I have tried to stay away from making political comments here. (Readers “unfollow” every time I do.) But Prince Andrew.

This is not about the disastrous interview on the BBC where the royal admitted to being “too honorable” but with no memory of abusing a child. I did not watch the interview. I cannot avoid the excerpts.

This is more basic. (My grandfather was born in England and his son, my father, was an historian. I had more than my share of British history as a child.) I will set aside just for now the immorality of British behavior in the world. My immediate anger is reserved for the assumption that anyone is born royal. The concept of royalty is at its base both immoral and unAmerican. Nobility and aristocracy are notions that rely on a simple, magical concept: God chose these people to be better than the rest of us.

Is it possible for an American to believe this?

While my country is obsessed with the individual, powerful people in my country are nevertheless earnest in their support of inherited rights.

I tried watching Merlin yesterday on Netflix because the series is leaving that streaming platform next month. So cute. Arthur is a spoiled brat, Merlin is initially magical without effort (I assume this changes as the series progresses), and all the young women look alike. The music is spritely and everything is charming and funny. Young adult fare. I paused the show when Merlin is put into stocks and fruit is thrown at his head. This was treated as comic relief. (I could hear my father sigh, his patient explanation of what happened when a person’s head was locked into stocks. No one would have wasted edible food and stones would have been throw. People sometimes died in the stocks.)

Every Disney princess film plays to this assumption of privilege by birth. Fathers are significant in most of these films, the choice of female villains is misogynistic, and the assumed beauty and inevitable ascendancy of the heroine are damaging to the character of impressionable children. How to reconcile American “rugged individualism” with the concept of royalty?

It cannot be done. It should not be attempted.

I have been thinking a great deal about the presumptions of power. About how we view the rich and powerful. About the Puritan faith that worldly success reflects God’s favor. That seems entirely counter to the ideals upon which our nation was later founded. (And which we have repeatedly failed to make manifest. What we believe is right vs. how we behave.)

Andrew apparently thinks he did well in the interview. He thinks his explanations and noblesse oblige were enough to excuse the photo with his fingers on the bare midriff of his accuser, his tour of the palace enough to excuse his lack of empathy, his precise memory of pizza and his four days spent in the mansion of convicted child molester excused because sex “is a positive act” for men.

But no. This is about power and the presumptions of power.

I have tried to recall if my father every called me, as so many fathers have, “princess”? Perhaps. I recall him calling me, in rare and precious incidents, “daughter-of-mine.” It felt likely an honorary title, that I had earned that designation. As a nation we are founded on the principle that each person earns their way. Yet here we are rewarding torture as if it were comic relief. Making birthright preeminent rather than accomplishment. Admiring bullies and power over decency and righteousness.

We should do better. We should feel determined to do better.

The sky is pink in the east this morning.