I come with this blog post not to bury Reagan but to praise a great American who's getting a raw deal here, a man named Thomas Starr King:
Not everyone's pleased that Reagan is being put on a pedestal, particularly the descendants of Starr King, who helped keep California in the Union during the Civil War.
"Unfortunately, people say, 'Who was Thomas Starr King?' " said Ginny King Supple, Starr King's great-great-granddaughter, from Los Angeles. "He never got the public recognition after the fact. He was very well-known back in the 1800s and early 1900s. So it is disturbing."
She voted for Reagan, but she said: "From a historical perspective, Thomas Starr King had a lot more to do with the state of the state of California, as opposed to President Reagan. I'm not coming down on Ronald Reagan. He was basically a great man in many ways, but the history of California lies with Thomas Starr King. That's why he was chosen."
Starr King gave thousands of speeches, up and down the state, railing against slavery, poverty and oppression. Even though the state had banned slavery, many Southerners who had moved to California wanted slaves and threatened to split the state and form their own republic. Starr King corresponded with Abraham Lincoln during his speaking tour
Ironically, Starr King is getting 15 minutes of fame by getting dumped for the Gipper, but in the long run it would be good for more Americans -- not fewer -- to know about this man who battled slavery and oppression, the type of person we need more of in 2009. Throwing him down the memory hole for the 1984-elected Reagan is emblematic of a nation with Attention Deficit Disorder -- a nation that already has a lot of things that honor the 40th president but now little left to honor a forgotten American King.
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It's only a matter of time before Reagan replaces that liberal Jefferson on the monument in South Dakota. Lincoln would go first, but he was a Republican.— Phrossty- I bet most young Californians don't even know Reagan was their governor at one time, let alone the President.— chasing history
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- Will-do you really care about history? If so, is Obama abiding by the principles laid out in the Constitution?— sleepy
OBSESSION: 1: a persistent disturbing preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea or feeling— bird11- this obsession was mildly amusing at first but it's becoming annoying and frightening.— Bud Fox
- Eh, history is full of people who fall by the wayside as time rolls on.— Captain Awesome
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"this obsession was mildly amusing at first but it's becoming annoying and frightening" . . . . . . . Yeah, Will acts as if the Republicans still cloak themselves in Reagan's legacy or something.- Comment removed.
- OBSESSION: 1: a persistent disturbing preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea or feeling......what a great characterization of the conservatives that come to this site! lolz.....— chasing history
- Hey lip- where were you when the dopey Dems blamed everything on Bush? They can't seem to find someone now to blame for the continuous bad news though. 16,000 jobs lost every day that the empty suit has been in the White HOuse. Some stimulus. Really working fast. Keep it up. Good to see Obama getting back to his Muslim roots while he's overseas. Now his father is being portrayed as Muslim while during the campaign he was an atheist. Gotta love the hypocrisy.— WriteWinger
- Not sure that you can define Jefferson as either liberal or conservative (in their current definitions), Phrossty....he had many elements of both. He believed in separation of church and state, he believed that having a standing military should be avoided and he thus slashed defense spending. He was very suspicious of the rising tide of industry and business. He saw virtue in revolution. OTOH, he believed strongly in states rights, with a weak federal gov't. He was anti-city, pro-rural. Placing a high value on the independant individual, he believed in individual liberty where people should be responsible for themselves, without gov't entitlements. He was a white supremacist slave owner. He was anti-elitist....he did not think public officers required great talent to represent their people. He was a strict constructionist, as he did not want the federal government assuming any powers not expressly granted in the Constitution. He felt that the government should pay its bills and not fund them. He felt it was a betrayal to put of one generation's debts on the next. He truly felt that the government that governs best governs least. Bottom line, I don't think that he neatly fits into either a conservative or liberal niche. If anything, his beliefs are closer to that of a libertarian.— legatus
Will Bunch, a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News, blogs about his obsessions, including national and local politics and world affairs, the media, pop music, the Philadelphia Phillies, soccer and other sports, not necessarily in that order.
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