Dump 'Prince' Harry. The British Government has decided not to send Henry Mountbatten-Windsor, the so-called "Prince Harry", to Iraq because 'specific threats' endanger not just him but all those around him. "Royals"-watcher Richard Quest on CNN Headline News today said that altho some people see this action as having "handed a coup to the insurgents", the British general staff felt that the risk of attacks specific to any unit Harry served in just wasn't reasonable to take. Quest implied that the British military didn't want to face the fallout if Harry were injured "or, God forbid, killed". So in Britain, one man's life really is more important than another's. That is contemptible.
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So, of what conceivable value is his presence in the military if he can't be sent anywhere as an actual soldier? If he is to be a back-office clerk — and Quest reported that Harry has stated publicly that he "didn't want a desk job" — that is not military service, and he's not entitled to either the rank or the good opinion of society for serving in the military 'like a regular bloke'. Not that he lives like just any other bloke, mind you. Rather than bunking in barracks with "commoners", Harry lives in "Clarence House", a "royal" mansion!
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Oust him from the military. Get rid of him. Send him packing to the private sector where he belongs. And let him get a job like 'a regular bloke'.
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When will Britain tire of its layabout, make-believe "royals"? And when will media stop calling these nobodies "Prince" this and "Queen" that? They are no such thing but empty figureheads. "Queen Elizabeth" is no more "Queen of England" (and 'the other realms' of the equally make-believe "Commonwealth") than Miss America is Queen of the United States. Elizabeth Windsor is just an old woman who never worked a day in her life. She is entitled, therefore, to no respect whatsoever, any more than any other lazy woman who lies around on welfare or rich-bitch who lives off the money somebody else earned in an earlier generation. Liz2 is little more than a dull, old Paris Hilton.
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The French and Russians saw that the only way to wean the people away from monarchism was to kill the monarchs — who were actual monarchs, that is, people who actually exercised governmental power from on-high. The Bolsheviks killed not just the ruling monarch and his consort but also their children, potential heirs to the throne. Is that what it would take to break the Brits of their preposterous fascination with that family of nothings who are on the world's most expensive dole? Surely we are beyond that. But Brits plainly need help in breaking their "royals" addiction.
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The United States must return to first principles and show our contempt for monarchism and aristocracy, and the stratified, socially-immobile society it buttresses. Perhaps if Americans in government refused to receive a "Queen" as a guest of state — no President of the United States should ever have thrown a white-tie, state dinner for a make-believe British "Queen" — and American media stopped calling those nobodies "Prince" this, "Princess" that, "Lady" this and "Sir" that, Brits would start to see how contemptible their adoration of such titles is. Let's call Henry Mountbatten-Windsor just that, or "Harry" Mountbatten-Windsor if he prefers. I personally don't know why anyone would regard "Harry" as preferable to, or even related to, "Henry", but "harry" is a word, which means "to harass, annoy, or prove a nuisance to", so perhaps it is more appropriate after all. The"royals" are indeed a nuisance, a nuisance the world can do without.
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Monarchy and aristocracy are not harmless. They tell people that birth is more important than merit. Even with knighthoods and such being bestowed during one's life to people of assumed merit, only a small fraction of worthies are given titles. And what of those denied titles?
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The British monarchy and aristocracy are hereditary, not achieved by merit. No one elects the "Queen", and no one outside "the Royal Family" can become queen or king. That is to say that the very highest position in the British nation — and the Commonwealth — is refused to everyone but a tiny number of people born into 'the right' family. Which means that everyone else is from a 'wrong' family. That is wrong. The same holds for the great preponderance of those "dukes" and "duchesses", "marquesses", "earls","barons", etc., that stain European societies.
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Invidious inequality is built into the very word "aristocracy", which means rule (-cracy) by the best (aristo-). What does that make the rest of us? Less than the best? And what separates the best from the rest? Birth. If you're not born into the right family, you're not as good as they are. That is a pernicious notion that must be renounced everywhere.
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Americans are notorious for fawning over people with titles of nobility. That must end. If people in general won't renounce such behavior, the genuine best among us in media and government must attack that behavior and demand it end. Think of "nobility" as another N-word.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 3,400 — for Israel. Incidentally, today's tally is one less than yesterday's. Curious.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 3:47 PM