Notes From A Burning House

Some highly-publicized media poll has declared Ronald Reagan our pick for greatest American of all time.  The suggestion sickens me, and this is no matter of political affiliation or my opinions about his policies.  Hang politics, what about basic humanity?

As fair-minded as I can be, I look at Reagan as a leader, and I see a man who supported some Americans and disregarded others, with awful consequences.  It manifested in numerous ways, but in one way it is most clear and beyond redemption.

When gay Americans were dying in frightening numbers from a mysterious disease that needed to be researched quickly, Reagan wasn’t concerned.  He turned his back when gays – Americans – were dying.  It took years for him even to utter the name of the disease, to acknowledge AIDS as an American problem worthy of government’s concern.

Greatest American of all time??  I would not even visit this man’s grave.  I can think of one exception: if I had occasion to perform a same-sex marriage, I would love to do it at his burial site. 

Greatest American?  Humbug. 

*    *    *

The wit and fire of Benjamin Franklin still sparks from time to time, to my great delight. 

The Supreme Court has just made a rather stunning ruling, declaring it Constitutional for local governments to seize private property in order to make way for private commercial development.  You can own your own home, pay your property taxes on time every time, and the city can still take away your property and replace it with a hotel or an amusement park or anything they assert will yield more tax revenue.

In response, a Californian named Logan Darrow Clements immediately proposed a commercial development in the town of Weare, New Hampshire.  He has asked the Board of Selectmen there to consider seizing the farmhouse that is the home of Justice David Souter and allowing Clements to develop a hotel on the site.

He wants to build the “Lost Liberty Hotel” on the site, arguing it would be far more valuable as a commercial hotel and a tourist attraction; his plans include a “Just Desserts Café” and a small museum focusing on deprivation of property rights and individual freedom in America. 

Clements says he is serious, and has been talking to potential financiers.  I doubt there will be any groundbreaking ceremony in the future, but the prospect of Souter appearing before the Selectmen to defend his house does arouse a snicker.  My deskside portrait of Ben Franklin is, unmistakably, smirking. 

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