Replies

>>Errr, we DO have a history of thousands of years.

ARTHUR:

How do you do, good lady? I am Arthur, King of the Britons. Who's castle is that?
WOMAN:: King of the who?
ARTHUR:: The Britons.
WOMAN:: Who are the Britons?
ARTHUR:: Well, we all are. We are all Britons, and I am your king.
WOMAN:: I didn't know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective.
DENNIS:: You're fooling yourself. We're living in a dictatorship: a self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes--
WOMAN:: Oh, there you go bringing class into it again.
DENNIS:: That's what it's all about. If only people would hear of--
ARTHUR:: Please! Please, good people. I am in haste. Who lives in that castle?
WOMAN:: No one lives there.
ARTHUR:: Then who is your lord?
WOMAN:: We don't have a lord.
ARTHUR:: What?
DENNIS:: I told you. We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week,...
ARTHUR:: Yes.
DENNIS:: ...but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting...
ARTHUR:: Yes, I see.
DENNIS:: ...by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs,...
ARTHUR:: Be quiet!
DENNIS:: ...but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more major--
ARTHUR:: Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!
WOMAN:: Order, eh? Who does he think he is? Heh.
ARTHUR:: I am your king!
WOMAN:: Well, I didn't vote for you.
ARTHUR:: You don't vote for kings.
WOMAN:: Well, how did you become King, then?
ARTHUR:: The Lady of the Lake,...; [angels sing]; ...her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur.; [singing stops]; That is why I am your king!
DENNIS:: Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
ARTHUR:: Be quiet!
DENNIS:: Well, but you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!
ARTHUR:: Shut up!
DENNIS:: I mean, if I went 'round saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!
ARTHUR:: Shut up, will you? Shut up!

DENNIS:: Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system.
ARTHUR:: Shut up!
DENNIS:: Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
ARTHUR:: Bloody peasant!
DENNIS:: Oh, what a give-away. Did you hear that? Did you hear that, eh? That's what I'm on about. Did you see him repressing me? You saw it, didn't you?