The War of Independence if you're white (for the most part). The Civil War if you're black (for the most part).
As for "rights and freedoms," what about the rights and freedoms of the American loyalists who were harrassed, tarred & feathered, and driven out of the country because they wished to remain loyal to the Crown?
The revolution was a war against monarchy. British Loyalists, by clinging to that monarchy, were, by definition, the enemy. They were a serious danger of becoming a counter-liberty fifth column. Face it. In war, yo do bad things to the enemy. You do not offer "aid and comfort" to them. The enemy of the free man is not the tyrant, but the willing slave who keeps the tyrant in power.
The atrocious treatment of the loyalists by the "Sons of Liberty" showed the revolution to be hypocritical from the very beginning.
See above. And untrue. We fought the revolution for all men who would be free. Not for people who wanted to re-enslave us. When you declare yourself anothers enemy, you cannot then complain when they treat you badly (though certain muslim dictatorships do try, and fuzzy-minded liberals do fall for it).
As my website makes clear,
As if I give a democRat's A** about your website. I don't need to see any more knee-bending drivel than what you've written here.
I could fall in all three of your insulting categories of American monarchists
Insulting? Far from it. The truth just hurts sometimes.
but yes, I am certainly a "true believer."
Then I feel sorry for you.
I am also a Tolkien fan (please spell his name correctly), so I guess that makes me doubly irrelevant in your view.
Spelling complaints are petty (and irrelevant). However, I thought Tolkien was one of those exceptions to the "I before E " rule.
However, be that as it may be, the works of Tolkien and the concept of royalty share one thing: they are both complete fantasy. Unfortunately for humanity, a lot of needless suffering has come from adhering to the lie of royalty.
I am sure that the present-day residents of Britain, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Monaco, and Spain will be most interested to learn that they are akin to slaves.
They are. A lot of fools are still fools. And I don't think they are all happy to be subjects. Look at the recurring referendums on monarchy in those countries. The numbers for abolition keep climbing with every iteration. Though they may make vainglorious babble trying to refute that. The very concept of royalty flies in the face of the inherent truth of human equality. The monarchists you mention for some reason prefer to think of themselves as lesser than another through the mere accident of their births. That is their problem.
Rather, it is the recognition of the need to give honor to a person who by inheriting his or her position
Again, I have yet to see anyone adequately explain to me why an inherited position deserves any recognition. Especially when it's a false position to begin with.
There is nothing remotely degrading about an appreciation of the splendid pageantry, traditions, and rituals associated with monarchy.
Splendid pageantry cannot hide the inherent degrading nature of the institution itself. Like most monarchists, you lack the ability to see through the drama to the basic, underlying principle that some people are lesser than others through nothing more than who their parents were.
These things exist for the benefit of the people, not for the monarch. I am sorry that you cannot appreciate them.
Um. No. These things exist for the people who also find themselves, somewhere in the hierarchy above the bottom. And that's the other basic problem with monarchy. It defines an ilegitimate concept of government where political power derives from a source other than the will of the people and the individual. Plain and simple.
The legally elected PM (a Dr. Massadegh - TIME's Man of the Year in '51) broke the back of the UK's sweetheart oil deal. The UK sued in the Hague and lost. Within two years MI6 and the CIA orchestrated the coup and put Reza in charge. That lasted only two days before the people of Iran chased him out. The CIA used the Army to put him back in. After thirty years of the Shah (and SAVAK) the people of Iran threw him out again.
Certain folks here like to paint the Reza years as a progressive utopia and place the blame for the revolution squarely on US shoulders. I've yet to read of any revolution, in any country, at any time in history that was executed by a populace that was content, respected, safe and hopeful.
The folks who want to bring the Reza "dynasty" back to power remind me of the elements in the Bay of Pigs who were holdovers from Batista's regime. Iran threw the shah out, I don't want to see one drop of US blood spilt to put his son back in his palace.
If Iran has had enough they will make a change, they've done it before.