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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 Prince 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.