Sunday night I surfed upon Ted Danson's Lemuel Gulliver and while they took made-for-TV liberties with the material (including an ending more Tolkien than Swift), some of the prescient social commentary was intact:

But, if what I told him were true, he was still at a Loss how a Kingdom could run out of its Estate like a private Person. He asked me, who were our Creditors; and where we should find Money to pay them. He wonder'd to hear me talk of such chargeable and extensive Wars; that certainly we must be a quarrelsome People, or live among very bad Neighbours, and that our Generals must needs be richer than our Kings. He asked what Business we had out of our own Islands, unless upon the Score of Trade or Treaty, or to defend the Coasts with our Fleet. Above all, he was amazed to hear me talk of a mercenary standing Army in the midst of Peace, and among a free People. He said, if we were governed by our own Consent in the Persons of our Representatives, he could not imagine of whom we were afraid, or against whom we were to fight […]