Coronation

Today was the coronation of King Charles III of the UK. Pretty big day for some people — around 130 million of them who have him as the head of 15 countries, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Jamaica, etc.

But we’d have to admit not all of them are his loyal subjects. Celtic fans at the Scottish Cup Semi-finals at Hampden Park last week sent a clear message to his royal highness (note the lack of capitalization). They were not pledging their loyalty. Instead they told him what to do with his coronation.

“You can shove your coronation up your arse,” they enthusiastically chanted to the tune of “She’ll be coming ’round the mountain when she comes.” Listen.

I am not in favor of royalty in general but especially so when royalty is involved in government and governance. I agree with the physicist Sean Carroll’s tweet, “It’s fine to have some quirky ceremonial national customs. But no modern country should have hereditary offices have anything to do with government.”

I particularly am not in favor of the king’s promotion of organic food and climate change nonsense.

What elevates one human being or a family above the rest? Nothing. All humans have equal moral worth and the respect they command has to be the result of their actions, not birth.

That is not to say that a person cannot better at something than another. Richard Feynman was a better physicist than nearly all other people but that fact does not grant him more moral worth. The respect and admiration (not worship) is earned, not inherited.

I bring up Feynman because he just totally dismissive of all awards and shiny trophies. He learned from his father who was a military uniform salesman that clothes don’t make the man. Don’t bow and scrape in front of a dress.

King Charles, some say, is merely ceremonial. Not so because he gets too many “royal” privileges. Why does he not have to pay tax on his over £1 billion inheritance? What’s so special about him? What elevates him over those whom he rules?

Anyway, time to cue that Monty Python “who made you the king? I didn’t vote for you” skit. This part truly cracks me up:

King Arthur: How do you do, good lady? I am Arthur, king of the Britons. Whose castle is that?

Peasant Woman: King of the who?

King Arthur: The Britons.

Peasant Woman: Who’re the “Britons”?

King Arthur: Well, we all are. We’re all Britons, and I am your king.

Peasant Woman: Didn’t know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective.

Dennis: You’re fooling yourself. We’re living in a dictatorship! A self-perpetuating autocracy, in which the working classes…

Peasant Woman: Oh, there you go, bringing class into it again.

Dennis: Well, that’s what it’s all about! If only people would–

King Arthur: Please, please, good people, I am in haste. Who lives in that castle?

Peasant Woman: No one lives there.

King Arthur: Then who is your lord?

Peasant Woman: We don’t have a lord.

King Arthur: What?

Dennis: I told you, we’re an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as sort of executive officer for the week… but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting… by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs…

King Arthur: Be quiet!

Dennis: …but by a two thirds majority in the case of more…

King Arthur: Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!

Peasant Woman: “Order”, eh? Who does he think he is?

King Arthur: I am your king.

Peasant Woman: Well, I didn’t vote for you.

King Arthur: You don’t vote for kings.

Peasant Woman: Well, how’d you become king, then?

King Arthur: The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur.  That is why I am your king.

Dennis: Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

Arthur: Be quiet!

Dennis: You can’t expect to wield supreme executive power just ’cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!

Arthur: Shut up!

Dennis: I mean, if I went around saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they’d put me away!

Arthur: [grabs Dennis] Shut up! Will you shut up?!

Dennis: Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system!

Arthur: [shakes Dennis] Shut up!

Dennis: Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help, help, I’m being repressed!

Arthur: Bloody Peasant!

Dennis: Ooh, what a giveaway! Did you hear that? Did you hear that, eh? That’s what I’m on about! Did you see him repressing me? You saw it, didn’t you?

Enjoy.