Statesmen and Political Leaders: “These individuals dedicated their lives to the service of the Republic, upholding the Constitution and the cause of liberty.”
1. Founding Fathers: John Adams, Samuel Adams, Charles Carroll, Benjamin
Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison,
Caesar Rodney, George Washington.
Comment: Arbitrary and incompetent list, and inexcusably so. Where is George Mason, who had almost as much influence on the development of the Constitution as Madison? Major General Joseph Warren was a essential to the Boston patriot movement as either Adams, and is the one who sent Paul Revere and William Dawes on their ride to Lexington and Concord. He died in the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775: many of those Founders on the list let others do their fighting for them. The omission of John Dickinson, who authored the Article of Confederation and other crucial documents on our way to revolution, makes me think whoever made out the list had seen “1776” as the extent of his research. Abigail Adams also deserves to be honored. She’s an odd omission, especially since lot of the entries are DEI heroes only.
2. Presidents: Grover Cleveland, Calvin Coolidge, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ulysses
S. Grant, Andrew Jackson, John F. Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln, William
McKinley, Ronald Reagan, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, William
Howard Taft, Harry S. Truman.
Comment: Wow! Against all odds, this category is even worse than the “Founders” list! Grant was, on balance, a bad President: he belongs in the military list, but not here. Cleveland was almost certainly a rapist: call me sensitive, but I think that disqualifies someone as a hero. He was also just a so-so POTUS. Calvin Coolidge was probably responsible for the Great Depression: he’s an embarrassing choice, as are Taft and… Kennedy???? Putting JFK on the list is a sop to the historically illiterate. Meanwhile, James Monroe, one of our most effective Presidents, and James K. Polk, by some measures out most successful, are missing.
3. Legislators and Diplomats: Henry Clay, Barry Goldwater, Daniel Inouye,
Barbara Jordan, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Clare Boothe Luce, Jeannette Rankin,
Margaret Chase Smith.
Comment: Worse still: Again, terrible, incompetent list. These are almost all affirmative action honors. None of the women on the list had many legislative accomplishments. Two white men out of nine distinguished legislators in 250 years? This just bad history. Ted Kennedy, whom I would exclude because he was, you know, a murderer, deserves to be on the list more than all of these except Henry Clay. So does Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Bob Dole. Sam Rayburn. Tip O’Neil, Mike Mansfield, Everett Dirkson. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Yes, even John Calhoun. Heck, Joe Biden was a more productive member of Congress than most of them. The “garden” honors JFK, who has received too many honors already, but “Profiles in Courage,” his Pulitzer Prize-winning book (ghost-written by Ted Sorrenson ) provides a genuine list of heroic Senators, not one of whom is included in Trump’s 250! Those are: John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster,Thomas Hart Benton, Sam Houston, Edmund G. Ross, (who stopped Andrew Johnson from being convicted in his impeachment trial, Lucius Lamar, George W. Norris, and Robert A. Taft. It is emblematic of how incompetent the proposed list is that Sen. Taft, who deserves to be honored, is left out while his father, who was not particularly successful in his category, is included.
This is long enough for a single post. I’ll finish my disgusted evaluation of this unethical project in Part II.
Ethics Alarms 
“Jeannette Rankin”
Seriously, aside from her being a historic first, her only accomplishments of note are casting no votes for the U.S. entry into both WWI and WWII. Both votes cost her her congressional seat.
With all due respect; how could “both” of those votes cost her her seat? It seems to me that the latter one would be the one that cost her her seat.
This will all boil down to what definition they choose to use for the word “hero”.
Personally I think our culture has been bastardizing the definition of hero for quite some time now and conflating it with other terms like role model. Yes a hero could be a role model, often they are; however, a role model isn’t necessarily a hero. This bastardization has thoroughly cheapened the value of the word hero because people now seem to apply it to whatever the hell they want.
Here is a simple definition…
HERO: someone who shows great bravery, often risking their life (or in the 21st century they knowingly risk massive social canceling, active and persistent persecution, that could destroy most or all aspects of their life) for the common good.
In my opinion; anything beyond that is a bastardization.
Here’s a few early 21st century prominent people that could be defined as heroes, as defined above; Charlie Kirk, Alan Dershowitz, Donald Trump, J.K. Rowling, and maybe even Ben Shapiro. Yes I know most of those are conservatives, feel free to specifically list some Liberals or progressives that you think might fit the definition. Remember, you don’t have to agree with their public position or their public action for them to fit the definition.
I definitely don’t trust President Trump to choose 250 heroes for this proposed memorial.
Wait until you see the second part of the list!
Steve makes good points. I would like to add that any list can be criticized by someone with a different set of beliefs regarding persons who added significant value.
Conceptually, the idea that we need a way to publicly acknowledge the accomplishments of our forebears is a good one. Perhaps the best way to make a selection is to put together an all inclusive list with biographies and let the public vote on the first tranche of statues. That number should be limited to say around fifty and should only include those from the early 17th century to the early 19th century. The next 50-100 could be those from the mid 19th to mid 20th followed by a third round of those more modern heroes.
In any event the term hero must be defined before any list could be compiled.
Many on the list are notable but I would hardly call them heroes.
From my experience any new idea will face opposition from those who want to find fault. I have had to put together initial lists for various initiatives and invariably that list will change with the input from others. The question of execution should not be based solely on the initial inclusions on a list. You have to start with something.
The question of execution should not be based solely on the initial inclusions on a list. You have to start with something.
But if what you start with is unserious, slipshod, biased,factually wrong and easily discredited, then it raises a rebuttable presumption that the project is ill-conceived. I cannot imagine a worse and more self-debasing list.
I could and I bet the progressive left could as well given that they revere the statue of Lenin in Seattle.
Why not include John Brown or Malcolm X or George Floyd?
Part of the problem with coming to agreement on something is that when one’s set of values is believed superior to another’s because the latter’s list incudes some that the former deems unserious and the initiator is ridiculed he or she gets defensive and is less likely to give the criticizer a fair hearing.
As I said without an objective criteria for inclusion any offering could be dismissed as unserious by someone that finds the project unworthy in the first place.
Upon reflection I think that if someone wants to create such a place to commemorate some group of people it should be done using private contributions so that those with no skin in the game can give input as to who is included. Trump raised private money for the ballroom so he should do the same for this.
Is Slater going to be honored with a statue?!
A country is in trouble when it has to include people who were totally opposed to each other, and the system. I only quickly looked at the list, but if they have to honor an Indian warrior who died resisting the Nation and perhaps the General who killed him, ideologically you are in trouble.
The Nation is in a revisionist phase I guess. Democracy demands ‘inclusion’ so that divergent members feel “honored” but underneath it all may remain seething contempt, dissatisfaction and frustration.
Are you guys getting ready for the next phase? When The Democrats take the ‘timón’ and guide the Nation on its glorious path of decline? I suggest having magenta and green hair dye in the cupboard. Order some vegan toothpaste. Put “my pronouns are” back on the bottom of emails.
It’s going to be harsh. I just cannot see why they won’t have to elect a Black dyke or maybe even a recently naturalized Mexican hippy?
Thanks Don Trumpo! Good work!
She was elected to Congress two separate times. During each term, a war vote came up. Each time, her pacifist views led her to vote no.
And, each time, she was voted out of office in the next election.
Sorry, this was a reply to Steve’s reply to me. I hate doing this on my phone.
A M Golden wrote, “She was elected to Congress two separate times. During each term, a war vote came up. Each time, her pacifist views led her to vote no. And, each time, she was voted out of office in the next election.”
WOW, her constituents vote her out of office because she’s a pacifist then they vote the same pacifist back into office? I didn’t know that!
Were her constituents morons?
Early 20th century Wyomingans. Not sure how to define them. My only guess is that the terms being @20 years apart had something to do with it. A strong isolationism may have played a factor in the latter term and she stuck to her principles after Pearl Harbor rather than read the room.
Thanks for educating me on this.
Chris,
Thank you for your input, it got me thinking further.
On this point…
I completely disagree with this and here’s why. The public cannot be trusted to make an unbiased and informed choice when a huge swath of the public is civically illiterate and primarily driven by the absurd propaganda they consume. This is not a place for true democracy to reign supreme.
This should be very transparent process and publicized on C-Span and it shouldn’t be a short process.
My suggestion would be to form a House Committee to choose an initial list of 350 individuals complete with a biography and what makes them a hero, make sure to include very prominent historical scholars as witnesses for input, pass that initial list on to a Senate Committee to reduce the size of the list to 250 select individuals also using prominent historical scholars as witnesses, and then have a combined House and Senate special session where the final 250 individuals is approves, this should be unanimously approved.
The entire original list developed by the House Committee should be posted at the memorial making it very clear to all visitors that there are far more than the 250 people honored with statues that have been American Heroes over the last 250 years and they all deserve to be honored. Let’s make sure that the public knows that the memorial is there to honor all of our American Heroes whether their names and statues are physically present at the memorial or not.
The public cannot be trusted to make an unbiased and informed choice when a huge swath of the public is civically illiterate and primarily driven by the absurd propaganda they consume. This is not a place for true democracy to reign supreme.
Horrifyingly, that is exactly what “democracy” results in when that common man is not severely constrained and directed.
The tenets of American “democracy” and “liberal rot” is actually destroying the Republic.
Invest in magenta and green hair dye while it is still on the shelves!
Regardless of the choice for statues to be included, it’s a dumb idea. If the goal is to honor and educate people on historic figures, one park in the DC area is silly. I’ll never go there. Most of the 333 million citizens will never go there. The answer is 5-10 minute informative clips on YouTube. Keep the statues in the wax museum and the Smithsonian. We all know they aren’t faring well outside in public, being defaced and torn town regularly as they are. Other than that, let the cities and states have the hero statues with a street or airport named after them, until some committee decides they shouldn’t have that name, of course…. I bet you can do 240 videos for less than 40 billion. With minimal constant maintenance and a bonus that there’s no statue to deface or knock down.
A few years ago, I tried to come up with a list of the hundred most influential Americans. I divided them into Founding Fathers, military men, writers, inventers/scientists, trailblazers, social reformers, the infamous…that sort of thing. I couldn’t narrow it down properly.
How do you make a statue park like this? Sure, you can include Thurgood Marshall, but should you include John Jay? He was a slaveholder, after all. So was John Marshall, a pivotal Chief Justice. Including Roger Taney would be beyond the pale.
Writers? Where do you begin? Nathaniel Hawthorne? Phyllis Wheatley? Washington Irving? Mark Twain? Do you include poets? Playwrights? Screenwriters?
I can imagine the outcry over entrepreneurs, such as the anti-Semitic Henry Ford, the hugely wealthy – but only philanthropic later in live – John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie.
A special category for minority civil rights advocates? How many statues of Martin Luther King do we need? Sure, we can include Medgar Evers and Harriet Tubman, but would we also include Malcolm X and Marcus Garvey?
It’s too subjective and rife with the potential for controversy.
Noble intentions that will absolutely result in a quagmire. We cannot agree on building a needed ballroom, let alone a tribute to heroes. Not only has the term been bastardized, but is subjective and interpretive. Which is the hero, the avid pro-life or pro-choice campaigner? Every statue will evaluated through an ideological prism. Let this one go.
I mean, the idea of a garden of heroes isn’t necessarily bad. Trying to fit a statue in of every genuinely deserving individual would start to feel like a weird Twilight Zone Episode meets the Alfred Hitchcock’s the Birds.
The only problem is we’re hopelessly partisan to agree on any recent (read as 1950 and on) entries. And frankly, one side of the aisle is too hopelessly America-hating to agree on any pre-1940 entries.
That’s the only problem. If it were a plaza dedicated to the heroes and they had their names carved or something….even then it’s just an invitation for loser antifa and democrat types to vandalize.
No, No, and NO!
There was a time when something like this might have worked, but that time is past. I haven’t even looked at the list, but at this point almost any American will be considered unacceptable to one group or another, and only ongoing conflict would be generated by such a project. “Heroes” will generally be remembered or forgotten and commemorated as they deserve (and sometimes if they don’t…hello, George Floyd). Reciprocal respect is no longer in effect; monuments are destroyed if the subject failed to demonstrate the proper set of 21st century sensibilities in the 18th. Even so, monuments stand a better chance of acceptance and survival if selected by, created and left in friendly locales, as has most often been done in the past. Not everything has to be in DC. We could hope for strictly enforced anti-vandalism laws, and also hope they wouldn’t be selectively enforced (insert eye-roll here)..