Divine Right: Born to the Lurk & Perk.

There are the haves and the have-nots. That’s the case today. That’s always been the case. There are the rich; there are the poor. Inequality exists. What makes that somewhat acceptable is that the status quo doesn’t have to always be the status quo. The mighty can fall on hard times; the less well off can lift themselves up by their bootstraps and become one of those rags-to-riches story. There’s one exception to that. Those who are born to rule and don’t ever have to earn or pay their way in society. They are born to the good life – the lurk-and-perk. Take the British royal family.

Here’s a modern case history (though their roots go back seemingly forever) of those who rule (now in pretty much in just a figurehead capacity) by divine right and thus haven’t earned any respect from yours truly. I refer to the English / British / Commonwealth royal family, in particular their head, Queen Liz.

Now it’s topical in America to compare and contrast the masses, the ordinary Americans, the 99%, with those extremely wealthy elites, the 1%. In British terms, Queen Liz and her royal family parasites are akin to the top 1% of the top British 1%, and the 99% remaining of that 1% just eat what to the royal family would be table scraps, albeit tasty table scraps. The lowest 99% just eat symbolic three day old and relatively stale cake – and they love it.

Now I must admit that the English apparently do right royally love their royal parasites. That’s probably because they help contribute a sense of history (now long vanished) and a pride of place (equally gone) part and parcel of once being the stiff-upper-lipped British (‘Rule Britannia, Britannia Rules the Waves’; ‘The Sun Never Sets on the British Empire’, ‘Be British, lads’, etc.). However, in more practical terms, the royals help bring in zillions of tourist dollars a year. Overseas tourists to England have as a must-see on their itinerary at least one royal palace and getting themselves snapped in front of same, with a place guard or two in the photo as well. Of course fat lot of good that does, either the sense of history slant, or the tourist dollar reality, to the colonies like Canada, or New Zealand, or South Africa or Australia, among all those other British colonies.

The colonies aside for the moment, just what sort of lurks and perks do these right royal parasites command? Well, with a snap of the royal fingers they can command ocean going yachts, private jets, horse-drawn carriages, and transport in the finest fleet of Rolls-Royce automobiles money can buy. They live in multi-hundred room private estate castles in England, Scotland, and probably elsewhere, all sited on lush massive acreages where they can indulge in their favourite blood sport of fox hunting (tally-ho), and/or the not quite as bloody sport of polo.

Queen Liz and family don’t have to worry about where their next meal is coming from, which is certainly not going to be a Big Mac or fish-and-chips, and who’s going to cook, serve and wash up afterwards. They have massive staffs to cater for their every whim – even staff to dress them. They most certainly don’t make their own beds, cook their own meals, shine their own shoes, or any other manner of menial housework or chores. You don’t see Queen Liz pruning the royal rose bushes. They wouldn’t know what a vacuum cleaner was for if their life depended on it – which it doesn’t. They lose no sleep over the next set of incoming bills. They have medical, even veterinary staff, on call 24/7/52. Whatever they want or need, that whatever goes to them, not vice versa.

The royals most certainly do not stand in line for movie tickets or que in place at the supermarket checkout or join a bank line. They certainly have no need to join the unemployment line or que for social security benefits.

While I’m sure it must be just my imagination, the royals forever seem to be on holiday.

When any of the royal family gets married, there’s got to be an official legal tender commemorative coin (or some such) struck in their honour. Was there a commemorative anything minted when you got married or similar? No? Why not? What makes the royals deserving and not you?

While not a ‘lurk and perk’, the portrait of Queen Liz appears on all Australian coins (or at least those minted since she became Queen Liz). Why? She’s not Australian. She contributes nothing to Australian society. In fact she contributes nothing of any real note to society full stop. She’s not a health professional, nor a charity worker, a noted scientist, a military leader, a politician, author, poet, or artist of any kind. She’s a wife and mother of course but that hardly makes her stand out from the crowd. Besides, IMHO, only the dead should be honoured on stamps, coins, and related.

I gather she and kin pay some taxes now (that wasn’t always the case apparently), but again, that’s not a unique skill or legal obligation for which she and kin deserve a pat on the royal back for observing. Pats on the royal back by the way are an absolute no-no, but bowing and curtsying are mandatory etiquette in the presence of their company.

Despite all of these unearned benefits due to just being born of the right parents and in the right place at the right time, you’d probably love to be a fly on the wall at their family gatherings. What little leaks out or gets captured by the paparazzi, show the royals are a totally dysfunctional and motley bunch. Anyone who is anyone who has following the shenanigans of the lesser royals in particular over the past several decades plus would be hard pressed to use any other term but dysfunctional, though several other choice words and phrases better left unsaid come close. All up they are certainly a few pence short of a pound. Queen Liz herself is probably the only relatively sane one of the bunch.

I’ve frequently used the word parasite(s) in the connection of those born to rule. Why parasites? Well a parasite feeds off the system, be it an intestinal worm in the animal’s gut getting a free feed from the host’s food intake or the royals free feeding off British society (and by extension all those who claim divine right to lurks and perks even if not absolute rule right throughout the world). A parasite may not overly harm the host, but it causes no real benefit either, unlike say a symbiotic relationship where all parties benefit. So what’s their version of the free lunch apart from those palaces, yachts, Rolls Royce’s, carriages, etc?

Presumably they are civil servants of some sort and therefore draw off the public purse. All their lavish residences require 24/7/52 security, paid for by the public. Security forces that could be better and more gainfully employed acting as security for the many and not for the extreme few. Anytime they are out in public there’s a massive security operation, crowd and traffic control, etc. That takes for many police, etc. (unavailable for more important duties for the duration). If they are out and about, the great unwashed can be expected to be brushed aside and inconvenienced while the royals get those royal preferences – no red lights, no rush hour traffic, no going through airline security measures like metal detectors and having bags checked and X-rayed at airports and then waiting patiently their turn to taxi and takeoff. I doubt very much if they are subject to customs checks and duties.

So what do they do to earn their legit place in society and thus refute my use of the term parasite?

Well I gather the queen of the day (or king) opens up Parliament on the first day of a newly elected Parliament. The queen (or king) gets to read out a speech that’s prepared in advance for her. Hard work indeed since that happens only about once every three years! Once in a blue moon she extends the favour to one of her colonies, should she be in the right place at the right time.

Then Queen Liz gets to deliver live on your TV screen her annual Christmas message. Well, to be sure, she delivers it, but she doesn’t write it – that’s way too much like real work, and anyway, that’s what royal speech writers are hired for. Ho, Ho, Ho.

The royals host lots of morning and afternoon tea parties or social gatherings for the upper crusts of society – that elite 1%. Tough life that.

Apart from playing with their pet dogs (corgis), riding the royal horses for polo tournaments and for chasing and shooting foxes, the most exercise they get is to wave and smile to their adoring public on those various but relatively rare public occasions. It’s good PR to appear in public on occasion, though I’m sure they find that a boring and burdensome chore, just as movie stars and sporting ‘heroes’ eventually get tired of having to appear up close and personal for their adoring and ever pestering fans. Of course nobody dares ask Queen Liz for her autograph!

But since there’s since some tatters of a British Empire yet to administer, they, especially the head (the current Queen Liz) need to (have others) pack their bags and join the jet set and visit those far away places with strange sounding names, where they will get to wave and smile a zillion times more (for the unwashed 99%) and wine and dine with the local versions of the elite 1%. It’s all just PR; no actual administration is usually performed. “Boring” I rather suspect they probably mutter behind closed doors, especially after it’s the twelfth time around. Let’s all shed an itty-bitty tear for the queen, or her stand-in relatives who are expected to keep that stiff-upper-lip and enjoy being bored.

But part of that administration is the Queens Birthday Honours List and the Queen’s New Years Honours List, where lots of her subjects get all manner of rather archaic and outdated medals and initials to put after their names, all for various services rendered. Now the royals don’t actually have to do any real work here since the lists are prepared by the various colonial governments of the day, as well as that of the government of England herself. The royals just rubber stamp everything, since they don’t know (and probably really care less about) these people so honoured that set them slightly apart from any other of the millions of other odd bods and sods – their royal subjects. The royals aren’t really expected to have details about these royally honoured subjects filed away in their royal wetware – that’s what they well-heeled staff are there to brief them on. A small fraction of the recipients will front and centre at some palace or other to get their medals in person (usually the London locals) which probably taxes the mental and physical reserves of the royal they are presented to, right royally. Life’s a bitch and then you die, right?

At least Queen Liz supports the hat industry. Has anyone seen her in public without her wearing some sort of horrendous looking hat? At least I’m sure you’d only see it once. Queen Liz would never be caught out wearing the same hat in public twice!

Another right royal hardship is just having to endlessly stop and smell those roses that are forever presented to them – and look appreciative. In fact it’s just about mandatory for lots of adoring school girls in particular to present bouquet after bouquet after bouquet to any right royal parasite within pre-announced range. I’ve sure the royals have collected over the years more flowers than that which collectively go into the annual New Years Day Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade that precedes the college football Rose Bowl game. What a waste of flowers.

But even the royals have to shed a bit of privacy now for the sake of PR by allowing in camera crews and filmmakers to film and make documentaries for TV and DVD about the royals and the royal palaces and the royal lifestyles. All this shows is how extremely far removed the royals are from even the relatively well off elite 1%; the great unwashed 99% are light-years away.

Even when the young royal males join the military after their exclusive private schooling, nearly a mandatory obligation for keeping up appearances, you can be sure the royal recruits (in particular the next in line to the throne – the future king of England) are going to be treated with velvet gloves; get very rapid promotions, and are never really put into serious harms way, regardless of postings. How would it look if the heir to the throne got zapped in combat? Bad show old chap, to be avoided at all costs!

But are the royals unique?

The President of the United States (POTUS) may have just about as many taxpayer funded lurks and perks, but a lot less job security and not nearly the wealth. In any event, POTUS is only POTUS for a maximum of eight years; once king or queen, you’re king or queen for life with no competition; no election campaigns, no speeches, no fundraising and absolutely no kissing babies, no elections at all to have to face. How a POTUS wannabe must envy those born to rule.

The Pope may also come close in the uppity-uppity elite bracket, but like POTUS, he still had to move up the ranks and claw his way to the top (with or without outside assistance).

Surely there are many of the 1% elite who just happened to be born into wealth, even extreme wealth, who lead the total life of a playboy (or playgirl) and who via their inheritance might never have to do an honest days work – ever. Quite so, but there’s still a massive gap between those (less than) 1% who just inherit the good life, and those 1% of the 1% who are born to the good life because god says so. No matter how rich and famous you are, you can never, ever, command the sorts of lurks and perks that befit those entitled to the title of ‘royal’. The royals are in a total class of and by themselves.

So what lurks and perks flow on to the great 99% unwashed from the 1% of the 1%. Well I guess the colonies get to ‘celebrate’, the queen’s birthday, which is as phoney as a $7 bill since any similarity between the given holiday and the date of the actual birthday is problematical. The two don’t tend to coincide. Still, the masses aren’t one to begrudge a holiday day off. Otherwise, apart from the privilege of collecting those royal marriage commemorative coins (or any other royal souvenirs of which there exists an industry in its own right), the royals are a right royal irrelevance to the rest of the world. Off with their heads – that’s my motto!

P.S. You know something’s screwy somewhere when the king or queen of England (and thus of the British Empire) is appointed or anointed by God (divine right), yet the pope is elected by his human peers!