# Park with statues of America's most notorious historical characters. Marketable concept? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 6, 2016, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/park-with-statues-of-americas-most-notorious-historical-characters-marketable-concept/748133 "2016-03-06T19:10:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2016, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/park-with-statues-of-americas-most-notorious-historical-characters-marketable-concept/748133/1 "2016-03-06T19:10:05Z")
As a hypothetical let’s say as the result of an inheritance you have 100 acres and few spare billion to do with as you please. Let’s say the concept is to have statues of notorious characters in US history and a plaque to xplain why they are considered “notorious”. In this Notorious Park would not just be criminals but people who were aggressively on the wrong side of history, or had some huge ethical lapse in their careers, or who promoted false and damaging information in the face of common sense and scientific fact. Orientation would be mainly 1900 forward with a smattering of earlier historical figures. There would be strong attempt to be even handed in assigned notoriety across the political spectrum. Who would you put in this park? Could it make money as a popular destination? As some examples [Harry Carrico](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_L._Carrico) The judge who affirmed[the Loving v Virginia decision](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia) [Bernie Madoff](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Madoff) [Lester Maddox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lester_Maddox) [Bill Clinton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton) [Cecil Jacobsen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Jacobson) [Dan Rostenkowski](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Rostenkowski) [Jenny McCarthy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_McCarthy) [Charles Kuralt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Kuralt) ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2016, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/park-with-statues-of-americas-most-notorious-historical-characters-marketable-concept/748133/2 "2016-03-06T19:11:43Z")
I think a rogues gallery is marketable. But a huge parcel of real estate close enough to a population center to draw a steady stream of visitors is a pretty expensive baseline. Make it a wax museum and we’ll talk. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2016, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/park-with-statues-of-americas-most-notorious-historical-characters-marketable-concept/748133/3 "2016-03-06T19:17:47Z")
Senator Anthony Wiener JUST has to be in there somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2016, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/park-with-statues-of-americas-most-notorious-historical-characters-marketable-concept/748133/4 "2016-03-06T19:17:58Z")
> [@Napier](#): > > I think a rogues gallery is marketable. But a huge parcel of real estate close enough to a population center to draw a steady stream of visitors is a pretty expensive baseline. Make it a wax museum and we’ll talk. I’m thinking of it more as highway attraction kind of thing, not necessarily in the middle of a large urban area. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2016, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/park-with-statues-of-americas-most-notorious-historical-characters-marketable-concept/748133/5 "2016-03-06T19:50:36Z")
I was actually imagining something like[the Memento Park outside of Budapest](http://www.mementopark.hu/) (full of old Communist-era statues and stuff), except one filled with statues of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and other assorted Confederates. I suppose it might be interesting in the same kind of way that the Memento Park is. Not so much a commemoration, but rather a kind of historical exhibit of a rather dark period. (I saw the Memento Park in early January one year; it was completely snowy, overcast and bleak. It seemed appropriate weather to see that kind of thing.) ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2016, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/park-with-statues-of-americas-most-notorious-historical-characters-marketable-concept/748133/6 "2016-03-06T19:52:29Z")
Dennis Hastert ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2016, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/park-with-statues-of-americas-most-notorious-historical-characters-marketable-concept/748133/7 "2016-03-06T21:28:04Z")
[Andrew Wakefield](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield) needs to be there if you open it up to British honorees. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2016, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/park-with-statues-of-americas-most-notorious-historical-characters-marketable-concept/748133/8 "2016-03-06T21:33:14Z")
[Norman Borlaug](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug) ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/park-with-statues-of-americas-most-notorious-historical-characters-marketable-concept/748133/9 "2016-03-07T00:07:59Z")
> [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](#): > > [Norman Borlaug](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug) OK I scanned through the wiki. He seems to be the closest thing to a humanitarian/scientist super hero I’ve ever seen. What did I miss? What’s your beef with him? > [@](#): > > Borlaug was also featured in an episode of Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, where he was referred to as the “Greatest Human Being That Ever Lived”. In that episode, Penn & Teller play a card game where each card depicts a great person in history. Each player picks a few cards at random, and bets on whether one thinks one’s card shows a greater person than the other players’ cards based on a characterization such as humanitarianism or scientific achievement. Penn gets Norman Borlaug, and proceeds to bet all his chips, his house, his rings, his watch, and essentially everything he’s ever owned. He wins because, as he says, “Norman is the greatest human being, and you’ve probably never heard of him.” In the episode — the topic of which was genetically altered food — he is credited with saving the lives of over a billion people.[68] > > In August 2006, Dr. Leon Hesser published The Man Who Fed the World: Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Norman Borlaug and His Battle to End World Hunger, an account of Borlaug’s life and work. On August 4, the book received the 2006 Print of Peace award, as part of International Read For Peace Week. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/park-with-statues-of-americas-most-notorious-historical-characters-marketable-concept/748133/10 "2016-03-07T01:04:25Z")
> [@astro](#): > > OK I scanned through the wiki. He seems to be the closest thing to a humanitarian/scientist super hero I’ve ever seen. What did I miss? What’s your beef with him? A lot of people feel that Borlaug’s solutions for world hunger are setting us up for a much larger crisis. Increased agriculture is sustained by fertilizer which is made from the world’s finite supply of fossil fuel. At some point, we’ll run low on fossil fuel and no longer be able to sustain our current crop output. So the argument is that if we can only feed two billion people on a sustainable basis without intensive fertilizer use, we should have stayed with that. Instead, we’ve been using fertilizer and the population is approaching eight billion. When we run out of fertilizer, the population will fall from eight billion or more back down to two billion. And “fall” isn’t really an adequate word to describe the chaos of three quarters of the people in the world dying. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/park-with-statues-of-americas-most-notorious-historical-characters-marketable-concept/748133/11 "2016-03-07T01:52:13Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > A lot of people feel that Borlaug’s solutions for world hunger are setting us up for a much larger crisis. Increased agriculture is sustained by fertilizer which is made from the world’s finite supply of fossil fuel. At some point, we’ll run low on fossil fuel and no longer be able to sustain our current crop output. > > So the argument is that if we can only feed two billion people on a sustainable basis without intensive fertilizer use, we should have stayed with that. Instead, we’ve been using fertilizer and the population is approaching eight billion. When we run out of fertilizer, the population will fall from eight billion or more back down to two billion. And “fall” isn’t really an adequate word to describe the chaos of three quarters of the people in the world dying. Well… that should make for an interesting plaque on his statue. “He refused to let people in arid regions starve and keep their numbers down as nature intended”. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/park-with-statues-of-americas-most-notorious-historical-characters-marketable-concept/748133/12 "2016-03-07T01:58:36Z")
And that’s better than enabling the starvation of several times as many? ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/park-with-statues-of-americas-most-notorious-historical-characters-marketable-concept/748133/13 "2016-03-07T02:00:10Z")
Besides, there are alternatives. Nobody is pro-starvation. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/park-with-statues-of-americas-most-notorious-historical-characters-marketable-concept/748133/14 "2016-03-07T02:10:54Z")
It might make a great theme park attraction, but only for a very select few of the Uber Rich. Q: How much would it cost per ticket to fly a “Blue Thunder” style Apache across the park twice a day & blow each statue to hell for the honor of high score…? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/park-with-statues-of-americas-most-notorious-historical-characters-marketable-concept/748133/15 "2016-03-07T03:03:34Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Well… that should make for an interesting plaque on his statue. “He refused to let people in arid regions starve and keep their numbers down as nature intended”. “Why starve millions when you can starve billions?” Or, just as a suggestion, not starve anyone. Instead of encouraging people to have more children by temporarily increasing the food supply, how about encouraging people to have fewer children so the existing food supply can feed everyone? ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/park-with-statues-of-americas-most-notorious-historical-characters-marketable-concept/748133/16 "2016-03-07T03:22:14Z")
> [@astro](#): > > OK I scanned through the wiki. He seems to be the closest thing to a humanitarian/scientist super hero I’ve ever seen. What did I miss? What’s your beef with him? Possibly a billion more people on this planet competing for a dwindling number of resources heading toward ‘Peak [Whatever]’ because of one man. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/park-with-statues-of-americas-most-notorious-historical-characters-marketable-concept/748133/17 "2016-03-07T04:35:48Z")
> [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](#): > > Possibly a billion more people on this planet competing for a dwindling number of resources heading toward ‘Peak [Whatever]’ because of one man. Wow… this has to be the ultimate “no good deed”. On a separate note here since my father was a project director for USAID agricultural support and education activities in in the 60’s in the Sahel region and elsewhere in the developing world & and was directly involved in trying to save and better the lives of these resource draining undesirables I really don’t have much sympathy with the “Earth population will collapse. Billions will die!” wankfests. These predictions have been made forever and somehow never seem to materialize. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/park-with-statues-of-americas-most-notorious-historical-characters-marketable-concept/748133/18 "2016-03-07T07:47:53Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I was actually imagining something like[the Memento Park outside of Budapest](http://www.mementopark.hu/) (full of old Communist-era statues and stuff) The Baltic states aren’t known for their love of communism, so [Stalin’s World](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gr%C5%ABtas_Park) was very controversial. > [@Iggy](#): > > [Andrew Wakefield](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield) needs to be there if you open it up to British honorees. No, they should make a park for him called “Britain’s Greatest Hero Park.” Admission should be free. And as soon as all his fans pay homage, the gates should be shuttered so that they can keep all their sickness to themselves. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/park-with-statues-of-americas-most-notorious-historical-characters-marketable-concept/748133/19 "2016-03-07T13:53:19Z")
Sounds like Mad’s **Get It Out Of Your System Land** , written by Sy Reit back in Mad #141 (March 1971) [https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;\_ylt=A0LEV1jehd1WqJkAblhXNyoA;\_ylu=X3oDMTE0djUyaTg2BGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDQjE3NTdfMQRzZWMDcGl2cw--?p=“get+it+out+of+your+system+land”&fr=yfp-t-201&fr2=piv-web#id=0&iurl=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.coollinesartwork.com%2FImages%2FCategory\_2%2Fsubcat\_43137%2FMADwoodbridgedREV.JPG&action=click](https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=A0LEV1jehd1WqJkAblhXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTE0djUyaTg2BGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDQjE3NTdfMQRzZWMDcGl2cw--?p=%22get+it+out+of+your+system+land%22&fr=yfp-t-201&fr2=piv-web#id=0&iurl=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.coollinesartwork.com%2FImages%2FCategory_2%2Fsubcat_43137%2FMADwoodbridgedREV.JPG&action=click) It had cutouts of famous villains from history that you could get your photo taken with (including “Sy Reit”) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/park-with-statues-of-americas-most-notorious-historical-characters-marketable-concept/748133/20 "2016-03-07T15:57:43Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Wow… this has to be the ultimate “no good deed”. > > On a separate note here since my father was a project director for USAID agricultural support and education activities in in the 60’s in the Sahel region and elsewhere in the developing world & and was directly involved in trying to save and better the lives of these resource draining undesirables I really don’t have much sympathy with the “Earth population will collapse. Billions will die!” wankfests. These predictions have been made forever and somehow never seem to materialize. What “undesireables”? Nobody except you has said anything like that. You’re the only person who seems unconcerned about the death of several billion people, which you’re dismissing as a “wankfest”. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/park-with-statues-of-americas-most-notorious-historical-characters-marketable-concept/748133.md?page=2)