Just a side question. If Carter’s family did not want a big state funeral, but say a regular funeral in their home congregation, like regular people, could they do this? Is an ex-bigshot like a President obligated to have a big televised splash?
I ask this because of something that occured here in my city. Two police officers were killed in the line of duty, and they had big memorials, one following the other, with a long procession to the cemeteries where they would be buried. I heard a rumor, just a rumor mind you, that the widow of one of the guys didn’t want all that, but was pressured into it.
See post #57. By what authority could the US tell the Carter family what sort of funeral they must have? How can a city tell a widow what type of funeral a fallen officer must have?
I see you said “pressured” in your next to last sentence and that word means different things to different people, but just like the Carter family is free to have whatever funeral it wants, Obama or Clinton, for example, aree free to call up the family and ask them to please have a state funeral.
You’re forgetting that Carter also was having the CIA send aid to the Afghan mujaheddin even before the Soviets invaded, and Carter sending a lot of aid to the Saudi’s when they started to do their internal purges.
This strikes at the heart of a sociological question. Just what, exactly, is the function of a funeral? Why do they happen? Whom do they serve?
The more that a person is a public figure, the more the peer pressure on the family to hold a big affair so that the public can also mourn.
It’s a similar sort of situation with weddings, of course. Could a famous couple just sign the forms at the courthouse & be legally married? Sure. They don’t often happen that way, though, especially for first weddings.
Weddings celebrate the new couple. Funerals celebrate the deceased. Really, though, when you look at these events with the eyes of a sociologist, we see that these are as much about the larger community of attendees as anyone.
Nobody is forced to have any type of funeral. They do what the family and the late president wants. Nixon did not have a big DC funeral. He said he did not want to go back to DC even when he was dead. Also his wife Pat died a year before he did but I assume his kids knew what he wanted for a funeral.
Yeah, really, you cannot command a State Funeral, and the choice of speakers and ceremonies would be the family’s. And if Rosalynn is still up and going at that time I’d expect her to come right out if anyone were “pressuring” and publicly decline with a classic old-school Bless Their Heart.
(Were the Carter family to forego anything in DC, but still want some tribute at a place alluding to his service to the nation, there’s always the Naval Academy; for a larger public laying-in-state there could be the Georgia Statehouse or MLK Center.)
FDR got a state funeral, and some papers were discovered a few weeks later where he expressed his wishes, but apparently hadn’t told Eleanor or his kids. He had only wanted a small service and a simple burial, and that’s not what happened.
You know it’s ironic that this is posted now, earlier this morning I surfed past a show in the History Channel “WWII in HD” that showed the funeral procession of FDR.
With his healthy eating habits and regular exercise, there’s little chance of that.
Besides, our nation would mourn. Entertainers would have song tributes to try to soothe our wounded nation.
Who remembers the funeral of Ronald Reagan, in June of 2004?
Geez, what an over-the-top flamboyant week-long extensively scripted and rehearsed cross-country pageant that was, occupying an entire week. I watched the whole thing on TV, that being a time in my life when I really had nothing else to do.
Who was supposed to be the beneficiary of all that?
Are you talking about Chump or about Carter? If Chump, I’m not sure too many entertainers would line up for that. They could probably pull Fred Savage out of mothballs again.
I saw a Reddit thread “Photo developers: What’s the strangest thing you saw” and one person said that a woman brought in 15 rolls of film of Reagan’s funeral.
No, she wasn’t there. She took pictures of the TV as it progressed. :smack:
It was Resident Trump, and it was supposed to be sarcasm. I didn’t want to say out loud how happy everyone would be if tRump passed, as I think there is some rule about it (and this isn’t the Pit). There was a song link in the period.
People lined the railroad tracks to pay respect as RFK’s body went to DC by train from NYC . His funeral was in NYC. I was 8 and the train went through my town in NJ. The train trip was way longer than normal due to crowds along the tracks.
