Posted on 08/04/2012 9:44:29 AM PDT by Kaslin
This was a question that I put out to a number of my friends and contacts last week, on Twitter and across a couple of e-mail lists. Imagine for a moment that Mt. Rushmore had never been built and the mountain still stood today as a natural rock outcrop. Could we come together as a nation and build such a monument in 2012? There are a number of questions to be wrestled to the ground on this one. Who would pay for it and how? Who would oppose it and why? And – perhaps most contentious of all – which faces would adorn it?
I received a number of interesting responses. One of the more surprising ones came from John Hawkins at Right Wing News, who opined that we couldn’t, but with a rather unexpected twist. His take was that environmentalists would block any such construction under the guise of protecting the environment. (Presumably the yellow necked sand tit would lose half of its nesting grounds. Or something.)
A less popular opinion came on the spending front. One liberal correspondent (who shall remain nameless) claimed that the Tea Party would block the project if there were any tax dollars involved in funding it. (The actual monument was, in fact, bankrolled with federal funding and the National Park Service took over management before it was even finished.)
The majority opinion was that everyone would pay lip service to the need for this type of memorial, but an immediate battle would break out over which presidents to enshrine on such a monument today. Leaving the monument “as is” with some faces from before the modern era of political schisms might be palatable to a majority, but would there be a rush to put some slightly more modern faces up there? And if so… who?
Reagan is the easy answer for conservatives. I suppose the Democrats would push for Kennedy as an easy out, though there would doubtless be a short lived push for Obama as the historic, first black president, etc. (Hey… he got a Nobel, didn’t he?) Does anyone else in the post Teddy Roosevelt era stand out enough to bump one of the current figures off the top of the hill? Or perhaps a 19th century POTUS who was overlooked before?
I might make a case for Ike, though even I would be pushing it with fairly faint praise compared to the current denizens. So, the question for your consideration this weekend is put forward. Could we do it? If not… why not? And if so, who should be there if we were to start the project from square one today?
Money wouldn't be a problem as it could be self funded.
Next question?
The problem is that if you built it today, it would be so PC, only liberal icons need apply.
As long as the faces were of Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin and Josef Stalin.
The Lakotas want the Black Hills back. They’d oppose the Rushmore project because they see it as *their* land. And to be fair, the US gov’t broke the 1868 treaty which so declared it. The Supreme court a couple of decades ago, agreed with the Lakotas and ordered the US gov’t to pay a fortune for the land but the Lakotas won’t touch the money: they want their sacred Black Hills back.
It’s getting easier and easier to sympathize with the Lakotas. After all, the Constitution is the “treaty” that we the people have, with the federal government. And the feds have broken that treaty too, and are now making preparations to destroy us.
We’re all Indians now.
The Lakotas want the Black Hills back. They’d oppose the Rushmore project because they see it as *their* land. And to be fair, the US gov’t broke the 1868 treaty which so declared it. The Supreme court a couple of decades ago, agreed with the Lakotas and ordered the US gov’t to pay a fortune for the land but the Lakotas won’t touch the money: they want their sacred Black Hills back.
It’s getting easier and easier to sympathize with the Lakotas. After all, the Constitution is the “treaty” that we the people have, with the federal government. And the feds have broken that treaty too, and are now making preparations to destroy us.
We’re all Indians now.
At first I thought you said 10 liberals hanging at every turn. Not a bad idea at all.
That would be such encouragement to keep going.
What happened to the Crazy Horse Statue? Lets finish it! As for US presidents—Only one stands out in recent memory—Reagan. That would have to be done with private resources.
Point taken but the family secured federal funding to complete the carvings.
So, “we” didn’t build it, but we financed it. Sort of like building a house. The Gov’t “stole” it in 1933 by turning it into a national monument...after all, the gov’t paid for it.
Today we are just a few years from it being dynamited down by our green/leftest Taliban rulers...
Sadly I would makes a bet they will be torn down with in the next fifty years 
From a technical perspective ... yes.
From a political perspective ... no.
You probably could laser cut it in a week.
All one just needs to look at is the horrid Gehry designed memorial for Ike. The MLK memorial made him look like some hero in socialist realism style of the Soviet Union or Mao’s China. Our post-modern Zeitgeist could not even conceive of a Rushmore memorial.
Interesting question. The environmentalists sure would try to stop it. In fact, I’ve read a few columns by dizzy lib scribblers, (Nick Coleman of the Minn. Red-Star Tribune for example) who advocated blowing up the present carvings on Mt. Rushmore. However, not far from Mt. Rushmore the form of Crazy Horse is taking shape (long way to go). I’ll bet the enviro-Nazis would be happy with Crazy Horse but against the presidents. One guess why. I’m for both carvings.
There was federal funding for Mt. Rushmore. The Crazy Horse memorial receives no federal funding.
I love America. America saved my life. Having said that.
We could not build it because:
1. Not the same people.
2. Not the same dream.
3. Humphrey-Hawkins act.
$. Who really wants Harvey Milk on Mt. Rushmore.
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