Via the Dr Helen blog, I came across yet another vintage example of smug-and-unintentionally-funny American right-wing commentary on life this side of the pond. For your delectation...
"Are we citizens or are we subjects?
It's a civil war of sorts.
The British people are subjects under a constitutional monarchy that provides a titular head of state, who reinforces the relationship between the government and the governed.
The state must take care of its subjects. The British like this...
Citizenship is messier. People have more personal responsibility.
Everyone is equal. People shout down congressmen. How rude.
Subjects are not individuals. Subjects are simply members of a group...
Citizens see people as individuals, and respect those who march to their own drumbeat...
This also explains the affinity a fair portion of the electorate feels for Sarah Palin. She's not a slick politician. She's not an elitist. She's in touch with ordinary life...
Being a citizen is harder than being a subject because it comes with more responsibility...
But it is who we, as a nation, are."
Apart from the highly amusing unspoken suggestion that absolute monarchy and communism are in fact one and the same thing (in which case the Russian Revolution doesn't seem like such a big deal after all), what's wrong with Mr Don Surber's thesis? Let's take it in turn...
1) People in Britain are citizens - a legal fact. If he doesn't believe me, I can show him my passport.
2) The evidence for 'British subjects' being dutifully deferential towards their politicians is, how can I put this...a wee bit thin. Indeed, British politicians don't seem to be altogether shy in shouting each other down, either. Evidently, Mr Surber is not an avid follower of PMQs. And what is this American 'rudeness' of which he speaks? Must be when opposition politicians just give the president forty-seven standing ovations during the State of the Union address instead of eighty-nine. Gosh, that's jolly unsporting, what?
3) To me the definition of an elitist is someone who thinks that the voice of people who are already sitting pretty with health insurance is far more important than the voice of the sixty million who are not insured. The opposite of an elitist is someone who thinks that the disadvantaged in society count for just as much as the advantaged. And, call me eccentric, but that's also the way I interpret the word 'equality'.
But apart from all these trifling points, that whole American 'citizens' versus British 'subjects' thing was really well-conceived, Don.
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