Celebrating Royalty - American Style
I’d like to present a couple of funny little videos which illustrate some feelings we have toward the British monarchy.
The first video is from this past Monday's "The Daily Show" with John Stewart. Stewart doesn't seem to be
impressed by the Queen's jubilee celebration.
The next video is from "The Colbert Report" with Stephen Colbert. This clip aired about a year ago just prior to the royal wedding in London. Colbert enlists a royalist Englishman to help him prepare to meet the Queen.
Some would say that Americans should be more respectful of
the beliefs and traditions of other countries. That may be true to some extent but not with
respect to monarchies.
Before our Constitution and before our Declaration of
Independence, there was Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense.” That was the pamphlet --
widely circulated in the colonies in early 1776, that convinced our forebears
that they should declare independence. Paine,
a recent immigrant from England and the most radical and most working-class of
the Founding Fathers, is scathing and brilliant in his denunciation of the
British monarchy. Read it and remind
yourselves why Americans are all supposed to be republicans (small
"r"), meaning foes of royalists.
Speaking of our royalist foes, here’s
the Thai granddaddy of them all, Prem Tinsulanonda, who celebrated the Queen
Elizabeth’s diamond jubilee in his own strange way.
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