Presidents Day 2021

Today in these United States of America it's Presidents Day. And I'm not sure I like it.

While there are several men who have served in the office whom I believe deserve recognition I hardly believe that they all do. James Buchanan merely sat on his hands as Civil War threatened. While he has arguably been a good former President Jimmy Carter was an inept actual President. Richard Nixon was, well, Richard Nixon. I'm not sure how much glory, laud, and honor they merit.

Then there's the ones who did nothing particularly notable or horrible who are lumped in with the truly deserving on the holiday. What did Benjamin Harrison actually do except be William Henry Harrison's grandson? And what did General Harrison himself do as Chief Executive but become a trivia question (the shortest served President)? 

Perhaps what is meant is to acknowledge the public service they each presumably represent. My argument there would be whether they all were so definitely public spirited. I won't cite examples here because I don't want my overall point levelled down to mere personal opinion. But do any of us really believe that each and every man who sought the office did so out of altruism? I am ready to name several whom I firmly believe were simply on ego trips. I don't doubt that you could too.

At the risk of broaching that argument which I just finished saying that I didn't want, I only see three Presidents worthy of a holiday: Washington, Lincoln, and Reagan. Washington in particular I would argue deserves a holiday precisely because he's Washington, a man who did more for this nation on more levels than President alone to make him a singular figure in our history. All the others so far as I'm concerned, even the very good ones, don't rise to where they merit such praise. 

Nonetheless, Happy Presidents Day. I suppose it just is what it is.

President's Day 2018

Today is Presidents' Day. It is a holiday that I am not fond of, for a variety of reasons.

I'm nowhere near convinced that all Presidents deserve honor. If nothing else, I don't see where Washington and Millard Fillmore are on the same plane. I mean, some just weren't good presidents. There aren't particularly good reasons to remember those guys.

Then too (as I've lamented frequently) I don't like the whole Monday Holiday Law. What honor are we showing the honorable when we shunt them around to our satisfaction? Not much that I can see.

To be fair, Presidents' Day officially is George Washington's Birthday, so I take some solace in that. Still, I can't help but feel that, as with many holidays, it's become kinda shallow. An excuse for sales if you will. I'm just not into that.

PresidentsDay 2013

Today is Presidents Day. We are expected to celebrate our Presidents, even the ones who weren't that good or memorable. And we do that at the expense of the ones who truly do merit a certain reverence. Washington, Lincoln: you guys are as good as Millard Fillmore or James Buchanan.

To be fair, the official holiday is still known, at the federal level, as Washington's Birthday. That is how it should be. The importance of General Washington to our history simply cannot be overstated; it is widely held by historians that we would not have survived as a nation without his leadership. His demeanor, the respect he commanded: he was the one person Americans would unite under, and they did.

It is not fair to his memory that we are now expected to think of all the men who served as President. Many of then simply don't merit the recognition no matter what they may have sacrificed in gaining the office. It is not fair either that the Monday Holiday Law bounces Washington's Birthday around for the sake of convenience. Further, it is not fair that such days are marked more by sales, weekend trips, and days off work more than for what the holiday is supposed to represent: a reflection on important even ts and figures in our history.

Try doing that, instead of or before whatever else you want to do today. Think about what Washington means to our being here this day. Read a passage about him, even if it's simply on Wikipedia. Take a second and look at a dollar bill or a quarter and reflect on why we would put the image of an old general on our coinage. Remember while you do that that our ability to do all the things we take readily for granted are only so because of the work and sacrifice of men like our first President, and be even for the moment grateful.

Then go ahead and do what you like. We suspect that the General himself would approve of it.

We Need a Constitutional Crisis

With Obamacare now having passed the House, there seems little to do. The massive Federal establishment has reared its ugly head again, and now we're stuck.

Or are we? There are several states considering legislation to sue Washington over the health care mandates which are scheduled to be put in place soon. At least two, Virginia and Idaho, have actually passed such bills into law. That's good, because it may lead to what we really need in this country right now: a genuine Constitutional crisis.

We need, not only the people, but the States as political entities in their own right to stand up to the folks in D.C and tell them that enough is enough. Not only in health care, as that is actually only the most recent intrusion on the power of the states and the general citizenry. Washington must be told that education is a local matter, that we need no federal Department of Energy, that states, being closer to the problems they face, have a better chance of setting them right than vast and unilateral national actions might. We need to make certain changes in the Constitution itself to ensure that such encroachments wane.

With 36 or 37 states talking about standing up to the feds on health care, and with 38 states needed to amend the great document, it would seem that such cohesive action is surely possible. It is time to unite in way in which we rarely have since 1776. It is time to go back to our roots and replant the tree of liberty.