Why Oh Why Is There Still Such A Thing As A Royal Wedding?

First question I was asked at work this morning was, "Did you get up to watch the royal wedding?"

My answer, of course, was, "No, why the hell would I? There was a revolution in this country 240 or so years ago that made it so I wouldn't have to deal with any of that crap."

I received a glare and a scowl in return, and some gibberish about how I should at least be able to appreciate the beauty of the pageantry, and how ground-breaking the marriage was due to the princess-to-be being an American of mixed race, etc, etc.

The obsession of the media in this country, one of the first countries in the history of this planet that rejected the concept of an aristocratic class and all the monarchy horse pucky that goes with it, with the royal family of the U.K. is beyond belief.

Did not any of those reporters or editors pay attention in their seventh grade history classes? 

The founders of this country (with the help of French, Spanish & Dutch allies) fought a war specifically to break free from the irrational, illogical, insipid, and unjust idea that certain individuals had a divine, hereditary right to rule over others.

The men who fought to dissolve the hold the British monarchy had on the Colonies were well-educated, intelligent men. They no doubt knew their history, had studied what was known of other peoples who had broken free from the tyrannical rule of a monarchy - they knew that the people of Athens had been able to eliminate the aristocrats that had ruled them about 2,800 years ago, and that the Romans had been able to do the same for a brief period (during the years of the Roman Republic, though there was still a Roman aristocratic class).

And they most certainly were very aware that England itself  had once done so, when Oliver Cromwell and the English Parliament ended monarchical rule from 1649 to 1660 (when the re-establishment of the monarchy was contingent on more power in the hands of the Parliament).

With that knowledge they undertook, at the risk of their very lives, the monumental task of breaking free from the shackles of what was then the most powerful country in the world. 

To do that, they drafted a document that not only outlined their gripes, but spelled out clearly (well, in the language of the time), exactly what they were going to do about it.

The Declaration of Independence was basically the anti-monarchism fuse.

The American revolution resulted not just in a change of governments, it resulted in a change of attitude in the minds of the common people.

And that scarred the holy hell out of the various aristocratic families that controlled the countries of Europe and the colonies that they had established around the world.

Time proved their fears to be well-founded, as ordinary people in countries such as France saw what the American colonists were able to do and said, "Hey, on peut le faire aussi!"

In the middle of the 18th century, nearly every country on this planet was ruled by monarchs of some sort or another. Sure, there were parliaments in a number of countries, but all of those were controlled by landed gentry - the aristocratic class. 

Even the soon to be dissolved Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, at the time the largest country in Europe, which boasted a legislature that had the power to keep the monarchy in check - still had a monarch - and the legislature was still composed entirely of landed nobility (side note: just before the third partitioning of the commonwealth, a much-to-late reform effort was undertaken and on May 3rd, 1791, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth enacted the second codified constitution in modern world history - the first being the U.S. Constitution.

In 1914 there were 22 Monarchies in Europe, and only 4 Republics. 

Today there are 32 Republics in Europe and only 12 Monarchies.

Still have a ways to go.