Tom the Dancing Bug by Ruben Bolling for April 28, 2011

Just about sums it up perfectly to me.

Ain’t it the truth!

The amazing thing to me is that Americans, who, if I recall correctly, signed some kind of document declaring our independence from the whole “DNA of medieval tyrants” system of rule, are still going crazy for this, if the Lifetime channel and Us magazine can be believed.

@Ian Rey:

Quite right. Always the English monarchs, too, not those also rans on the continent.

Don’t worry, though. We have enough political “dynasties” going on to where we’ll be virtually indistinguishable from the rest of the monarchies.

No matter how much you try to explain to people how ridiculous the whole concept of royalty is, there seems to be some kind of universal human psychological need for it. Case in point: here in the US, we consciously excluded it from the start, but the prople spontaneously invented it anyway (see: Hollywood). Even that isn’t enough; we have to create reality shows for the sole purpose of generating even more of them!

Of course, we are one up on the Brits since we make them pay for their own weddings

William doesn’t actually have to marry a resident of Berkshire to prove that he’s a berk.

@DougDean your typo reminds me of a Simpsons episode where a dad is yelling at his son after he gave a government presentation

“We the purple? What the hell was that?”

Americans are fascinated with this royal wedding solely because the rest of the news is so depressing. It’s pure escapism from reality.

Actually, I find Trump’s hair pure escapism. :-)

England needs to be introduced to the science of dentistry. Even a toothbrush would be a step in the right direction.

Didn’t a lot of people want to make George Washington king of the U.S. after the revolution? Imagine if he’d accepted.

I fail to see how this is any more silly than the way we Americans fawn over actors and sports players.

Or magical sky-deities…

It’s all the celebrity thing, indeed, Yumitori. William and Kate are celebrities, so they get stared at. Only way to end the US/UK attention to royal weddings is to eliminate the monarchy.

John Locke – the virtual inventor of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” – totally demolished the idea of a hereditary monarchy. His reasoning was true then, it’s true now. If I were a Brit, I’d be a small-r republican.

As for George Washington as king, my understanding is that it never happened and that the whole idea was the imagining of some French writer who told of Washington smashing a gold crown that was offered him. Great drama and symbolism, just not history.

The royals are the cultural equivalent of a vestigial tail. No political power, but they stick out the back of the pants, and so people can’t help but notice.

IIRC I read that there was a comment made something to the effect of “We have traded George III for George I.” due the pomp of the inauguration.

Reminds me of a good line: “I’m as British as Queen Victoria.” “So your father’s German, you’re half German, and you married a German?”

And it’s totally wrong to claim William carries a sliver of DNA from medieval (French) psychopaths. Thanks to royal in-breeding it’s a whole lot more than a sliver.

Chikuku, William’s surname should not really be Von Battenburg und Saxe-Coburg-Gotha: his paternal line is actually Schleswig-Holstein as he is a male-line descendant of Christian IX king of Denmark..

As far as nationality goes: No royal belongs to any one ethnic group due to the constant intermarrying between royals of many countries. Finally, William’s kids will be 15/16 British, more or less.

And, yes, mdblanche, royal inbreeding makes William isdescended of William the Conqueror more than 701,000 different ways.

There is a grain of truth to the GW story; on being elected President, he was asked how he should be addressed. Some thought the address should be “His Highness, President Washington”. Washington would have none of that; he told them to simply use “Mr. President”.

But George I based his claim to the English throne on his great grandfather, James I of England and VI of Scotland. James I’s claim was through his own great grandmother, the sister of Henry VIII, Elizabeth I’s father. The Tudors themselves were originally Welsh and their claim to the throne was through, both, Henry VIII’s maternal grandfather, Edward IV and his father’s descent from Edward III. Edward III and IV were descended from a long line of Plantagenets who originated in France, like many Englishmen of Norman descent who ended up mixing with Anglo-Saxon-Jutes who came from what is now Germany and the Jutland Peninsula.

Yes, kenseidenxl, William’s grandfather IS Greek, but in his male line he’s descended from Christian !X of Denmark, whose son was chosen to be king of Greece.

So Victoria was more German than Hitler? Very interesting.

I was wrong: William and kate aren’t just 19th cousins. That’s through Kate’s ROYAL ancestor. They’re even more closely related through William’s mom, Diana. They’re 12th cousins once removed.

I tried to paste the chart in Doonesbury, but was unsuccessful. I’ll try to paste it again in the next panel. but I doubt I’ll be successful this time.

best summing up of royalty idiocy ever. What do people get out of worshipping these perfectly average people? It’s a mystery to me.

The notion of royalty is idiotic, as idiotic as the notion of radical individualism (“I don’t need any government or society! I live solely on my own!) or the notion of purely private property.

I would recommend that Britain end the monarchy, relieve them of their personal wealthy, and make all the royals get jobs. On the other hand, Britain may make more money from the royals as a tourist draw than it loses from supporting them.

They have no power, so their only justification is as a kind of human zoo for foreign tourists.

^ Congrats brian crook! For once, you have a post that I completely agree with! Yo Bro!

This is the funniest comic strip on the internet, or anywhere.

I find it kind of amusing that those who chastise the United States for attempting to end tyrannical “lineage-based” rule by bringing democracy to those nations suffering under such rule, have no compunction about telling the British that they must do that very thing (Well, okay, the British monarchy isn’t exactly tyrannical, but it is based upon royal lineage).

It doesn’t just subsidize the tourism industry, but also the tabloids. Nude photos of the Duke-in-law of Cambridge coming soon!