Tag: honor

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ideological culture national politics & policies

Grace the Notes

20 dollars, currency, Jackson, Tubman

Harriett Tubman was an American hero, the great Underground Railroad liberator of slaves, worthy of many honors. 

But should she grace the $20 Federal Reserve Note?

This issue was raised during the Obama administration, when movement was made towards swapping the current Gracer of the Note, President Andrew Jackson, for Tubman. But President Trump stalled the swap.

Now, with Biden in office, it’s back!

How should we “feel” about it?

As I explained in 2016, Tubman is my kind of hero. Jackson, on the other hand, was great with his opposition to the Second National Bank, but his horrific removal of the Cherokee left a great stain on his reputation. Much different for Tubman — a criminal in her day, a secular saint in ours. Jackson owned slaves; Tubman freed slaves.

Yet, take a step back:

Is it an honor to be on a Federal Reserve Note?

The American dollar has been in jeopardy for a very long time — at least since President Richard Milhous Nixon closed the Treasury’s gold window, but probably since the forming of the Federal Reserve … our plutocratic “Third National Bank.”

Why place someone as excellent as Tubman onto a doomed currency?

The argument to keep Andy Jackson there is stronger than putting Ms. Tubman on it: he opposed central banking, and to festoon his likeness on the second most-​used note of our central bank’s denominational line-​up is a way of dishonoring him. 

The reason today’s Democrats want to remove their party’s first president from the Twenty is the very reason to keep him on.

But if they must replace, a better candidate might be … Dick Nixon.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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international affairs

Victory & Surrender

courage, caution, strength, fun, play

Former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker sums up in a single word the recently announced framework of an agreement between the United States of America and the Taliban: Surrender.

“This current process bears an unfortunate resemblance to the Paris peace talks during the Vietnam War,” writes Crocker in a Washington Post op-​ed. “Then, as now, it was clear that by going to the table we were surrendering; we were just negotiating the terms of our surrender.”

He’s not wrong. 

It may seem strange that, after successfully toppling the Taliban government, a savage regime that had given safe haven to Al-​Qaeda to launch its 911 attacks against us, we would now, nearly two decades later, be anxious to cut a deal with that same Taliban, even possibly bringing them into a power-​sharing role.

Anything to get the heck out of Kabul and back to the good ol’ USA. And it is a recognition, right or wrong, that the Afghan government is unsustainable.

The alternative? Keep a significant contingent of U.S. troops in Afghanistan … forever. Or until we have fashioned a brand new westernized-​Afghanistan that is no possible threat to us.

Yep, forever. 

“Winning may not be an available option,” contends a new Rand report, “but losing … would be a blow to American credibility, the weakening of deterrence and the value of U.S. reassurance elsewhere, an increased terrorist threat emanating from the Afghan region, and the distinct possibility of a necessary return there under worse conditions.” 

The same mistaken reasons we stayed in Vietnam. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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King’s Dream, Tea Party-Style

In the Washington Post’s Book World segment, surprise was noted how quickly Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe’s Tea Party manifesto, Give Us Liberty, fell off in sales. Why? Perhaps “Tea Party folks … already knew who they were and what they believed?”

Good guess.

But what do they believe?

Alveda King is the niece of Martin Luther King, whom she refers to as “Uncle Martin.” Fielding questions from CNN’s Larry King after she had participated in Glenn Beck’s recent Washington rally, Ms. King insisted that “It’s not so much about the man as the message.” The “issues” she emphasized were the ones that Beck, to the surprise of many, had also emphasized: Faith, hope, charity, and honor.

“My uncle said we have to live together as brothers — and I add, as sisters — or ‘perish as fools.’” If Ms. King is not out of place in Beck’s wing of the Tea Party, then what of all the noise about racism? Could widespread opposition to Obama be mainly about policy?

When Rev. Sharpton talked about “going all the way in civil rights,” Ms. King clarified something that might be useful in helping left-​leaning folks understand Tea Party folks’ attitude towards policy: “My uncle was not teaching that we needed the government to take care of us.”

His main message had something to do with liberty. And respect for all. 

Tea Party people appear to be in the main stream of modern American culture in claiming such ideas as theirs, too.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.