April 18, 1775, Lexington, Massachusetts:
The scene: A grubby bar and grill. Several men are watching a basketball game while discussing who they think will win the championship this year, the Boston Tea Men or the Philidelphia Oat Men.
Suddenly, the door opens, and Paul Revere enters the bar:
Paul Revere: The British are coming, the British are coming!
Man 1: Maybe we should hold a protest march.
Man 2: No, they'd just ignore us or maybe even arrest us and we'd lose our jobs. There's nothing to be done about it.
Man 3: Look, King George is King. You're a traitor if you don't agree with King George.
Man 4: Shuddup, you idiots, look, the Tea Men are about to force the game into overtime! Watch Samuel Adams drive on Patrick Henry, woot!
Barkeep: You! Hollerin' about the British are comin! Quit disturbin this heres bars or I'm gonna have Vinny the Bouncer kick you out!
Paul Revere: But... but... we need to get the militia out to meet the British! Else they'll trample all our rights!
Barkeep: I'll gives ya yous rights! Vinny, get rid of this bum!
[Vinny the Bouncer lurches upright to his full 6'8" height and his 300 pounds of muscle and dense head meat start lurching towards Paul Revere]
Paul Revere: Okay, okay! I'm leaving! [Exits]
Barkeep: Stupid liberals. Always whining about their "rights". Hah!
Cut to: Boston, Massachusetts, July 1, 2006:
A reviewing stand is set up on the Boston Common. Union Jack flags and red-and-white Dominion of North America flags with their turkey emblem are flying all around. Queen Elizabeth stands atop the reviewing stand, watching red-coated soldiers marching below her. A band plays "God Save the Queen".
Television Announcer 1: And on this, day, 150 years after the British colonies of North America joined together as the Dominion of North America within the British Commonwealth, we celebrate the Queen!
Television Announcer 2: Jolly good show, that. After she leaves here, she will speak to the House of Commons in Dominion Hall on Harvard Square.
Television Announcer 1: And then come the hangings! I understand that several members of the House of Commons voted against contributing to the Commonwealth's War Against Funny-Talking Wogs. Which member of parliament do you think will be hung first?
Television Announcer 2: We will just have to see, won't we? By God, it must be great to be the Queen!
Television Announcer 1: Indeed! God Save the Queen!
-- Badtux the Alternate History Penguin
Notes: King George III's pursuit of the conflict against the American colonies in defiance of Parliament greatly reduced the power of the British monarchy. By the end of the war, the Crown was deeply in debt, incapable of raising the money to hire new soldiers to replace the armies that had been destroyed by French and colonial actions in the Americas, and no longer possessed the ability to do much of anything without the consent of Parliament. The Napoleonic Wars were largely funded by Parliament via direct taxation because the credit of the British commonwealth had been ruined, and was conducted largely on Parliament's terms. Speculation as to what might have happened if George III had managed to break the will of Parliament is just that -- speculation -- but the notion of regular hangings of MP's by a royalty ruling with absolute power is not too far out of the bounds of reason.
great post...very poignant..I have thought all along that Paul would have been a blogger...he did have midnight printings of cartoons and his underground newspapers ( sounds like a blogger to me)
ReplyDeletevinnie was the bouncer at the palace "du jer?".
ReplyDeleteHe'd slash your grannies face up given half a chance.
He'd sell you back the pieces,
all for less than half a quid.
Emerson Lake and Palmer