Democracy in Outer Space
Only posting a link!
Over at the Big Hollywood website, where conservative gather to bellyache (not without some justice) about Hollywood lockstep leftist conformity, one of the bellyaches elicited a belly laugh from me.
Ned Rice writes in high-pitched purple patriotic style about his disdain for soap operas and melodramas starring royalty. http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/nrice/2011/02/10/off-with-the-heads-of-hollywoods-misguided-royalty-genre/
My main problem with The King’s Speech is that the character we’re supposed to identify with, the down-trodden-schmuck-who-can’t-catch-a-break-but-we-root-for-him–anyway-because-for-all-his-faults-he’s-got-a-heart-of-gold just happens to be…THE KING OF ENGLAND!
I had the same problem with The Queen, which, you’ll recall, was about the trials and tribulations of a woman– oh, let’s call her THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND!—whose big life crisis was being criticized for not grieving enough after the death of Princess Diana. Well, ain’t life a bitch? I’ll bet you after those nasty British tabloids had their say about her Queen Elizabeth cried all the way home to her…ENORMOUS CASTLE. This is royalty we’re talking about, folks. The royal family’s various homes are worth well over a billion dollars– yes, even in today’s housing market. The personal net worth of Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles, et al are in the hundreds of millions of pounds, each—by the way, each pound coin being distinctive in that IT HAS A PICTURE OF QUEEN ELIZABETH ON IT. When you’re a royal the “family jewels” is not a crude reference to anyone’s anatomy– they’re actual jewels.
Call me heartless, but I just can’t feel sorry for anyone who has their own moat.
My antipathy towards the royalty genre in movies goes beyond the absurdity of being asked to identify with bejeweled billionaires seated on solid gold chairs.
My comment: I am a Yankee, or, rather I am as much of a Yankee as any gentleman of the Commonwealth of Virginia can be. Like all Americans, I pick my teeth with a Bowie knife, shoot savage Red Indians on Sundays and steal their land after our prayer meetings with Cotton Mather pinning scarlet letters on our womenfolk dressed in bonnets and living on a little house in the Prairie with the dog, Toto. I am as all-American as Pizza pie, Chop Suey, Nintendo, and Jackie Chan movies. So naturally I am delighted to hear anyone bad mouthing the Monarchy. I believe the banner of the Commonwealth of Virginia is the only flag in the world that actually shows the goddess Liberty in the act of killing a king. SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS!
On the other hand, as the founder and leader of that new literary movement that is poise, yea, poised, I say, to bellyflop into a deep end of the publishing world, the Space Princess Movement, I cannot join in these full-throated denunciations of monarchy with the heart they deserve.
Like you, dear American readers, I would like to see Aragorn hauled before the mass jury and guillotined, along with Conan, King of Aquilionia, while Susan Pevensy, Queen of Narnia, is consigned to the flames as an enemy of the People. Then we the people can vote empty headed empty suits into office and vote ourselves bread and circuses.
And John Carter the Warlord of Mars–did anyone vote for him to be Jed of Jeddeks of the city of Helium? A city where everyone speaks with a squeaky voice?
And Paul Mu’ad-Dib! Who died and made him messiah? And he comes from that rotten Spice World with the Spice Girls or whatever they are called. Should free men bow and kiss the toe of his stillsuit? “Aux armes, citoyens! Formez vos bataillons!”
Like you, I too would like to see Queen Padme turned out of office and forced to drive a floating cab for a living, because I love democracy and hate monarchy; and I too would like to see Princess Leia chained half-naked in a metal bikini as love slave to a slug, because because I am an pervert fanboy with “issues” OR NO NO NO, I mean because I love democracy with a capital Duh.
Say it with me now, my fellow sons of Liberty! We hold these truths to be self evident, that all sapient life forms are created equal, except robots, whom we regard as mere tools to be brain-wiped at our pleasure, and that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights by THE FORCE, which is some sort of energy field that binds the galaxy together and has somethig to do with mitochlorians.
On second thought, perhaps we Earthmen could not actually get along in a democracy with races like the Kzinti, especially if they had 51% of the vote, and we were voting on what to eat for lunch, or whom.
And what if the Puppet Masters from Heinlein had 51% of the vote, or the Wormfaces?
And if we gave the Humanoids from Jack Williamson the vote, we humans would just be subject to a political machine!
And giving the green animal women from Orion the vote would mean they might put on clothing or something! And get jobs!
And those Psycho historians from Isaac Asimov would know the outcome of the vote beforehand, by their devilish mathematics, and the Jedi Council would influence the outcome of the vote with their devilish mind-tricks: THESE ARE NOT THE HANGING CHADS YOU’RE LOOKING FOR!
No, no my freedom loving friends, sad as it is to say — for we surely love Democracy as much as Socrates did — in outer space, the only sage and safe form of government is to submit ourselves to the wise and benevolent reign of Ming the Merciless of Mongo.
He show that he can rule and reign over many races of men and mutants and maintain the peace, and as long as he suppresses the Christians and their hateful cannibal religion. Whatever tyrannies and humiliations, tortures and arbitrary death, cruel taxes and stealing our daughters to his space-harem are not merely justified, but necessary, and will prevent the peoples of Mongo from falling into the hands of Radical Islam. HAIL MING!
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
