These are excellent arguments - but the Monarchy, like the Government is funded by the tax payer. This makes it different from the private companies and private individuals inheriting wealth etc.

If the Windsor family wanted to legally hand each other bits of Cornwall, I'd have no problem with that. A private family are exempt from the rules of the social contract unless they can be proven and enforced - but when it's a public institution, the social contract should hold. No other business in the UK is allowed to explicitly discriminate on the grounds of race (though many might do so, they do it at the peril of being found guilty under law). The Queen is part person and part civic function, the blurring of the two is unfortunate.

Parliaments make the laws but still require a monarch to sign them into law. This job could theoretically be done by anyone and I'd have no problem with an elected head of state - like the US. We can have a PM of any race, though we tend to only elect posh boys from Eton - that isn't true of the monarch. Whether or not she decrees anything, she has a meeting once a week with the PM in which she can give advice free from public scrutiny. The fact we don't know what she thinks about anything is neither here nor there, such a position comes with enviable perks and the ear of power. Not a problem with the current Queen, but I reckon Charlie and Wills might be a bit more pushy with their own views. Let's hope so, becuase that'll mean the Brits go off monarchy and we can get on with being in the 21st Century.

I think we can also agree that the Taliban are pretty horrible. Great response and thanks for getting involved in the comments :o)