The United States should have the Queen as Head of State

Before I begin, I want to note the burden of proof in this debate. As my opponent is offering a positive claim and affirming it, I believe burden of proof should lie solely on him or her. Additionally, I would like to provide the following definition for "head of state", for those who may be unfamiliar of the term:*Head of state - "A person who serves as the chief public representative of a republic, monarchy, federation, commonwealth or other kind of state. The head of state is responsible for legalizing the state and exercising the political powers, functions and duties granted to him/her in the country's constitution and laws. The head of state is often designated as the official 'leader' of state. "[1]With that out of the way, I will begin my opening round. In the interest of fairness, I will not be rebutting any of my opponent's arguments in this round. There are numerous reasons why establishing the Queen of England as the head of state of the United States is a bad idea. Among them, I will be discussing the issues with how the Queen is a useless figurehead (albeit with significant reserve powers), how the Queen pays little real attention to Commonwealth realms (the power mostly falling on the Governor-General instead), how the monarchy does little to improve the affairs of the United States, and how the monarchy would both violate the separation of church and state and result in bizarre governmental situations. Additionally, I'll examine the negative impact of the United States becoming a commonwealth realm - both on the states and other realms. To begin, let's discuss what a monarchy actually does in a constitutional monarchy. The monarch is a mostly ceremonial position, but retains a surprisingly large number of 'reserve powers'. The only frequently used powers the Queen has are to create secondary legislation (essentially executive orders), to appoint or remove ministers, and to grant honors (such as peerages). The monarch still has the theoretical abilities to summon and prorogue Parliament, assent to laws, appoint the PM, and pardon people, as well as the ability to declare war, control passports, and requisition civilian ships for war, but these are only used one the advice of Parliament. Additionally, the monarch is immune from any criminal or civil prosecution. [2] To put it bluntly, this is a bizarre and unneeded position, a vestige of empire that resulted from the monarch gradually ceding power. If the Queen is a figurehead, why does she retain such powers? Further, the Queen doesn't even use these powers in Commonwealth realms - she instead delegates it to the Governor-General. [3] The Queen only rarely visits other countries - she's only visited Canada, the most populous Commonwealth realm, three times since 2000. [4] Thus the Queen's true focus isn't on even the larger realms, but rather her country of birth - England - and even the supposed 'ceremonial' role the Queen provides is essentially limited to infrequent visits. The United States, therefore, would gain virtually nothing from making the Queen head of state - instead, it would cede a lot of power (even theoretical power) to a foreign monarch who pays only nominal attention to the affairs outside of her home country. Next, we need to examine the inevitable conflicts on interest that would arise from making the Queen head of state. To begin with, the Queen is the head of the Church of England - the state religion of England. [5] While it is not concerning for minor religious leaders like priests, rabbis, or clerics to run for elective office (whose constituency can then decide whether or not a significant conflict of interest exists), the Queen is an unappointed, lifetime official. Her position as the head of a church is concerning and places a clear conflict of interest with the Constitution's ban on federal establishment of religion. [6] Even if we put that aside, the Queen's simultaneous status as head of state of over 16 different countries results in diplomatic insanity. Take, for example, World War II, where King George VI, as monarch of both the United Kingdom (at war with Germany) and dominions South Africa and Ireland (at peace with Germany) was thus simultaneously at war and at peace with Germany. [7] The nominal neutrality offered by the Queen being the head of state is thus a fiction, at least in this case, as the reality of war is that the position of the Queen's home country (the United Kingdom) is the true position of the Queen - not the position of any other country. Finally, let's look at what the US becoming a commonwealth realm would mean for other commonwealth realms. The commonwealth realms (including the UK) have a collective total of 135.27 million people. [8] In comparison, the US has a population of 318.3 million people - in comparison to the most populous realms, that is over 5 times more than the UK (62 million), 9 times as many as Canada (34 million), and nearly 14 times as many as Australia. [9] That's not even accounting the remaining commonwealth realms, of which only three (Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, and Jamaica) have over 600,000 citizens. [8] Because the US would be the most populous realm (and the most powerful country in the world), its interests would basically overwhelm the interests of the other realms, the vast majority of which are tiny countries. The voice of the states would easily outweigh the voice of all the others, even when combined. And, as I established earlier, the US simply stands to gain nothing from becoming a commonwealth realm. So, as you can see, the answer to the resolution is simple - no, the US should not become a commonwealth realm. We stand nothing to gain from appointing a foreign monarch to represent us, and the current realms would be marginalized. References:1. . http://definitions.uslegal.com...2. . http://royalcentral.co.uk...3. . https://en.wikipedia.org...4. . https://en.wikipedia.org...5. . http://web.archive.org... 6. The Constitution, Amendment I7. . https://en.wikipedia.org...8. . https://en.wikipedia.org...9. . https://en.wikipedia.org...