December 14, 2005

Franklin Pierce in Your Pocket

I love the state quarter program, but I think this is a truly horrible idea. Why? In the first place it really perverts our understanding of history to focus on the contributions of only a handful of dead white guys to the historical flow. Did some of these men matter? Yes, tremendously. But there are much broader systemic forces that explain a lot of history that this People-magazine approach ignores. Secondly, why are we giving this kind of honor to Nixon, Truman, Harding, Harrison #1, etc.? There are a lot of presidents I don't think very much of (some of whom already have loads of things named after them, be it airports or aircraft carriers, or both), and a lot of people I'd prefer to see the country honor.

And that's before we even get to the "politics is Hollywood for ugly people" problem. The state quarters opened up all kinds of interesting design possibilities. Here we'll get ... lots of bland bone structure.

Posted by armand at December 14, 2005 02:10 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Economics


Comments

and Grover Cleveland -- twice? what a slavish beancounting mentality, to award him two coins for his nonconsecutive terms.

at least Jesus doesn't get his own pre-Washington honorary dollar, which i find a little surprising.

doesn't our government have something better to do -- like, say, investigating the use of steroids in ultimate fighting or something?

Posted by: Moon at December 14, 2005 02:37 PM | PERMALINK
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