Monarchy

Hard to find anything on the news except stuff about the British monarchy. Many of the British reporters and pundits that have been on the air are quite emotional about the late Queen and the royal line. It's hard for me to understand.

America fought a war to get free of the British monarchy. That monarchy forcibly colonized so many other countrues around the world, it was said the sun could never set on their empire. It's not just history - they still won't give back the Elgin Marbles. And that monarchy still has its political tentacles in a nimber of other countries today ... think Northern Ireland (and Scotland).

The very idea of monarchy should be repugnent to us: the divine right of kings theory that God has chosen certain superior people to reign over all us lessor beings, and that this right is passed on simply through an accident of birth, not because of competence. "Subjects" had to get down on their knees before British monarchs, and some still choose to. It's no samll thing that our Declaration of Independence insisted that all men are created equal, however imperfectly that has been realized.

When I think of the British monarchy, I think of all the money and property they have amassed over the centuries, of the snobbery and the British class system they exemplify, of the sheer bad luck that could make creepy Prince Andrew the ruler of millions. I just can't romanticize the royals, even at the passing of Queen Elizabeth.