I Told You That the Royals Were Bad News

Yahoo! UK & Ireland News - Prince's blast at people who get above their station

So check this nonsense out. The Prince of Wales (duly elected by the people of Wales in a free and fair election) has criticised people who "don't know their place" in society. Here's the deal:

This woman who worked on the Prince's staff as a personal assistant to some private secretaries decided, after five years of employment, to try to seek qualification as a personal secretary herself. Basically, she felt that she had had experience and education (she's a college graduate), so she'd try to get promoted.

Well, she got fired. And when she alleged that it was sexism and elitism that motivated her firing; the Prince got mad.

In the old days, when Princes got mad, they'd just kill you or burn down your town or something, but now, they write memos. And in his memo, the Prince criticised young people and England's education system for making "People think they can all be pop stars, high court judges, brilliant TV personalities or infinitely more competent heads of state without ever putting in the necessary work or having natural ability. This is the result of social utopianism which believes humanity can be genetically and socially engineered to contradict the lessons of history."

Okay, so I don't know the details of this lady's case. She may have been sexually harassed and fired because she was too ambitious, or maybe she's trying to make a buck, I don't know. But, what about what the Prince said?

This is coming from a guy who was born the Crown Prince of England. By the way, the full title is His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, unless he's in Scotland, where they call him Prince Charles, Duke of Rothesay. He's also Duke of Cornwall, Earl of Carrick and Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland. Okay, so when Queen Elizabeth II, who was also elected Queen in an election open to all citizens of the United Kingdom aged 18 and older, dies, Prince Charles gets to be King. "People think they can all be... infinitely more competent heads of state without ever putting in the necessary work or having natural ability."

Also, he's a Lieutenant General in the Royal Army, a Vice Admiral in the Royal Navy, and an Air Marshal in the Royal Air Force (those are each the second-highest ranks in each service). He served actively in the Navy from 1971 to 1976 and by the end of 1976 he became a helicopter pilot and commanded a minehunter! By that reckoning, my father, who joined the US Navy the year before, should have been the Chief of Naval Operations by 1980 and by the time he retired in 1991 he should have been a pilot, a minehunter captain, a submarine captain, a navy SEAL, a diver and simultaneously a general in the other armed forces.

The problem is, of course, that that was not my father's station in life. He had not been "putting in the necessary work or having natural ability." Unlike the Prince, whose necessary work included being the first son of the Queen and and the natural ability involved being part of a mostly-inbred (until the 20th Century) family that has remained in power because of England's love for tradition.

In this memo, the Prince said, "This is to do with the learning culture in schools as a consequence of a child-centred system which admits no failure." Okay, there may some merit to his criticism of a system where everyone wins, but, let's be honest, how are you going to fail the Prince of Wales on a geography test? "Well, India isn't a part of England anymore, Prince Charles, but it used to be, A+." If he wants to talk about a culture of no failure, he should ask why he made Admiral after only 5 years of active service in the Navy, and how he became a General or Air Marshal without ever having served in the Army or Air Force.

Additionally, his second son, Harry, who is destined for obscurity unless he murders his brother William, has entered Sandhurst, the British Military Academy (like West Point, but with accents). Who's surprised? Imagine this: you're on the Sandhurst acceptance board and the guy to your left says: "The next Candidate is Henry Charles Albert David Mountbatten-Windsor, also known as His Royal Highness Prince Henry of Wales. His dad is going to be the king, and so is his brother." How do you say no to him?

And the Prince is talking about people becoming pop stars, judges, TV personalities or heads of state without working or having natural ability?

Come to think of it, that's probably why a whole mess of people left England in the early 1600's and went first to Holland and then to America. The government in Englad probably sent them a similar memo but in between "putting in the necessary work " and "having natural ability" they probably added "belonging to the right Church."

I thought that aspiring to be something greater than you are is the fundamental goal of humanity. I mean, that's the whole point. People are convinced that despite their surroundings, upbringing, economic standing or natural ability they can do something great. How many of us were told "You could be the President," or "You could be an astronaut," or "You can be whatever you want to be" when we were kids? As we grow up, we learn that we might not become astronauts or the President, but we can always strive to be better than we were. This woman was a personal assistant who wanted to be a secretary. A secretary! Prince Charles, I don't know if you're paying attention to the world around you, but that's not much of a jump in social standing.

Yes, I agree that you have to work hard and that some people, no matter how hard they practice playing the cello will not become a Yo-Yo Ma, but the fact that this remark was made by a guy who was born a king ticks me off. This guy hasn't led the armies of England to victory at Agincourt (that was Hery V in 1415), he isn't the richest man in England (actually it's Roman Abramovich, the owner of the Chelsea Football Club, weighing in at a whopping 7.2 billion pounds), and he wasn't chosen by people to rule (that's Prime Minister Tony Blair, more or less), he was just lucky to be born into a royal family.

So, sexual harassment issues aside, I think the Prince should be careful how he talks to people who didn't happen to be born in his privileged family because they're the ones who keep the monarchy in existence (France had a king once, but he ticked off a few too many pesants). He should also think about what he says about people that work hard and have innate abilities to rule, because, if you follow British politics, you'll see that the Queen (or King-to-be) doesn't really do a whole lot any more because the people of Britain decided they were sick of loser monarchs.

Sorry if I offended any of you Torys out there who are mad about the Royals, but I read the Federalist Papers and they make more sense than that memo. Besides, as an American, it's my job to complain about tyranny; Thomas Jefferson would be proud.

(For more on the problems with royalty, check out my Election Day rant.)