The Redcoats are Coming: Queen reasserts British rule, citing government shutdown

Okay. We've really stepped in it now. But at least liberals will be happy, they've been praising constitutional monarchies for years:

In light of your immediate failure to financially manage yourselves and also in recent years your tendency to elect incompetent Presidents of the USA and therefore not able to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately. (You should look up 'revocation' in the Oxford English Dictionary.)

We're going to have to relearn how to spell certain words like 'colour' and 'doughnut,' stop celebrating on July 4th, and drive on roundabouts. And you better start looking for good Spam recipes because the cooking's going to get a lot worse.

Read the rest here.

How the Queen handled a government shutdown: Another reason America needs a monarch

We have observed many times here at Vital Remnants the penchant liberals have for all things Scandinavian (including Canada, a Scandinavian country in North American drag). But, of course, the countries they are always saying we should be like have constitutional monarchies and established state churches.

So liberals should be quite okay with the following historical scenario, offered by Max Fischer in today's Washington Post, in which Fischer responds to Georgetown professor Erik Voeten's assertion that the government shutdown is unprecedented: "I cannot think of a single foreign analogy to what is happening in the U.S. today," says the historically illiterate Voeten.

As a matter fact, there is a historical precedent for this: Australia in 1975:

Australia's 1975 shutdown ended pretty differently, though, than they do here in America. Queen Elizabeth II's official representative in Australia, Governor General Sir John Kerr, simply dismissed the prime minister. He appointed a replacement, who immediately passed the spending bill to fund the government. Three hours later, Kerr dismissed the rest of Parliament. Then Australia held elections to restart from scratch. And they haven't had another shutdown since.

And what did the Australian people think about the Queen's move to replace the politicians they elected with Fraser? They swept Fraser and his party to victory in both houses in the next election. It is a fascinating account and can be found here.

My favorite part is when, after the Governor General Kerr fired the Labor Party's leader and appointed Malcomb Fraser Prime Minister, the Labor Party revolted and passed a no confidence resolution in Fraser. It was at that point that Kerr fired everybody with a formal proclamation that ended with the words, "God Save the Queen."

You gotta love it.

Why aren't liberals advising us to have a monarchy too?

For as long as I remember, liberals have pointed to the Scandinavians as the models of what Americans should want to be like when they grow up. I can't remember them pointing to the Norwegians, but surely I must have missed it. And I don't recall the Finns being held up for our admiration.

But how many times have we had the Swedish placed before us as the paragons of civilization? How many times have we been confronted by some liberal, brandishing his Volvo, who, beads of sweat forming on his brow, worked himself up into a lather trying to convince us that the greatest aspiration of an American is to be a good Swede?

The Swedish allow same-sex marriage, ergo we should allow same sex marriage. Sweden hands out free syringes and clean needles to drug addicts, therefore we should hand them out too. Swedish government is socialist, ergo, we should install socialism too. The Swedish don't spank their children, therefore we shouldn't spank ours either.

We hear similar admonitions about Canada, which is not a Scandinavian country. But that is only an accident of geography. It might as well be.

The Dutch too loom large in the liberal's political pantheon. And when I saw in the news that the Dutch Queen Beatrix was abdicating and handing over the monarchy to her son, the new King Willem-Alexander, I thought to myself, "The Dutch have a monarchy?"

I guess I have not been paying much attention to Holland, which accounts for the fact that I was simply unaware of this. It is a lesson in what can happen to a country if you don't keep your eye on it.

According to news stories, not only does Holland have a monarchy, but it is extremely popular among the Dutch. Approximately three-quarters are in support of it. There is some opposition to the monarchy. The investiture today of the new King was expected to be greeted with a sea of orange, the royal family's official color. But opponents of the monarchy were being told that they were to show their color by wearing white clothes and hanging white sheets.

I'm hoping that Swedes are less anxious than Americans when they hear the terms "hanging" and "white sheets" in the same sentence.

And if you check around, you find out very quickly that all the countries we are supposed to be like--all the countries that are progressive and forward looking--have constitutional monarchies. Both Sweden and Holland have one. Even Canada, which persists in maintaining it is not Scandinavian, recognizes Queen Elizabeth as its sovereign.

So I'm wondering: If the liberals think we're all supposed to aspire to be Swedes, then why have they kept this little morsel of Swedish and Dutch culture from us? Where are the lectures on why we should install a monarchy? Why haven't they paused between courses of Swedish meatballs and pickled gherkin to inform us of the virtues of having a King? Why have they simply sped by in their Saabs without stopping to sell us on the salutary benefits of having a royal family all our own?

It's not like the liberals never saw a monarchy they liked. Just listen in some time as they reminisce, dreamy-eyed, about the Kennedy administration. Ah, Camelot!

Come to think of it, I have met many Canadians, but don't remember every hearing one waxing loyal over the Queen either. Then again, these are people who won't even admit they are really Scandinavians. So it's not like we could trust them anyway.