"It profits me but little that a vigilant authority always protects the tranquillity of my pleasures and constantly averts all dangers from my path, without my care or concern, if this same authority is the absolute master of my liberty and my life."

--Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

It's Not "Presidents' Day"... It's Washington's Birthday


George Washington was the indispensable man for the American Revolution, the Constitution, and the beginning of our Republic.   No one else could have filled the role; without Washington, we might have had a Napoleon, or worse.   So let's not talk about "President's Day" today.   It's Washington's Birthday, period, full stop.   It ought to be a national holiday by itself; children ought to write essays for the local newspapers about him; stories about Washington ought to be told by fathers to their sons (and daughters) with a tear in the eye, a la Shakespeare:  "This story shall the good man teach his son."

This is what I said last year on February 22nd, and it still holds:

Look, I don't quibble with the fact that we have a Martin Luther King Day.  It's a good thing.   But I feel very strongly that, if we are going to have a Martin Luther King Day, we also ought to have an Abraham Lincoln Day and a George Washington Day.   King was a great man; Lincoln and Washington were greater men, and there really shouldn't be any dispute about that.   So let's cut out all this crap about "Presidents' Day" -- I'm not celebrating Millard Freaking Fillmore, for Christ's sake -- and go back to Lincoln's Birthday on February 12th and Washington's Birthday on February 22nd.   That's the way it ought to be.

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