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?
Nope
Nope.
The EPA,
ENVIRONUTS,
US SENATE,
DemoRats,
ACLU,
Unions, would get in the way
/johnny
‘We’ didn’t build Mt. Rushmore, so the question is absurd.
Of course not.
But as the country spirals down in the muslim prehistory, you may see it erased.
I’m not sure there area any men or women very deserving of it nowadays. Reagan, maybe, but the country would NEVER agree on it.
We are definitely, and sadly, far too divided now to achieve or build anything of such iconic greatness.
Perhaps one day this country will regain its spirtual footing, — but I feel we’re going to have to hit rock bottom before it happens — or kick out some of these rabble rousers that hate America and its way of life.
I feel, most of all, this country has become on that loves pleasure and money more than God and doing His will. It’s all about power and money, power and money.
Just some rambling thoughts.
There is no way in hell that Mt. Rushmore would get built in this era.
First, liberals wouldn’t support it for environmental issues.
Secondly, liberals despise America.
Thirdly, if liberals were going to celebrate any Americans like that, it would be Malcolm X, Susan B Oprah Winfrey, Caesar Chavez, and Barack Hussein Obama.
Sure America could.
As long as it was only one head - and that one Obama’s.
/s
I still believe that Americans can do anything a put their minds to in the world. The only trouble is the have to carry 10 liberals hanging on their at every turn. I makes it harder to do.
I think the Indians would object, the Black Hills are undoubtedly sacred ground. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t be built, only that it would have to be part of a casino, and a casino is where you see your wealth disappears. So whose face should be on a place where the the money disappears?
“‘We’ didn’t build Mt. Rushmore, so the question is absurd.”
I agree. A man with a dream and his family along with donations and some helpers built Mt. Rushmore. The “we” is absolutely absurd.
No. For all the reasons mentioned.
America just isn’t the country it used to be, sadly.
It would not be politically possible.Marx and Lenin, possibly but the enviros might even scotch that.
We could, but would not.
It is like the polticians credo of “there are no easy answers or solutions’, which is a lie. There are simple answers and solutions to most all problems, but the problem is they are hard, so will never be heeded nor implemented.
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