Sunday, February 6, 2011

Sunday Question for Conservatives

Here's one for the Ronald Reagan centennial. There's a lot of talk about putting Reagan on a coin or on currency. My sense of it is that Reagan should clearly be behind at least three people who we currently don't honor that way: James Madison, who is extraordinarily under-memorialized; Harry Truman, who is generally rated higher than Reagan by most scholars, and Martin Luther King Jr., who is in the odd position of being one of a very small group of Americans honored with a national holiday but not featured on American money. Do you indeed believe Reagan should be ahead of those three? Who would you bump to make room for him?

2 comments:

  1. Teddy Roosevelt's first appearance on regularly circulating currency was when Mt. Rushmore was featured on South Dakota's state quarter. He belongs ahead of Reagan too.

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  2. I think this ends up getting into a question of who is already over memorialized. And yeah, I know, my fellow liberals will say Reagan, and they have a point, but I feel like we can talk about someone else.

    I have trouble answering that question, though; I might say TR because I feel like his accomplishments didn't quite live up to his rhetoric...but his rhetoric really WAS something, and changing the political discourse in the country (as I feel he did) really is something. I might also say Jefferson, especially as his actions ran counter to some of his statements, but...man, the Louisiana Purchase.

    So I dunno why I fall on my sub question. And I'm not qualified to answer the big question, so...

    ...so this post really petered out.

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