America And Royalty

 I was an immigrant to America when I was a child, having lived in Britain and Canada before. Let me tell you about the greatest surprise about living in America.

I knew that America was a republic, there was no royalty or nobility. We recited the Pledge of Allegiance every morning in school, which emphasized that America was a republic.

America was led by a president, whose wife was the First Lady, and there was a vice-president. There was to be no royalty here.

But if we wanted to go out for food, there was Burger King and Dairy Queen. The nearest department store was named King's. A popular local brand of frozen food was Freezer Queen.

Someone was always being billed as the "King of this" or the "Queen of that". Elvis Presley was the "King of Rock And Roll" and Aretha Franklin was the "Queen of Soul".

Portions were often described as "King-sized" or "Queen-sized". Innumerable products and businesses had "Palace", "Royal" or, "Crown" in their names, or a crown in their logo.

A popular soft drink was Royal Crown Cola and a top-shelf whiskey that was advertised was Crown Royal Whiskey.

Many products for girls had "Princess" in their titles. The local high schools were sometimes in the news with their Class Princesses, Prom Queens and Homecoming Queens.

Decks of cards that were used for games in America still had a king and queen.

The nickname of nearby Buffalo was the "Queen City", because it was the largest city in New York State after New York City. But one of the boroughs of New York City was named Queens and the nickname of New York State was "The Empire State", as if it was ruled by an emperor.

Americans followed Britain's royal family at least as closely as Brits or Canadians and, really incredibly, the presidency of John F. Kennedy, one of America's most popular presidents, was nicknamed "Camelot", which was the court of the legendary King Arthur.

Shouldn't Elvis Presley have been the President of Rock and Roll and Aretha Franklin the First Lady of Soul? Wouldn't it sound more like a republic if Buffalo's nickname was the Vice-President City? Doesn't "Burger President" sound more patriotic for Americans than Burger King?

But this is a very good illustration of how historical momentum works. Royalty has been removed from America's official sphere but is thriving in it's unofficial sphere. 

The world has been ruled by royalty since the beginning of civilization, and the drafting of a constitution isn't going to change that. In America, royalty has just been shifted from the official sphere to the unofficial sphere.

The same principle sometimes applies to economics. Markets have been where buying and selling has been done for thousands of years, typically with haggling or negotiating over prices. If a government tries to go against this history by fixing prices, the usual result will be an unofficial "black market", where buyers can get what they want but at "real" prices.

Historical momentum can also be seen in something like the Caste System of India. The Indian Constitution of today does not recognize the Caste System, but the historical momentum of centuries is not going to just go away.