>Monarchies are un-democratic!
Not true. Actually, most monarchies in the world today are more democratic than most republics in the world. Further, in most republics (even the United States) the President is not directly elected by the people anyway. However, being democratic is not necessarily a good thing. Benevolent leaders and bloodthirsty dictators have both come to power through democracy.
>Monarchies are too expensive!
Not true, not by a long shot. Some monarchs (such as the Prince of Liechtenstein) cost the public nothing at all. In the United Kingdom, the money the Queen grants the government from the Crown Estates is considerably more than the allowance she receives from the Civil List, so Britain effectively makes money off the monarchy. Republics often spend more on their presidents, past presidents and first families than monarchies do on their royal houses. Many countries (like Australia, Jamaica or Canada) share a monarch and pay nothing and monarchies do not have the constant, massive expense of elections and political campaigns for the top job.
>Hereditary monarchy just isn’t fair!
Why not? How can any system for determining national leadership be absolutely fair? It hardly seems fair that one person should receive the top job simply because he or she is more popular. Surely the correct criteria should be how qualified a person is rather than if they are good at making speeches, more photogenic or being more gifted at graft and deceit. In a monarchy the top job goes to someone trained from birth to fill that role. In a republic, even under the best circumstances, an elected president will take half their term learning to do the job and the other half campaigning to retain it; hardly a model of efficiency. Hereditary succession seems much more “fair” than granting power to those able to swindle enough money and promise enough favors to the powerful to obtain the highest office in the land.
>Monarchies are dangerous! What if the monarch is incompetent?
The same question could be asked about republican leaders. However, rest assured, monarchs who are not capable of fulfilling their duties can be replaced and have been throughout history. Take two of the oldest and most stable monarchies; in Great Britain, when King George III became incapacitated the Prince of Wales was made regent and exercised his duties for him. Similarly, in Japan, when the Taisho Emperor was no longer able to fulfill his duties, the Crown Prince took over those duties for him as regent. On the other hand, even in the most successful republic in the world, the United States, only two presidents have ever been impeached and neither one was actually removed from office.
>Monarchy is an archaic throwback! It’s simply out of date!
Certainly monarchy is an ancient institution as it developed naturally from the dawn of time and the growth of human civilizations. However, democracy and republicanism is just as archaic. The Greek city-states of ancient times tried direct democracy and found it of very limited value, lasting only so long as people found out they could vote themselves the property of others. Republicanism was tried on a large-scale by the ancient Romans and yet they too found that it caused too many divisions, factions and civil wars before they decided a monarchy was preferable. The oldest republic in the world today was founded in 301 AD. How out of date is that?
>What about cruel monarchs like Nero or Attila the Hun? Surely no benefits could be worth risking leaders like that!
Actually, far more people have been butchered in wars or massacred by those in power since the start of the revolutionary period than in all history previously. Nero or Attila the Hun were unsavory characters but nowhere near as bad as republican monsters like Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong or Pol Pot. It has only been in the post-revolutionary era of mass politics and political ideologies that governments have taken to killing their own people in huge numbers. Nero was cruel to his own family and later persecuted Christians who were still a tiny minority and Attila the Hun, as ruthless as he was toward his enemies, ruled his own people well from what we know and with justice. No monarch ever wiped out as many of their own people as the communist dictators of the Twentieth Century, all of whom did so in the name of “the people” and “fairness”.