America is supposed to be a place where everyone is equal—so why are so many of us glued to coverage of the royal wedding? Have we forgotten, Mark Oppenheimer wonders, that we "fought a bloody war for the privilege to ignore the king of England"? Now, many of us turn into "besotted Anglophilic wusses" at the mere mention of Wills or Kate. "For an American to be excited about the royal wedding is undignified and lame," he declares on Slate. "And, I would add, if you get up at 3am on Friday to watch the wedding on television, you are a traitor to your country."
"Americans are supposed to loathe and reject monarchs"—heck, the idea that the US should not grant nobility to choice citizens was even written into our Constitution. True, we may not all be equal in terms of wealth or education, but we should at least be equal in the eyes of the government—which makes it so dispiriting to watch Americans forgetting their "American-ness" and calling royals by their hoity-toity titles, like "Queen Mother," when the appropriate American approach would be "Mrs. Windsor." Sure, we have our own brand of royalty (does the name Kardashian ring a bell?), "but at least it is our bad tendency, born here, of a free people, one that calls each of us 'Mr.' or 'Ms.'—that, in fact, encourages the familiarity of 'Kim,' 'Kourtney,' and 'Khloe.' That is worth something, and it is worth sleeping on Friday morning." (If, however, you're still glued to the royal wedding coverage ... click for the 10 craziest moments of pre-wedding frenzy so far.)
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