The bloody roots of royal power

“The biggest crime in England is to rise above your station. It's fine to be a pop star. 'Oh, it's great, lots of fun, aren't they sweet, these pop stars!' But to think you have anything to say about how the world should work? What arrogance!”
Brian Eno

“If you are afraid to speak against tyranny, then you are already a slave.”
John Bryant

“I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.”
Harriet Tubman, a truly great American who had a $52,000 bounty on her head, equivalent to $1.41 million in 2012

“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German writer and polymath

“It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.”
Voltaire

“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.”
Henry David Thoreau, author of Walden and Civil Disobedience, an essay “motivated in part by his disgust with slavery and the Mexican–American War.

This article is part of the
$100,000 Challenge Series

People often think they are enlightened even when they believe things that should have been left in the Dark Ages.

In this series, I will challenge conventional wisdom and explore some odd and unjustifiable beliefs that persist, offering $100,000 to the first person who can solve each challenge, proving me wrong. My opinions are bound to ruffle some feathers and make you think.

If you trace the roots of royal families back far enough, you will find something very interesting. God did not come down from Heaven and anoint anyone as King, nor did men happy to run their own lives think it would be a good idea to make themselves subservient to a man empowered to take some of their possessions and tell them what they could and could not do, imposing punishments for transgressors that often ranged from horrible to barbaric.

So if monarchies did not originate from divine intervention or from men eager for another man to run their lives, how did blue-blooded men gain their power?

By shedding blood: using often lethal force to get other men to live their lives on their knees, doing what the King wanted—or else.

“All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”
Voltaire

“Force always attracts men of low morality.”
Albert Einstein

“Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race. All through history mankind has been bullied by scum. Those who lord it over their fellows and toss commands in every direction and would boss the grass in the meadows about which way to bend in the wind are the most depraved kind of prostitutes. They will submit to any indignity, perform any vile act, do anything to achieve power. The worst off-sloughings of the planet are the ingredients of sovereignty. Every government is a parliament of whores.”
P. J. O'Rourke

Kings and Queens have special needs. No ordinary home will do; they want majestic castles staffed by legions of yes-men and servants. They want the finest clothing, gold, silver, diamonds, rubies, and other precious stones. They want the best food, and if that can only be had by taking so much from their subjects that they go hungry or starve—well, too bad.

King and Queen sponging off people
“We sit around year after year producing no valuable goods or services yet literally live like royalty in grand palaces and eating scrumptious food while the peasants live in shacks and eat moldy food—if they have any food at all … ha, ha!—even though they work their tails off to pay for what little they have and the riches we have! Oh, it's so great to have fools dumb enough to fall for this sham!”

What did royal families do to deserve such riches and coddling? They often didn't lift a finger, except to form what we would now recognize as an organized crime ring that used violent force, or the threat of it, to compel others to live as they commanded. In other words, the nobility weren't noble; they were terrorists and thugs, less legitimate than Al Capone and other mobsters who were happy to let most people live their lives as they wished. In contrast, royal families are insatiable, insisting that every person in their country is their subject, who is subjected to their rules. Or else.

Wild game were considered property of the British King and Queen, who could take any animal they wanted at any time, including merely for “sport,” but if a man killed an animal to feed his starving family, he was subject to the penalty for poaching: having his eyes gouged out. Thus the NFL players who stood in London for the British national anthem but knelt for the US anthem need a stat history lesson. Here's a small slice of it:

Hussein Onyango Obama, President Obama's grandfather, “was imprisoned by the British for political offences … and … tortured in a bid to extract information … [, leaving him] permanently scarred and debilitated by that torture at the hands of the British, and he was not alone.” In Why Britain must finally remember, Phil Mac Giolla Bhain brilliantly capsulized some of the shocking British inhumanity. George Monbiot described more of it in Deny the British empire's crimes? No, we ignore them. Here's an excerpt exposing what British did to people they put in concentration camps:

“Interrogation under torture was widespread. Many of the men were anally raped, using knives, broken bottles, rifle barrels, snakes and scorpions. A favorite technique was to hold a man upside down, his head in a bucket of water, while sand was rammed into his rectum with a stick. Women were gang-raped by the guards. People were mauled by dogs and electrocuted. The British devised a special tool which they used for first crushing and then ripping off testicles. They used pliers to mutilate women's breasts. They cut off inmates' ears and fingers and gouged out their eyes. They dragged people behind Land Rovers until their bodies disintegrated. Men were rolled up in barbed wire and kicked around the compound.”

If you committed suicide in England, the King and Queen would take all of your money, even if that left your spouse and children destitute (source). That's clearly plunder to all reasonable people, but not royalty, who look for any excuse to take what others have. Because money doesn't evaporate, that means some of the current Queen's riches were taken from others who suffered as a result.

Once the thugs who fancy themselves as royalty get a taste of power, they want even more of it, so they often try to extend their rule beyond their borders. The most notorious example of this is Great Britain, which has patted itself on the back for being good guys while sending their imperialistic forces around the globe to make others do as they commanded. Anyone who resisted risked being put in their place, which was prison for the lucky ones, and six feet under for those less fortunate. One could fill an encyclopedia documenting all British atrocities, as I discussed in another article. Their crimes against humanity included massacring children, kidnapping children, starving children to death, slavery, rape, torture, using poison gas and other war crimes, mass murder, ethnocide, and genocide—all documented in my article.

God never issued a special exemption to permit the British royal family to behave so savagely, nor did their victims beg to be ruled by terrorists masquerading as a legitimate aristocracy, so the blue bloods of Britain used centuries of propaganda to brainwash people into thinking they have a right to special treatment, titles of nobility, and mountains of cash—all extracted by victimizing their subjects.

Bill O'Reilly got it right when he said:

“So, how did they [the British royal family] get all of their carriages and all the maintenance on their castles and everything? Because they stole it from the peasants! From you and me and all the others. I'm Irish, but how do you think the Kings got all their castles and wealth? They stole it!”

He added that celebrating royal weddings “would be like in America us celebrating the wedding of Al Capone's great-great-great-great-granddaughter. Come on!”

He later added, “They [the royal family] got their money in nefarious ways, in brutal ways … the monarchy throughout history has been dubious to say the least.”

Responding to his earlier comments, Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum concurred by saying, “They [the British royal family] pillaged the people of Scotland.” And many others.

“I dislike the idea of a hereditary aristocracy—kings and queens and royals. They're basically just successful, silk-clad gangsters. Why the royal family in Britain is looked up to is a mystery to me. They, like all royals in the world, historically are just descendants of successful thugs.”
— Doug Casey in Doug Casey on the Political Correctness Movement

When force is used against so many millions of people, it is statistically inevitable that not all quickly are subjugated or die painlessly. Countless adults and children suffered tremendously before dying, and many were injured, from hideous disfigurements to blindness and paralysis.

Racists are more likely to overlook or trivialize the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the British royal family because the victims often (but not always) were more heavily pigmented. Even today, as supposedly enlightened people congratulate themselves for overcoming racism, there is a lingering tacit (but obvious and documented) perception that people with more skin pigmentation somehow matter less, even in healthcare (as I documented in references for another article). Certainly, they receive less new coverage. I tuned into Fox News daily for months before I saw a brief story on a missing person, Phylicia Barnes, a gorgeous black honors student, while I saw countless stories on Holly Bobo, a beautiful white nursing student who was also missing. The black community is well aware of this bias (see notes).

The technique of propaganda known as “Big Lie” was coined by Adolf Hitler and used by Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, who wrote, “The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.”

Ex-queen

The British royal family looks more than ridiculous to thinking people; they look like self-centered unprincipled thugs so thrilled with their ill-gotten gains that they are happy to maintain their charade, which has nothing to do with justice, and everything to do with the perpetuation of a sham. Perpetuating an injustice does not erase it; it merely compounds it. Thus, the British royal family, and other aristocracies around the world, should immediately disband, distributing their purloined loot to their people, and get real jobs doing real work. Goodbye crown, hello mop.

If you could open the graves of the men and women whose tombstones were mere stepping stones for the royal families to gain and hold power, and if those corpses could talk, they would surely fill your ears with shocking true tales of how they and others were brutalized so the terrorists who called themselves Kings and Queens could get their way.

Modern people like to think we've cast off all the backwardness of the Dark Ages, but some of what we believe cannot be ethically justified yet persists because folks are so habituated to an injustice that they don't recognize it.

Imagine if aristocracies did not exist and one of your co-workers announced that he was now King, so you'd better fork over a big chunk of your paycheck to him and do what he said from that day forward. His kids would tell your kids what to do, and take lots of their stuff, and your grandchildren would keep bowing to his grandchildren. How would you respond? You might howl in laughter or give him a knuckle sandwich for being so unfathomably arrogant. If he implemented his plan in the United States, the Department of Justice would prosecute him and his co-conspirators under the RICO statutes. Goodbye crown, hello prison cell. Goodbye servants, hello Bubba.

Commenting on Spanish monarchy's popularity hits new low, Robert B said, “Anyone who respects any Royal Family is a fool, especially if they are supporting the parasitic royals with their hard-earned money!”

Hereditary monarchies represent the ultimate in unelected power and unearned privileges. Elective monarchies aren't much better, often with a handful of nobles using their illegitimate power to elect a leader. According to the Wikipedia, “Today, almost all monarchies are hereditary monarchies in which the monarchs come from one royal family with the office of sovereign being passed from one family member to another upon the death or abdication of the incumbent.”

Since almost all monarchies are now hereditary monarchies, almost all monarchies are just longstanding criminal organizations. So why do we put up with them? Why do people permit those thugs to pickpocket their paychecks and command respect? They deserve nothing but contempt for behavior that ranges from leeching to brutal dictatorship, as in Saudi Arabia.

Is this merely an academic exercise? No. According to experts, much of the Middle Eastern hatred for the United States stems from how they view us: as hypocrites who profess to support freedom while we give many billions of dollars in aid to support despotic leaders who are loathed by their people. Thus we shouldn't be surprised when those people hate us for meddling in their affairs. If you cannot understand why, try putting yourself in their shoes: How would you feel if the Iranian people put Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, into power with total control over our country? That is what we did to them in 1941 when we installed the Shah as the tyrannical ruler of Iran.

The Shah, who was arrogant enough to anoint himself the “King of Kings,” was a despot who ruled with an iron fist and had grown men literally kissing his feet. His love for himself was so great that he spent $100 million on just one party in 1971—almost certainly the most lavish one in history (in today's dollars, that would be over $500 million). As some of his people lived nearby in abject poverty, The King of Kings was having one heck of a grand time … with their money. The wealth of Iran was traceable to oil, a natural resource that should have been equally shared by all Iranians. However, thanks to our meddling, Iranians were given this abominable man who thought that it was his God-given right to take whatever he wanted from them.

Incidentally, I don't buy the common excuse that the thugs we support around the world are acceptable because they are the lesser of two evils. If we have the power to determine who will rule another country—and we often do—we could put Mister Rogers or some other good guy in power, not some frigging egomaniac like the Shah who thought he was God and his subjects were dirt.

The King of Saudi Arabia is a brutal dictator who leaves his people alone only if they don't oppose his illegal regime, do what they are told, and—if they are unlucky enough to be women—behave like third-class pieces of property.

Saudi Arabia is a classic example of how thugs use gunpowder to form kingdoms. Abdul-Aziz bin Saud's power came not from God or elections, but from a willingness to massacre anyone who stood in his way as he consolidated power. His Smith & Wesson tactics of persuasion convinced enough people to acquiesce rather than die. Might makes right.

Saddam Hussein pulled a similar stunt when he invaded Kuwait, which culminated in the Gulf War led by an indignant United States. We attacked him, but President Obama bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia (and was audacious enough to deny it in spite of compelling video evidence), which makes as much sense as bowing to the Godfather. Thus we should not be scratching our heads in befuddlement when Middle Eastern people sense a glaring disconnect between our professed love for freedom and our affinity for Middle Eastern leaders who deprive them of freedom.

The King of Bahrain used lethal force to suppress protestors who sought to end his illegitimate monarchy. His thuggish security forces shot and killed unarmed civilians, fired on homes with helicopters, and attacked doctors treating the wounded. An eyewitness reported:

“No one was being allowed into the hospital—even the more dangerously injured. Some of the doctors in the hospital are being held hostage by troops armed with machine guns. They are not being allowed to leave the hospital, or even to treat patients that are already inside.”

Preventing doctors from treating patients is a crime against humanity

One doctor claimed government forces hunted a nearby hospital for demonstrators and shot at them in the corridors.” A terrified surgeon termed this slaughter “genocide.” Another witness called it “a war of annihilation.

A citizen of Bahrain commented, “Please help us the tyrant Government (so-called Royals) are killing my people … Doctors without Borders and the Red Cross wanted to come in but were not allowed. [Security forces] shot at innocent boys with no weapons.”

Ironically, “the government called the demonstrators 'outlaws' for demanding an end to the monarchy.” Saudi Arabia sent tanks and 1000 troops to help the King of Bahrain commit more crimes against humanity.

King Leopold II of Belgium pillaged the Congo Free State, robbing it of first ivory and then rubber using brutal force to subjugate its people, approximately 10 million of whom were killed so he could amass a huge personal fortune and live the high life. Untold others were mutilated (one of many photos illustrating victims of his atrocities).

Documentary (1 hr 49 min): Congo: White King, Red Rubber, Black Death:

The $100,000 challenge: Prove that monarchies are inherently ethical; that it was right for people to transform themselves from ordinary folks into royalty by using violence to force others to submit. George Washington would not agree, nor would the millions of people who fought for freedom from Kings and Queens, so this is a formidable (and I think impossible) task—but that's enough money to make you try to justify something that cannot be justified.

Since it cannot be justified, why do we help perpetuate the legitimacy of this sham? Why do we not insist that our President not bow to Kings but instead shame them into abdicating their thrones? If we truly think that cheap oil and iPods are more important than freedom, why don't we admit we're less focused on freedom than gizmos that fill our heads with enough sound to mask the cries of freedom from around the world? Are we truly the land of the free and the home of the brave, or the land of the spineless consumers addicted to trinkets made affordable by our leaders who make deals with foreign devils?

Our Founding Fathers had nothing but contempt for people who thought they were special and entitled to special treatment just because they slid down the right birth canal. They knew that Kings and Queens were just synonyms for thugs who used nobility as a veneer to camouflage their fraudulent foundations, so they expressly prohibited noble titles in the Constitution:

“No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States” and “No State shall … grant any Title of Nobility.”

Want to select a King or Queen with a more legitimate right to rule? Randomly pick someone out of the phone book, hold a lottery, or even a beauty contest. Choosing a leader that way is better than how hereditary monarchies gained power: by using force, which cannot be justified, period.

beauty contest

Why do people tolerate monarchies when they are smart enough to understand their inherent evil? Understanding that requires a bit of psychological knowledge that gives insight into why people figuratively slip nooses around their necks and beg leaders to tighten them. I discussed this research in another article explaining how we could kickstart our economy and lessen the burden on taxpayers while giving more money to the folks they support.

Notes:

  1. March 7, 2021: Explosive Harry, Meghan interview reverberates across globe
    Excerpt: “Prince Harry and Meghan's explosive TV interview divided people around the world on Monday, rocking an institution that is struggling to modernize with claims of racism and callousness toward a woman struggling with suicidal thoughts.”
    Comment: The British Royal family is commonly portrayed as if they are better than us and care about their subjects, but they only excel in acting as if they do. The fact that we are better than them is not surprising because the surest way to ruin children is to heap praise on them regardless of what they do, and to inflate their heads by telling them how special they are without the need to work for it. Thus as they earn fancy titles and huge fortunes without the need to work just because they were born into a royal family, whatever potential they had is squandered by narcissistic entitlement.
  2. May 7, 2021: The Queen is now selling gin to support her 'extensive art collection'
  3. Was King Richard III a Control Freak?
    Comment: Gee whiz, aren't they all? Anyone who wasn't would immediately relinquish their illegitimate titles, riches, and power, then get a real job and contribute to society instead of sponging off it. In other words, become productive, not a parasite.
  4. [British] Family May Be Forced to Demolish Secret Castle They Call Home because they “set out deliberately to deceive.” Based on that logic, all buildings “owned” by the British “royal” family should also be demolished because they set out deliberately to deceive their “subjects” that they had a right to rule them and sponge off them.
  5. The Congo Rubber Atrocities -- A Case Study
  6. Book by Harvard professor Caroline Elkins: Britain's Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya
  7. I am related to Chester Arthur, the 21st President of the United States. Imagine how ridiculous it would be if I were to insist that I deserved a special title, money, or privileges just because I am related to him. It is equally crazy when modern royalty parade around like big shots and give themselves gold and fancy-schmancy titles just because they are related to past Kings and Queens who put themselves on the throne and put others on their knees by bashing in skulls until the peasants said uncle!
  8. Commenting on the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton, comedian Jerry Seinfeld said, “It's an absurd act. You know, it's a dress-up; it's a classic English thing of 'let's play dress-up.' Let's pretend these are special people. OK, we'll all pretend that—that's what theater is. That's why the British have the greatest theater in the world. They love to dress up and they love to play pretend.”
  9. 'Rightful heir' to British monarchy dies in Australia
    Comment: This article suggests the current British royalty are utter frauds.
  10. Family ties that bind: Having the right surname sets you up for life
  11. A right-royal rip-off: Queen's cleaners fight for living wage
  12. A right royal rip-off – how much should Commonwealth nations pay for the Queen’s Jubilee?
  13. The British Citizen and London Watchman
    Excerpt: “ … a dysfunctional 'royal' family of upper-class eccentrics and a ruling elite of politicians, parasites and moneygrabbers …”
  14. British royal family worth more than $1 billion, report says (all of which is plunder)
  15. Happy 30th birthday, Prince William! Here’s $14 million
  16. 10,000 diamonds on display at Buckingham Palace
  17. UK Prince labeled Jamaica slave master
  18. Prince Harry said that “sometimes he and Prince William wish they were just normal instead of royals.” OK, Harry, then why don't you and William do this? Announce that your monarchy is a farce, donate your inheritance to charity, and become normal, ethical people instead of ones happy to perpetuate a sham?
  19. Nude photos of Prince Harry in Vegas cause royal hangover for Buckingham Palace
    Comment: Guess who is paying for him to behave like an irresponsible child? UK taxpayers. Prince Harry previously “apologized after a photograph taken at a costume party showed him wearing a Nazi uniform.” He is living proof that hereditary monarchies are a bad idea. Here's a question for you folks in the UK: Why on Earth do you let such bozos think they're royalty with a right to rule you and sponge off you?
  20. Prince Harry Naked Photos During Vegas Rager
  21. Photos of naked prince raise security questions
    Excerpt: “Security experts estimate that British taxpayers spend between 30 million and 100 million pounds ($48 million and $159 million) a year keeping the royals safe.”
  22. Bashar al-Assad, nominally the president but actually the brutal dictator of Syria, killed thousands of civilians, including children, trying to stay in power, and the United Nations accused Syrian troops of using children as “human shields.” His gorgeous wife Asma claims she is “the real dictator.” (more pictures of Asma) Before marrying her ruthless husband, Asma worked in the investment banking division of J.P. Morgan. One person summed her up in three words: “Pretty. Vacant. Fascist.” and added that the “Assad regime is pretty much the blueprint for a multigenerational Middle Eastern kleptocracy.

    Assad The Butcher “has continued to rely on support from Russia, China and Iran to hold firm and has used his air power to” massacre his people in a last-ditch attempt to stay in power. Russia and Iran have well-deserved reputations for brutality, but even China—the country that makes the (often toxic) junk we buy is also in bed with a savage leader. Offhand, I cannot think of a single country in which average people were the root of evil, which invariably stems from leaders. What does that tell you?

    Some people wonder if Asma al-Assad is complicit in the mass murder or troubled by it. This isn't much of a mystery. Shopaholic Asma continued her extravagant shopping as her people were dying like flies.
  23. Syria's first lady draws Marie Antoinette comparisons
  24. When The Powerless Rise Up
  25. Ludwigsburg Palace
    Comment: Where does the money for such grand palaces come from? The people.
  26. The dictator's dough: Astonishing wealth of Gaddafi and his family revealed. Libyan tyrant Muammar Gaddafi and his family aren't the only ones looting their countries; other thugs, euphemized as Kings and Queens, also do it.
  27. The King Who Became a Pirate: When King Erik VII of Denmark was forced from the throne, he did the only thing any self-respecting descendent of Vikings could: He joined the warriors of the sea, and hit right back at his enemies.
  28. March 9, 2021: Nadine Batchelor-Hunt: DEBATE: Should the monarchy be abolished?
    Comment: The monarchy is an anachronism perpetuating the abominable idea that all men and women aren't created equal.
  29. October 22, 2022: Meghan Markle stood by while her handler demanded a private table at a restaurant because she was 'dating a prince,' a new book claims
    Comment: It isn't wise to demand anything before getting food at a restaurant. Every adult tuned into the real world realizes that annoying restaurant staff can result in retaliation, such as them spitting on your food — or worse.
  30. February 7, 2023: Codebreakers crack secrets of the lost letters of Mary, Queen of Scots
    Excerpt: “Catholics considered Mary to be the legitimate sovereign and Elizabeth had her imprisoned for 19 years because she was seen as a threat. Mary was eventually executed at the age of 44 …”
  31. March 2, 2023: Meghan Markle, Prince Harry suffered Hollywood 'miscalculation' with explosive tell-alls: experts: TV presenter Nick Ede recently claimed that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex underestimated how low in Hollywood ‘pecking order’ they'd be
    Comment: What have they done to make the world a better place?
  32. Just the tip of the iceberg in documenting the outrage stemming from the bias of news organizations who give considerably more coverage to crimes against white people, especially beautiful young Caucasian women:
       • Kidnapped Black Teen Fails To Capture Media Attention

    Another glaring example: My many teachers and professors repeatedly (as they should have) discussed the Nazi Holocaust of Jews during World War 2, but not one uttered a single word about the considerably more numerous crimes against humanity perpetrated by Japanese soldiers before and during WW2.

    What Japanese soldiers did to Allied POWs and Asian civilians is so shockingly brutal that I caution you not to read my articles discussing this topic if you have a weak stomach. Japanese soldiers invented uniquely horrific ways to torture and kill, and they committed the most extensive mass rapes in history, targeting women and even children, sometimes butchering them afterwards in ways that likely would have made even Hitler feel queasy. I presented evidence and photos in these articles:
       • Japanese war crimes
       • Hirohito: the war criminal who got off scot-free

Watch royals fumble simple questions:

The views expressed on this page may or may not reflect my current opinions, nor do they necessarily represent my past ones. After reading a slice of what I wrote in my various websites and books, you may conclude that I am a liberal Democrat or a conservative Republican. Wrong; there is a better alternative. Just as the primary benefit from debate classes results when students present and defend opinions contrary to their own, I use a similar strategy as a creative writing tool to expand my brainpower—and yours. Mystified? Stay tuned for an explanation. PS: The wheels in your head are already turning a bit faster, aren't they?

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald

Reference: Imagining dialogue can boost critical thinking: Excerpt: “Examining an issue as a debate or dialogue between two sides helps people apply deeper, more sophisticated reasoning …”

Comments (1)

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Comment #113 by Ross Blomberg
February 2 2011 11:35:29 PM

I agree

I agree that no modern King or Queen has been installed by God. Only King Saul and King David were.

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