I agree. That absurd name elevates Buchanan, Pierce, the fascist dictator Wilson and the hapless Jimmy Carter (not to mention the present inhabitant of the White House) to the same supposed national esteem as George Washington. It’s absurd.
15 thoughts on “It Is Not “President’s Day””
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The kids are in school and I’m at work. We just do things a bit different in Arizona. We celebrate Rodeo Weekend this upcoming Thur and Friday. After all a bunch of crazy Cowboys trying to break their necks is much more important than a day of mourning that our president is an idiot.
But…are you saying that the man is more important than the office? That individual character is more important than social class, education, and official mythology? People are not shiny interchangeable cogs in the mighty social machine?
Oh dear. Next you’ll be telling us it takes more than a union contract to make a man a teacher, and more than a PhD from Harvard to make him a thinker.
If I recall my childhood correctly, Lincoln’s birthday was also a holiday in February and the deal with President’s Day was to conflate the two holidays into one. Now, I am not the Lincoln fan that most Americans are, but I would be much happier if the present holiday were understood to be for those two men – as I understood it to be – than to be for all past denizens of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
By the same logic as having an “[Unnamed] President’s Day,” we should have a “Congress’s Day” and a “Supreme Court Day.”
There, that would only be fair.
Yes, John, you’re correct. Before there was MLK Day, the US had Washington’s birthday and Lincoln’s birthday as federal holidays. When they decided to make the nearest Monday to MLK’s birthday a holiday, they consolidated the Washington and Lincoln’s birthdays into Presidents’ day. Ever since, the only two holidays that celebrate the accomplishments of individuals are MLK Day and Columbus Day.
Actually you may thank the lodging and tourism industry lobbyists, And especially George Smathers, who were looking for more three day weekends to boost revenues. The problem with celebrating actual birthdays is they may fall in the middle of the week and so folks are less likely to travel on them.
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1991-06-09/news/9106071105_1_george-smathers-university-of-florida-lawton-chiles/3
George Smathers The Man Behind Monday Holidays And A $20-million Donation To Uf
June 09, 1991|By Charles Fishman
[[[Smathers invented the Monday holiday -President’s Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veteran’s Day, all on Monday, all because he thought ”Florida would benefit greatly if we cut out the holidays that occurred on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. If they were on Friday or Monday, all the federal employees would come to Florida on vacation.”]]]
Ahhh, capitalism at work 🙂
No, Thomas, that would be corporatism.
You have to remember, Mr. Maron, that to a doofus, everytime someone makes money in a way he dislikes, that’s “capitalism.” Like the time Marlon Brando called his GODFATHER character a “typical capitalist.” William Buckley quipped, “Yes, Don Corleone kidnapped and murdered his rivals–you know, the same things Colonel Sanders does to Ketucky Fried Chicken’s competitors.”
Capitalist is simply letting the market decide. Lobbying could be viewed as just another market, whoever makes the best offer, in this case the votes from those who work in tourism, get the goods. 🙂
BTW Marlo Brando was right, different markets merely have different rules of competition. Read up sometime on the tactics that Standard Oil and the Big Four sometimes used to get rid of their competition in the 1800’s. Or how 19th Century capitalists started the Opium War. Those folk would make Don Corleone look like softies. 🙂
Yes, murder, honest trade: it’s all “capitalism.” This from someone who pretends to have read Ayn Rand.
Titus,
Perhaps you need to read some history of business in the late 18th and 19th Century.
Space advocates are enjoy using the Transcontinental Railroad as a model for public-private partnerships in HSF, but the seem to forget the Credit Mobilier Scandal that part of it or how military engineers had to be hired by the Union Pacific to finish it.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/142332/Credit-Mobilier-Scandal
Ayn Rand makes many good arguments for creativity and lassie faire capitalism that I like. But she makes the same fundamental mistake that Karl Marx makes in his arguments for communism, a faith based belief in the rational nature of humans. It’s an easy mistake for Philosophers to make since the assumption that humans are rational and logical in their actions is the foundational paradigm of philosophy, but in the real world humans are only have occasional outbreaks of rationality. Far more often they are irrational, emotional, greedy, vengeful, etc. And never underestimate the power on the individual herd mentality and desire for status among your reference group (i.e. peer pressure). Yes, there is no “noble savage”. Recent research has shown even Chimps rage war and genocide with a passion.
So it may be in their own self interest for employers to ensure workers safety in the long run, but in the short run the perceived benefits from cutting costs on safety is too attractive. And the gambling belief that they will beat the odds. So costs are cut and workers die. Unless the government takes regulatory actions (regulations), or special interest groups (advocates for worker’s rights) sue.
The Founding Fathers understood this, which was why they created three branches of government, knowing each branch will fight the others for power. Then they added the First Amendment to protect the press knowing they will gleefully shine light on the dealings of the three branches with an emphasis on their misbehavior.
And then added the tier system where only the House of Representatives turn over in each election to give time for the passion of the public to abate.
National prosperity and wealth requires a similar delicate balance between the regulation of commerce with the ethic-free market forces. Appropriate regulation is what offsets the tendency of capitalist behavior to fall into the “Don Corleone” model. The challenge is keeping the two in balance to enable the healthy market competition that has been so successful in creating the high standard of living in the western world.
Nope, been there, done that.
So then you do see the similarities 🙂
You’ve backpedalled from equivalence to “similarities.” I guess that’s progress.
Yes, after all “Don Corleone” was just a small time “amateur” compared to J.J. Astor or J.D. Rockefeller. Don Corleone may have bribed a few local same time politicians to look the other way but couldn’t get Congress, Governors and/or foreign governments to do so 🙂