What The Hell Is Wrong With England?

They have a queen, for Christ's sake, and they treat her like freaking royalty. It's the twenty-first century. We've had an Enlightenment, invented democracy and liberalism: get with the program, England!

And get with the program America, while we're at it with the program-getting. Our President held a white-tie banquet for the queen and her totally emasculated prince husband, and seven-thousand of their closest friends. The White House spent the weekend getting ready, spending your tax dollars on floral arrangements, touching-up paint jobs, and gold-engraved invitations. It would be a obscene waste of money even if this weren't a president who hasn't bothered to attend a single funeral for a soldier killed in Iraq. I know, I know: our soldiers didn't have the good fortune to be born into one of history's most prestigious inbred families. Screw them. Well, I guess that's what the Bush administration's doing.

For some reason, whenever the British come and visit, Americans have to turn into the same foppish dandies our forefathers fought a revolution to get the hell away from. Have you seen Entertainment Tonight's coverage of David Beckham's move to Los Angeles? Or that Katie + Peter show on the E! network? Who the hell are Katie and Peter, why should I care, and what are they saying? You're from England; speak English, dammit! The queen's got to be the worst though, and Bush's usual obsequious nature in the presence of his political betters — Dick Cheney, queen of England, American Legion — is just sickening.

Here's the protocol: The queen shall be addressed as "Your Majesty." One does not shake the queen's hand unless she offers her hand first. After the queen is done eating, everybody is done eating. Um, has it occurred to anybody that maybe the other guests aren't finished? God, how I'd love to be the one greeting the queen here in America: "Welcome to America, we don't have royalty here. You can carry your own bags." The protocol may be fine when our head of state visits England's backwards aristocracy, but when you come over here, you follow our customs.

In other news, Paris Hilton got her ass arrested because she thought that, being Paris Hilton and all, it was cool for her to drive with a suspended license. You know, because she's more important than the rest of us. Her family actually got mad at the judge for sentencing her (instead of at the celebutard who drove drunk in the first place, then got and violated her probation), and Hilton apologists took time off from swooning over the queen to complain that forty-five days in rich white person Beverly Hills jail was too harsh. I see absolutely no connection between the two attitudes.