Sir Patrick Stewart

david.emery was one of a few folks who noted that Patrick Stewart can now be referred to as Sir Captain as he will be knighted by the Queen. This should bring balance to any future X-Men movies.

Comments

I now dub thee night

[assemblerex]

"Make it so"
Though we both know it's because he and the Queen both roll with the Earl Grey posse.

Pedantic, but...

[tomtomtom]

The correct order to put the two in would be "Captain Sir", not "Sir Captain"

Re:Pedantic, but...

[Mercano]

Yes sir, Captain Sir, sir.

X-men

[heffrey]

I seriously doubt the knighthood was anything to do with the vacuous X-men/Trek work. Much more likely to be related to his work on the stage. I recently saw him in Waiting for Godot (alongside Sir Ian McKellen) and he was magnificent even though I've not got much time for that particular play.

Re:Surprised

[Scr3wFace]

Am I the only one surprised to learn that he's *not* gay? Seriously, I don't mean that as a troll, I honestly always assumed he was until I read about his wife.

Blasphemy! One to beam down.

Nasty flashback when he's knighted

[hellfire]

Patrick will approach the queen during the ceremony, then suddenly have a fit as he sees the spotlights around him and scream "THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!!"

Re:Abolishment?

[jcr]

I think we should get rid of the notion that everyone is qualified to vote

I think we should shoot anyone who seeks to deprive any of his fellow citizens of the franchise.

-jcr

Re: King

[TaoPhoenix]

We did. His name was Cheney, and he kicked everyone but the asshats out of government.

Re:Abolishment?

[JustOK]

So, if you shoot someone, you are also depriving them of their franchise, which means...

Re:Abolishment?

[internic]

We used to have the quaint idea that rights came with responsibilities. The right to vote should come with the responsibility to be informed of the issues on which you are voting.

Many people in the US had the idea that people, "...are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights... That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed," to quote the declaration of independence. Under this view, rights are inherent by natural law, not earned. It isn't that people afforded the ability to vote because they deserve it but rather that natural law gives them the right to liberty and the only way a government may (morally) exert power on them is by their consent.

While people do use the phrase, "with rights come responsibilities," it probably makes more sense to say that privileges come with responsibilities. Under the above view, rights are not given by man and, therefore, can't have any conditions imposed by man. Whether you accept that view exactly (and it definitely has problems), I think it's fair to say that generally rights are supposed to be inherent and vital, while privileges are granted by others conditionally, and that's what separates the two. Generally the only grounds for depriving someone of a right is if it would infringe upon the rights of another.

I would have no problem with requiring that people who exercise their right to vote also demonstrate in some way that they are going to make an informed decision...

We used to have literacy tests to vote in the US. The consensus view is that they were mostly used to keep minorities from voting, so since then it's not been a very popular idea here among anyone who knows history. The flaw is probably much more general, though; if people in power write the test that determines who can vote, and the vote determines who is in power, then you have created a positive feedback loop. This feedback will tend to make the system unstable and drive it toward some extreme point, at which point either it will say there (to the disadvantage of many in society) or there will be some major social upheaval (such as a civil war, riots, etc.) that will bring the system back into balance.

I think it's important to bear in mind what Winston Churchill said, that, "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried." Democracy doesn't necessarily always (or even often) produce the best solutions to problems. It's chief merit is that it is relatively stable. It usually keeps things from getting too bad for any particular group, so it removes the need for the assassinations, coups, civil wars, and so on that are common under other forms of Government. Adding in voting tests would likely undo this main benefit.