So, by now you’ve probably heard about Harriet Tubman replacing Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20 bill….did you know that if you miss the shift key you get 420?……quick, did you know that Jackson was on the $20 bill?…, and, according to George Soros funded Think Progress, we aren’t taking it well
Hours after the Treasury Department announced its plans to revamp a number of U.S. paper bills with depictions of African American and female civil rights icons, conservatives started criticizing the move as “politically correct†and “unnecessary.â€
The Treasury’s new plan places abolitionist Harriet Tubman on the front of the $20 while relegating former President Andrew Jackson to the back. Meanwhile, the $10 bill will still feature Alexander Hamilton but include a mural of female suffragist leaders on the back of the bill. Images of Martin Luther King, Jr., Eleanor Roosevelt, and Marian Anderson will also be added to the back of the $5.
Speaking on the Today Show, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump argued against the move to replace Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20 with Harriet Tubman.
“Andrew Jackson had a great history, and I think it’s very rough when you take somebody off the bill. Andrew Jackson had a history of tremendous success for the country,†he said. “I think Harriet Tubman is fantastic. I would love to leave Andrew Jackson and see if we can maybe come up with another denomination, maybe we do the $2 bill or we do another bill.†He went on to call the change “pure political correctness.â€
Now, is this a case of “not taking it well”, or simply providing counter arguments? In some cases, the first. I was listening to Trump talk about it, and I think he’s wrong about this being PC. It could also be argued that this is a case of Social Justice. But, much like with earmarks, PC and SJ is not always bad. It’s a matter of sometimes that the issues are “turned up to 11“, like from the movie Spinal Tap. Real issues that need to be addressed, but are taken to the utter far end of extreme. Kinda like buying a 700 horsepower car for a 5 mile daily commute on residential streets. Of course, I really do not expect Trump to have a deep understanding of the issue.
Likewise, Ben Carson was not having a meltdown, but making an argument against. The only other “conservative” mentioned is Greta Van Susteren, who truly did not take the news well. But, she’s not really a Conservative. Barely a Republican. Her politics are really “Scientology.”
Really, few are flipping out. Some make good cases, such as Dana, who comments here daily
(First Street Journal) But, to me, the irony is just astounding: in order to pander to political correctness, the Treasury Department is going to remove the one President, the only President, who ever paid off the national debt! John Gordon Steele noted in The Wall Street Journal, right after President Obama signed the ridiculous American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the stimulus bill we were told would keep unemployment from rising above 8%, pointed out that President Jackson paid off the debt by doing the one thing that is anathema to Republicans and Democrats alike: he cut federal spending, vetoing every spending bill that he could. President Jackson vetoed infrastructure bills; today Presidents won’t even try to cut back on appropriations for luxury items. You can find plenty of articles telling you why it was bad to pay off the debt, but, to me, paying off the debt would be a wonderful thing.
That’s not “not taking the news well”, that’s making a counter-argument. Apparently, in Liberal World, no one is allowed to make counter arguments, and by “apparently”, we know that’s exactly the way they think. From the Libertarian leaning Reason, we are provided with 4 reasons why having her on the $20 is a good idea, my favorite being
3. She believed in armed self-defense, a radical-enough concept for poor whites, let alone renegade blacks. During her Underground Railroad missions, she carried a pistol both for protection against slave-catchers and, reportedly, to keep ambivalent “passengers” in line. To this day, blacks have a strong and yet routinely overlooked belief in the Second Amendment, leading one historian to argue that “guns made the Civil Rights movement possible.” The desire of relatively powerless minorities to arm themselves can still be heard in pro-Second Amendment remarks made by rappers such as Ice-T.
Don’t tell Liberals about her carrying guns for person protection. Their heads might explode. Then there’s this
Breaking: Treasury throws founder of the Democratic Party off $20 bill, replaces with gun-toting Republican pic.twitter.com/G9dVXpTaXv
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) April 20, 2016
Heh!
https://twitter.com/BigGator5/status/722941030287482880
Me? Couldn’t care less. I rarely carry cash, and when I do, I have no idea who’s on the bills.
If Teach were headlining this story to ridicule the change he would have typed:
Conservatives Very Upset about Harriet Tubman or Something
But since he was defending his brethren, he didn’t.
Ironic that abolitionist John Brown is never mentioned in freed slave writings because of his skin color.
Jeffrey, it sounds to me like our esteemed host was ridiculing the leftist meme that conservatives don’t like the idea of putting Miss Tubman on our currency, period. My argument was that the $20 bill should be left alone, due to President Jackson’s accomplishments, but that “I have no problem with the idea of a woman in general, or Harriet Tubman specifically, on our currency.” Had they chosen the $10 bill or the $50 bill or $100 bill, I’d have had no problem with it at all.
As I concluded, “President Jackson was not a perfect man, but no man is. He was, however, a better President than any in this century or the last, and to take him off the face of the $20 bill is to show just how far we have fallen from the ideals on which this country grew. Old Hickory puts today’s politicians to shame.”
Not according to Presidential experts, where he is consistently ranked (8th) behind FDR, Truman, T. Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson of the past century, but certainly ranked better than George W. Bush (34th) and Obama (17th).
Jackson was a slaveholder and engineered the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans from the Southeast US. He attempted to stop the US Postal Service from delivering abolitionist literature.
How ironic that Jackson, who detested the concept of paper money and a national bank is on the $20 bill. His policies led to a severe depression.
Why not put her picture on EBT cards. That would be very appropriate.
Jeffery comments on the greatness of FDR, Teddy, Wilson, presidents known for war mongering, mass deportation of WEastern Europeans without trial, and of course the mass imprisonment of Japanese Americans without trial.
Tell us Jeffery why you’d object to Jackson. He sounds like your kind of guy.
Oh yes, Jackson was a badass rather than a rich pantywaist. Even Teddy liked playing facist lynchmob leader and enjoyed shooting other people’s dogs. But Wilson and FDR, they could be found today in the transexual restroom.
Jeffrey wrote:
As you might have guessed, I disagree with the “experts.” Franklin Roosevelt was a good war president, in that he organized the country for winning the war and let his generals plan the conduct of the war. But his policies continued the Depression, and set us on the course to the welfare state we have today; that makes him one of the worst presidents in my mind.
Woodrow Wilson was a mediocre president who managed to both get us involved in a European mess, and then help craft a Treaty of Versailles which led to the rise of Adolf Hitler; his League of Nations was a failure. His last two years were a caretaker presidency by his wife.
Harry Truman and Theodore Roosevelt were pretty good Presidents, but I wouldn’t rank them above Andrew Jackson. A very unappreciated President I rank highly was Calvin Coolidge.
He was a man of his times, and the vast majority of our first presidents were slaveowners. And yes, he completed the conquest of the Indians in the southeast; ugly as that was, it has led to a stronger nation. We are wealthier today due to the Indian removal he forced, and the completion of the conquest of the Indians by later Presidents. You might not like that, but it’s still true.
R Colons typed:
Why would that be appropriate? Oh, we get it. Tubman was a nigger and only niggers use EBT cards. Got it.
Let me guess, you’re a conservative patriot.
R Colons typed:
And that’s the key. Conservatives are afraid of everything and need a “strongman” leader to protect them. Jackson supported slavery and killed Native Americans. That’s enough for conservatives.
If Jackson
Trumpwere running today, you’d support him. He’dTrumpkick someMexican asses.
Maybe you can get a good gubmint job as a “dick checker” at confederate bathrooms.
Dana,
You make an excellent point. Donald Trump does evoke much of the proto-con, screw everybody, I’m doing it my way, persona of Jackson.
Jeffrey, Mr Trump is far more of a fake-con than a proto-con. It looks like we’ll have our choice between two New York liberals come this November.
Trump’s appeal to the right is absolutely related to his “strongman” schtick. He surely is more NY lib on social issues, Planned Parenthood, LGBT, abortion, religious “liberty” policies…
“Trump’s appeal to the right is absolutely related to his “strongman†schtick. ”
I know quite a few in-the-closet Trump voters, in Ma. no less, and not a single one has ever mentioned anything like this.
As for the actual subject matter, I haven’t met anyone who cares in the least who or what is on the twenty. Most people just hope it doesn’t lose it’s value too quickly over time. This is simply the left, politicizing everything as usual.
“Not according to Presidential experts …”
Typical liberal argument. A question like “who were our best presidents” is inevitably subject to wide differences of opinion depending on the priorities and political alignments of the person doing the judging. There are “experts” on all sides of a question like this. I’m sure that for any president we’ve ever had, if you looked long and hard enough you could find some college professor or author or newspaper columnist who says that he was the best.
But the liberal finds one or two people who agree with him, finds some criteria by which he can call them “experts”, and declares, “Case closed. The experts agree with me.”
Substitute any other subject for “who is the best president” and you’ll find liberals use the same silly argument.
“Conservatives are afraid of everything and need a “strongman†leader to protect them.”
Are you serious? Seems to me that it’s liberals who are regularly saying how people need the government to protect them. Consumers need the government to protect them from big business. Blacks need the government to protect them from whites. Women need the government to protect them from men. Transsexuals need the government to protect them from sane people. Etc. Liberals regularly attack conservatives for insisting that the free speech and free markets are protection enough. Liberals regularly attack conservatives for saying that people should take care of themselves rather than seeking help from the government.
Have you now realized how absurd this whole liberal line is, and you want to try to blame it on conservatives? What crazy switch will you try to pull next? Will you say that it was the Republican Party that defended slavery while the Democrats opposed it? Oh, wait …
jay typed:
It’s actually quite easy to Google “presidential rankings” and find dozens of academic papers rating the Presidents. They all agree that Lincoln was a better prez than Bush, Reagan, Clinton, Obama, etc. They all agree that W was in the bottom 1/3. So, you see, it wasn’t one or two people, it was 18 researchers or groups. Now that doesn’t mean they are correct, obviously it’s a very subjective topic, and any uninformed individual has their own opinion. I bet some folks think W was the best ever and some think that Obama was the best ever, or Reagan, or JFK… but the aggregate opinion of the experts disagree with those folks. For example, Reagan was ranked from 6th to 26th best by the 18 research studies, with his aggregate position at 15th best President. Andrew Jackson ranged from 5th to 14th with an aggregate of 8th. Not too shabby. But not as good as Lincoln, FDR, Teddy R., Washington, Jefferson, Truman or Wilson. But certainly not bad company. Libertarians and far-right extremists may consider FDR the worst ever, but libertarians and far-right extremists are a minority, and the rest of America disagrees.
In my opinion, Reagan was by far the worst President of my lifetime (W 2nd worst), and many liberals would agree, but the 18 expert studies disagree with me.
The conservative WSJ analysis had FDR at 3, Jackson at 10 and Reagan at 6.
You’re entitled to your opinions, but that’s all they are.
The Republican Party opposed slavery and the Democrats, like Andrew Jackson, supported slavery.
Of course that was 150 years ago.
Would Mr. Lincoln be welcome in the new Republican Party? Would Andrew Jackson still be Democrat today?
What do you think?
Silly question: you can’t know how men from a century and a half, and more, ago, men of their times, would be like today.
Abraham Lincoln believed that blacks were inferior to whites, and while he opposed slavery, he would have preferred to have the freed slaves leave the United States and settle elsewhere. He was hardly alone in that opinion, at that time. What he would have thought today, had he been born in the mid-twentieth century, is unknowable.
Andrew Jackson clearly believed that blacks, and Indians, were inferior breeds, owning black slaves and expelling the Indians from the southeast. Those were common beliefs of the time. What he would have thought had he been reared in the twentieth century rather than the late 18th and early 19th, we cannot know.