Not long ago, my conservative colleagues on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and I urged President Trump to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Thomas Sowell.
Now that the president has reinstated an executive order establishing a National Garden of American Heroes, I also urge that Sowell, America’s greatest living intellect, be considered for inclusion in it. (The garden was proposed by President Trump by executive order on July 4, 2020; President Biden revoked it immediately upon taking office in 2021. Trump now has revoked Biden’s revocation).
The usual suspects derided the idea of the garden because, as all sophisticates know, determining who is an American hero (if, indeed, there are any heroes in a nation riven by indelible racism, sexism, classism, imperialism, etc.) is the province of “scholars” and “historians” and other really smart people who are considered to be really smart people by other really smart people who everyone agrees are really smart people.
Fine. Scholars and historians and other really smart people should make their own recommendations. As should any American who wishes. My recommendation is Thomas Sowell.