more information on the history of the award at the Royal Family website.
Because he's not a British citizen he can't officially be called 'Sir' Bill Gates, just Bill Gates KBE (no, not KDE).
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It is not the commies, the government, the nigger, nor the corporates. It is your paranoia.
Make that hereditary heads of state being told by the politicians who they will bestoe an honour upon.
Since the restoration (where the British asked the king back 'cos even he was less tyranical than the parlimentarian revolutionaries) the monarch has had no real power to do anything much. In fact the monarch is forbidden to do anything remotely seen as overtly political.
Honour lists are made up by Whitehall functionaries (civil servants) and the political classes, most notably the ones in power at the time. The majority of knighthoods are given to civil servants so that they can be given a certain level of job where one of the unofficial prerequisits for the position is the title. This is especially true in the Ministry of Defence. As for the others they seem to be all purely political "thank-yous."
The best argument for the current status quo with respect to the British constitutional monarchy is that the head of state has no political power and hence no politician craves the position. Hence, we don't have a power hungry lieing sod in the position, merely a grandmother in a disfunctional family.
Agrajag: "Oh no, not again!"
It probably has something to do with all the money he's donated to AIDS research and educational grants (warning, this link is to the gates foundation website so is certainly biased, but it does list the monetary amounts they've donated to various schools) in recent years.
I'll admit that he's not the best philanthropist, but he does donate a lot of money to a lot of organizations. He could just swim in it all day like Scrooge McDuck, so he deserves some definite props for doing what he does.
Don't sell him short just because he's mostly evil...
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
Unfortunately, That applies to officers of the government, not to businessmen.
In Europe, there's nothing strange in being a knight and a robber at the same time - the castles of the Raubrittern (robber knights) are actually a tourist attraction of the Rhine valley. If you want to try to convince Her Majesty to change Her mind, you have to prove that Bill Gates is a coward - but if you'll just say "Your Majesty, this man is a criminal!", the response would be "so fscking what, my dear subject?".
Were he Canadian, he couldn't be knighted at all. He would have to settle for an Order of Canada.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
It's generally accepted that when the constitution speaks of "The United States" as if it were an entity, it is referring to the Government. He's a private citizen, he can get the knighting. Doing so will ensure we never have to worry about President Gates though. ;)
That says two things:
1 - The US Government does not grant titles of Nobility. It means they can't invent a "Noble" class and start knighting people, etc. This goes along wiht "All people are equal" and stuff.
2 - It says that, more or less, someone holding a public office or public trust cannot accept entitlements, gifts, knighthoods, etc, from a foreign monarch or government, without permission of congress.
So basically it means if Britain tries to knight Arnie, he has to refuse, or get permission from congress first.
Monopolies are not per se illegal under British Law. The top people at De Beers (world diamond monopoly based in London) cannot travel to the US because they are under indictment for illegal trade practices.
BTW he won't be Sir William since he is not a British subject. Neither is Speilberg Sir Steven. However, the difference between an honorary knighthood and a "real" one eludes me.