Part I is here, and you should read it first.
Warning: My head exploded several times while writing this part. Also: For some reason WordPress insists on listing the names weirdly. I tried to fix it once. I’ll keep trying. Sorry.
One of the stunning aspects of the proposed list of 250, other than its general incompetence, is that there was so much DEI pollution of the various categories. For example, there are very few, if any, respectable legal scholars who regard either Ruth Bader Ginsburg or Thurgood Marshall as belonging among our most admirable jurists. Marshall was the first black Supreme Court Justice, but that alone doesn’t make him a hero. Why is his trail-blazing credentials sufficient to get him a slot as one of the 250 “heroes,” but Ginsburg gets the nod over the first female Justice, Sandra Day O’Connor? What landmark ruling did Ginsberg produce.
This is a terrible list. I would hope (probably in vain) that a well-educated freshman at a state college could do better. Well, on with the critique…
4. Jurists: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Robert H. Jackson, Thurgood Marshall, William
Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia.
Comment: Ugh. In addition to the absurd inclusions (Rehnquist? Why?), the omissions are striking and unforgivable. John Marshall (no relation) is the most important and influential Chief Justice as well as the longest serving. Marbury v. Madison is the basis of the Supreme Court’s modern power. Where are the acknowledged giants of the Court: Benjamin Cardozo, Louis Brandeis, Hugo Black and both Harlans? Earl Warren was probably the second most influential and consequential Chief Justice, and the Warren Court, liberal as it was, still hold the record for transformative rulings. I’m not a big Oliver Wendell Holmes fan, but even his detractors (like Popehat’s Ken White) would concede that he was a major legal theorist who deserves to be listed among the greats. Moreover, nobody but a legal illiterate would believe that only SCOTUS members are great judges. Judge Learned Hand was dubbed “the Tenth Justice” and “the greatest judge never to be appointed to the Supreme Court.” His opinions and quotes are standard fare in law school. Judge Richard Posner, more recently, was an acclaimed legal thinker; so was Robert Bork, robbed of his place on the Supreme Court when the Democrats decided to violate a “democratic norm.”
Military Heroes and Patriots, defined as “Defenders of freedom who risked everything on the battlefield to preserve the Union and protect the innocent.”
1. Revolutionary & Early Era: Crispus Attucks, Joshua Chamberlain, David Farragut, Nathanael Greene, Nathan Hale, Henry Knox, Tadeusz Kościuszko, the Marquis de La Fayette, Paul Revere, Robert Gould Shaw.
Comment: I see Paul Revere turned up here. If he’s here, so too should William Dawes, who shared the task of alerting town a around Boston that “the British are coming!” Why is Crispus Attucks any more of a hero than the Samuel Gray, James Caldwell, Samuel Maverick, and Patrick Carr, who were also victims in the Boston Massacre? Oh, right, he was black. Got it. Race equals heroism. Similarly, why is Shaw on the list for losing an obscure battle with black union soldiers? Generals Sherman, Sheridan, and Hancock deserve the honor more. So, in fact, does George Armstrong Custer, as I explained here. Andrew Jackson won the most decisive military battle in U.S. history against crazy odds at the Battle of New Orleans. And what are non-Americans doing on the list, when deserving Americans are missing?
2. World War Leaders: William “Wild Bill” Donovan, Jimmy Doolittle, Gabby Gabreski, William Frederick “Bull” Halsey, Jr., Douglas MacArthur, GeorgeMarshall, George S. Patton, Jr., John J. Pershing, Matthew Ridgway, Hyman Rickover, Norman Schwarzkopf, Maxwell Taylor.
Comment: Where’s Admiral Raymond Spruance, who won the Battle of Midway? Where’s Dusty Kleiss another hero in the same battle, as the dive bomber who managed to hit the Japanese fleet with sub-par airplanes? Omar Bradley had far more to do with the U.S. victory than McArthur. Why are the officer heroes of D-Day omitted, like General Theodore Roosevelt Jr, and Gen. Norman Cota? Didn’t Trump watch “The Longest Day”?
2.Medal of Honor & Valor: Roy Benavidez, Desmond Doss, Audie Murphy, Alvin C. York
Comment: I get it, the only Medal of Honor recipients who count are the ones who have movies made about them.
3. Athletes and Competitors (Champions who demonstrated the American virtues of discipline, perseverance, and sportsmanship): Muhammad Ali, Herb Brooks, Kobe Bryant, Roberto Clemente, Lou Gehrig, Vince Lombardi, Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson, Babe Ruth, Jim Thorpe, Cy Young.
Ethics Alarms 
I think we should save projects like this until our national debt is gone and our deficit becomes a surplus. Plus Trump is already straining his political capital with the ballroom, which is arguably more important.
That being said, if we WERE to do a project like this, I would assign a seperate committee of historians to each category, with each historian being selected for his or her expertise in that category. Sports category should be sports historians, science and tech category science historians, etc. The emphasis should be on innovators and trailblazers. A good litmus test for each candidate to be honored should be the question “Would this thing that they were famous for being a part of happen without them?”
Also, while you could say I’m biased, since I belong to the church he founded, I would add Joseph Smith to the list of religious figures. Yes, he’s controversial, but he began a faith which was born in America, then spread throughout the world, which celebrates America as having a divine destiny, and which was instrumental in settling the American west. (Incidentally, Philo Farnsworth was Mormon.)
”Jesse Owens? Hello?”
Eh, come again? Jesse Owen’s was on the list.
not sure I understand your comment.
-Jut
3. Athletes and Competitors(Champions who demonstrated the American virtues of discipline, perseverance, and sportsmanship): Muhammad Ali, Herb Brooks, Kobe Bryant, Roberto Clemente, Lou Gehrig, Vince Lombardi, Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson, Babe Ruth, Jim Thorpe, Cy Young.
see?
-Jut
Well here’s what happened: the lists drove me crazy, and THAT list was so bad I started hallucinating. I missed Jesse, who obviously had to be on that list (as did Joe Louis>) Fixed.
But while I’m here, why Vince Lombardi and Herb Brooks as the only coaches? Red Auerbach? Knute Rockne?
“the Warren Court, liberal as it was, still hold the record for transformative rulings.”
Merely being “transformative” doesn’t make one a hero…certainly not if these were ‘progressive’ transformations
I don’t think there’s valid basis to criticize the Warren Court; surely its vital rulings like Miranda, Griswold, Bown v. Board of Education, Tinker, Brandenburg, and Brady were transformative in a good way, more than making up for that Court’s activist inclinations. And most historians agree that Warren, who was more politician than judge, was uniquely effective in managing the many egos on his Court.
Andrew Jackson Downing
Frederick Law Olmsted
“I get it, the only Medal of Honor recipients who count are the ones who have movies made about them.”
There are over 3,500 MoH winners in US History. They are certainly all heroes, but, as a way to cull the list down to representative examples – is there really a problem with “those who have had movies made about them”?
Movies, for all of Hollywood’s faults, have a tendency to zero in on archetypal characters that represent the larger mass of people – there can’t be too many more you have to add to capture the Medal of Honor Winners who are archetypal Americans.
(to be clear, we DO need a movie about Roy Benavidez)
But having a movie made about you is a post-event factor that should have no effect on public perception of merit.
The production of the movie reflects the greater visibility and impact on the culture that individual already had.
Alvin York, absolutely. Desmond Doss, definitely not.