The royal family represents a bygone era, one in which birth came before merit. Today's modern societies are meritocracies. The existence of a royal family undermines this important development in the advancement of civilization. While I am an American and have no king or queen, I can assure you the British monarchs are very famous here. I don't believe any good they do in the name of Britishness over shadows the negative their continued exists supports, that being: birth is more important than merit and some people are more equal than others. Maybe I believe this because I'm American, so perhaps I should be happy they exist, to point out to me another aspect of American exceptional ism. That we need not symbolic figureheads to look up to, but only look to ourselves to find our bests to lead and guide us.