The Queen’s Damned Undies

The British and American media is awash with news that Senator Kennedy has been awarded a honorary knighthood by Queen Elizabeth, which was formally announced today by the Glaswegian Prime Minister Gordon Brown when he addressed both houses of congress. This announcement implies that Sen. Kennedy has chosen to accept this award, as nowadays recipients are contacted by Downing Street to confirm in writing whether or not they wish to be put forward for an honor long before any public announcement is made.

So far, in contrast to when former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was given the KBE (Knight of the British Empire) honor in 2002, the American media has not raised much controversy.  I suppose that his recent battle with brain cancer and his public seizure during an Obama inaguration luncheon that gets him a pass from the American media.  The only bit of outrage I can find comes surprisingly from the British old-schoolers, those who will never forget how that “drunken paddy yank interfered in ‘the troubles’ at Ulster”.

Lets all stand up and cheer… if you look closely you can even see the ghost of Mary Jo Kopechne down there cheering.

Call me old fashioned but this kind of pompous display of shameless diplomacy disguised as well… shameless diplomacy, really makes me sick.  I mean we get it already…  America and the UK are friends.  NATO, the UN, the EU, and NAFTA aside, we are really BFF and like to pat each other on the back.  They have shown they will blindly follow us into war, and now we show that even a US Senator will accept an honor pledging allegiance to HM the Queen.  Forget that we had this little thing called the American Revolution, where we denounced the rule of kings, hereditary nobles, and priests.  Let the two houses of congress be united in proclaiming our support for the Queen!  Here, here.

Let’s leave the issue of legality aside, because while the US Constitution (Article I, Section 9) makes it pretty clear what the Framers thought about titles of nobility…

“No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.”

… it’s not actually so cut and dry whether Senator Kennedy is actually violating the law here, because its actually only an “honorary title”, rather than an actual knighthood.  And although no official consent for an honorific title has ever been granted by Congress, their riotous applause shown in the link above seems to imply consent.

So let’s put all that aside as it has been covered ad nauseum by many a “Jesse Ventura loving, YouTube vlogging, formerly apathetic,  frat party going, Campaign for Libery bumper sticker toting, Rudy Giuliani hating, Ron Paul supporter” back when Rudy-G insulted Doctor No in the Republican Primary debates.

What I’d like to focus on is the absurdity of titles of nobility in today’s world.  Have we undergone such a 180 degree shift in the philosophy of our government that this kind of nonsense is to be regarded as cute and even prestigious?  Are we really just estranged subjects of Her Majesty‘s Empire?  Didn’t we settle this matter a long time ago in Yorktown?

To the American revolutionaries these titles of nobility were far from cute, they were a symbol of oppression and hereditary rule, of classism and racism and all the other evil -isms that made the governments of the world feudalistic, tribalistic, and inherently unjust.  Thomas Paine had this to say in his essay “Reflections on Titles” from the Founder’s Constitution…

When I reflect on the pompous titles bestowed on unworthy men, I feel an indignity that instructs me to despise the absurdity. The Honorable plunderer of his country, or the Right Honorable murderer of mankind, create such a contrast of ideas as exhibit a monster rather than a man. Virtue is inflamed at the violation, and sober reason calls it nonsense.

This was part of Paine’s justification for Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the US Constitution (quoted above), but moreover it is a moral justification for the American Revolution itself.

To me Ted Kennedy’s acceptance of the KBE title is just further proof that in Post WWII America, diplomacy trumps ideology, and that in order to preserve and strengethen economic alliances our leaders are bound by no civic or moral underpinnings.

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