There is no shortage of peasant thrills to be found in mocking the Royals

Reading Thomas Paine’s bestselling pamphlet “Common Sense” today is, for the unrepentant history nerd anyway, like travelling back in time to hear an 18th-century stand-up comedy routine. “Monarchy,” Paine writes, has reduced the world “to blood and ashes.” Preach! The rule of royal succession, meanwhile, “opens a door to the foolish, the wicked, and the improper.” He’s saying what we’re all thinking! And then, the most savage mic drop in history: “Of more worth is one honest man to society and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.” Damn.

Published in the highly auspicious year of 1776, “Common Sense” helped catalyze anti-monarchist sentiment in the American colonies. Tragically, its lessons were soon forgotten. In place of monarchs and the divine right of kings, Americans came to worship at the altars of tycoons, hucksters, imbecilic reality television stars and, of late, the unlikely and wholly revolting amalgam of all of the above.

A free nation is free to pick its own poison, I suppose. But lest we stoop to our all-too-Canadian pose of haughty superiority in relation to our American neighbours, it should be stated, clearly, that here things are even worse.

Casting off the shackles of monarchy not through revolution but a protracted process of diligent legislation and mild-mannered horse trading, our nation’s existent ties to Mother Britannia (even the idea of personifying an imperial power feels vaguely nauseating) manifest in a sustained and wholly perverse fascination with the crown. And no activity from the tedious lives of its wan, pasty and unremarkable royals lures a coterie of monarchists, loyalists and the celebrity-obsessed dullards out of their burrows quite like the putrid pageantry of a royal wedding.

While there’s little doubt that monarchical fetishism borders on a disorder of some sort, the hollow pomp and circumstance around the big-ticket knot-tying between actress Meghan Markle and Harry of Wales (who doesn’t even have a proper last name) offers sufficient occasion to mount a case against our continued interest in, and toleration for, the Royal Family. Paine wrote against the monarchs nearly a quarter-of-a-millennium ago. And we can all stand a quick refresher in common sense. Now is as fitting a time as any to upset all monarchs and, to paraphrase preeminent French Revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre, boot them back into the void. Canadian interest in the latest insufferable matrimonial affair is spiked, in part, because princess-tobe Markle briefly lived in Toronto, while filming the cable TV show Suits: a legal drama with a title so boring that it might as well be called Plain Bread. There’s also the matter of her race. Markle identifies as half-black and half-white. But vaunting a literal princess for her racial background strikes me as about as superficial as when people hold up imaginary Disney princesses for their ability to represent the varied ethnic and cultural fabric of real life. It’s a minor cosmetic adjustment within a fundamentally archaic and destructive system, about as subversive as pinning up an inspiring “Hang In There, Baby!” kitty-cat poster inside an abattoir.

As for Harry? Well, he’s on record using slurs against Pakistani people, and was once photographed at a costume party in an Afrika Korps costume, complete with swastika armband. And he likes polo. What an interesting guy. Of the extravagance afforded royal weddings, I find myself of two minds. On the one hand, the conspicuous display of wealth (carriages, garishly appointed chapels, mandatory hats for women) and utterly unmerited entitlement is enough to render one physically unwell. On the other, that very conspicuousness lays bare the seemingly infinite resources of the royals alongside their arrogant vanity.

Like many things, it’s a matter of perspective. From the angle of the At the centre of so much modern appreciation of the monarchy is a sickly nostalgia: for a bygone era where kings, queens, princes and empireenforcing naval armadas actually determined the course of human affairs. In the modern world of voting and republicanism, the Royals represent something like stability – an oldfangled and dangerously romantic idea which itself glosses over the countless wars of succession that dominated millennia of European monarchical rule. In fact, the Royals are more like the soft-headed grandfather who mutters racial slurs and barks, “What we need is another war!” during an otherwise pleasant Christmas dinner.

The sun has long set on the British Empire, and yet its human embodiments persist, like those blindingly bright Seasonal Affective Disorder lamps designed to trick you into thinking the sun is still shining in mid-January. Moreover, how can any thinking person gaze I once drank at a bar alongside a very thoughtful neighbour who believed the Royals affected a net good in the world, solely because o the charitable work they undertake as a means of justifying their base less authority. It was a persuasive argument. And the best I’ve heard But still: one imagines such lavish donations to the British Red Cross cancer research concerns, etc. could be compensated for by sim ply abolishing the monarchy and liberating the stockpiles of capita with which they are unduly award ed. Markle’s engagement ring alone is estimated to be worth anywhere from $80,000 to $500,000. Storm St. George’s Chapel like it was the Bastille, level Buckingham Palace pave over it, build a Tesco and give ol’ Harry Boy a job stocking Hob nobs and helping confused com moners top up their mobiles. Then we’ll see how royal the Royals look fittingly humbled and drained o their lavish privileges.

Still, in fairness to my former drinking companion, I can think of one noble use for the monarchy in an age which only continues to re veal their longstanding irrelevance They are extremely fun to mock.