As for "poisonous partisan gridlock destroying Washington, D.C.," one can only wish it would. The notion that a smoothly functioning legislation factory could be anything but inimical to human freedom is one that defies all historical evidence. Gridlock in government is not bad when the proposed direction is quite so disastrous as several currently under consideration, a national health-care takeover being one of those and amnesty for illegal aliens being another. Gridlock is an improvement on progress.
I don't see how a ceremonial figurehead addresses anything of importance in the rest of the article. And if he's more than a figurehead we have another sort of problem altogether. The English had to resort to Cromwell and the French, Robespierre, to rid themselves of activist monarchy. Things are bad enough in the U.S. without borrowing old European follies.
I agree with you. The flaw in Austin’s analysis is that he seems to have no idea how a constitutional monarchy works.
The only way to preserve freedom is to limit government power and the way to do that is to ensure that opposing forces are in play. Both the US Constitution and parliamentary monarchies (such as Canada and Australia) are very good at that. Canada’s constitution is based on “Crown vs. Parliament”, where the executive branch is dependent on the legislative branch for funding and serves at the pleasure of the elected representatives. Many of the rituals here are re-enactments of the fights in the past that gained our freedoms.
The opening of Canada’s Parliament consists of series of deliberate insults to the Queen. It begins with a re-enactment of Charles I barging into the chamber; when the Queen (or more often, her representative) approaches, the doors are slammed in her face and barred. One of her attendants (”Black Rod”) then knocks on the door, and after some back-and-forth with the Sergeant-at-Arms the doors are opened. After she reads the Speech from the Throne (analogous to the State of the Union) laying out the government’s agenda, she leaves. The first order of business is then raised and it is *always* about something that was not mentioned in the Throne Speech, a gesture to remind the Crown that Parliament calls the shots.
The only real powers that reside with the Crown are to veto legislation (something never exercised here), decide who will form a government (something that hasn’t been contentious since an election in the 1920s where it wasn’t clear who would have Parliament’s support), and to call a new election (which must be within 5 years of the previous election). The key to the whole system is that the government is only legitimate if both the Crown and the elected representatives support it.
Ultimately any system of government will only preserve our freedom if the voters are vigilant and the courts and legislators take their responsibilities seriously. That has had many lapses in both Canada and the USA.