America’s Royal Irony

Robert Stacy McCain
The American Spectator
4/20/2011

…Romance is not logic…and a new century evidently requires a new “Wedding of the Century” to inspire new storybook dreams. And so we must brace ourselves for the transatlantic media onslaught leading up to April 29, when Prince William Arthur Philip Louis of Wales — to accord him his full title — will wed Miss Middleton, the commoner who will be instantly transformed into Princess Catherine by saying those magic words, “I do.”

Conservatives, predisposed to defend all things traditional and hierarchical, might naturally be expected to admire the British monarchy. But the remarkable fact is that most of the Americans obsessed by the royal wedding (and the media shamelessly feeding that obsession) are not conservative. The Will and Kate wedding is being hyped, and the hype is being consumed, by Americans who see no contradiction between their commitment to egalitarian ideals and their celebration of hereditary privilege. Liberals who quiver in outrage that American millionaires pay only a 35 percent marginal rate on their incomes — an injustice they blame on the hated “Bush tax cuts” — nevertheless seem unembarrassed by their adoration of British royalty. But then again, liberals spent decades pining for the restoration of a Kennedy dynasty, so perhaps we should not be surprised by their fascination with the House of Windsor…

…Little noticed, however, is how the rags-to-royalty story of Kate Middleton almost perfectly contradicts the dominant narrative of liberalism, which portrays poverty as hopelessly permanent. Kate’s mother was raised in what the British call a “council flat,” but what Americans would call public housing. After becoming an airline flight attendant, Carole Goldsmith married a pilot, Michael Middleton. Carole then started her own small business which grew so successful that her husband quit his job to join the firm. Their entrepreneurial success enabled Kate to pursue her education at St. Andrews University, which is where she met her future husband. Despite her family’s millions, the soon-to-be-princess is still a commoner (unlike William’s late mother Diana, whose father was the 8th Earl of Spencer) and, were it not for the wonders of capitalism, would probably never have been anything more…

Read the entire article at The American Spectator.

Update: Muslim group’s Abbey protest blocked

Scotland Yard says it has rejected an application by a radical Islamist group to protest outside Westminster Abbey on royal wedding day.

The group, Muslims against Crusades, was behind a poppy-burning protest on Armistice Day.

Officers said talks were continuing on whether protests at other nearby locations would also be blocked.

The English Defence League had said it would hold a counter- demonstration if permission were granted.

Five thousand police officers will be on duty on the day.

Assistant Commissioner Lynne Owens said that negotiations with the groups were “on-going”, but pledged that the wedding would not be disrupted…

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