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Edited on Thu Jun-10-04 04:18 PM by JohnKleeb
“Keep Ronald Reagan off My Money”
I do not think Ronald Reagan should replace Franklin D Roosevelt or for that matter get on any money at all. Roosevelt deserves to be on the dime more so than Reagan for one. There is a much more deserving candidate if we are going to put a new man on money, and that man is Dr. Martin Luther King. Reagan didn’t do too many good things as president either if any. I don’t think Ronald Reagan belongs on any money because FDR deserves to be on the dime and if we’re going to take Hamilton off the ten dollar bill or Jackson off the twenty, let’s not put Reagan on there but Martin Luther King, and just what has Reagan done to deserve to be on our money exactly/
The proposed legislation to take Franklin D Roosevelt off the dime and replace him with Ronald Reagan is the wrong thing to do; it not only insults the memory of the best president of the 20th century but insults our grandparents’ generation as well. Franklin D Roosevelt was without question the best president of the 20th century. The New Deal, his masterful and amazing economic program not only brought hopes to millions of Americans but boosted their morale; thanks to the New Deal we have a minimum wage, a ban on child labor, social security, and other great programs that help people out still today and are a part of our lives and that we take for granted.. Roosevelt like many great leaders in history not only was a terrific and inspirational domestic leader but led at wartime as well. His leadership during the Second World War was part of why he was a great president. He cared for the troops like they were his own children. When he died on that April 12 day in Warm Springs, Georgia, many of the fighting men in Europe and Asia mourned him as one of their own. FDR was also involved in the march of dimes to end Polio. The mere thought of replacing Roosevelt on the dime is just wrong especially considering the many great things Roosevelt did for the country.
Some in congress do realize that is wrong to take FDR off and replace him with Reagan, but Dr. Martin Luther King is also a name suggested to replace either Hamilton or Jackson on the 10 and 20 dollar bills respectively. King is much more deserving than Reagan is for a number of reasons. Martin Luther King helped many Americans see beyond race as a person’s value but a person’s soul more so. You would think that a man like Reagan would be supporting King’s movement to allow Blacks to vote and to be able to have equal opportunities as whites but Reagan was out in the 1964 election campaigning for Barry Goldwater and both of these men, both Reagan and Goldwater opposed the long overdue civil rights act of 1964 because it interfered with “states rights” that is the right of a state to discriminate against someone because of their skin color and after all in 1967 Reagan was elected governor of California because of white anger over support for civil rights of the democratic governor Pat Brown. King also like many thought the Vietnam War was a terrible mistake and he promoted peace, he was a man of his word, his marches were peaceful, he had been inspired by Gandhi, in a sense, both King and Gandhi were inspired by Henry David Thoreau’s civil disobedience. Reagan like many in his party supported the Vietnam War; he defended the Vietnam War often, and using harsh tactics on protesters. King towards the end of his life also began to talk about fighting the crippling poverty in the country as well; he was in fact helping out workers in Memphis, Tennessee when he was assassinated in 1968. Again Reagan was on the wrong side of the issue, he felt that “big government” was bad, of course because it meant higher taxes for him and other rich people who didn’t care for the well being of others , but Great Society was a good and needed legislation by President Johnson, anti poverty programs are needed, Reagan thought that this was “big government” and wrong, however it is in my opinion the duty of the government to help those who can’t help themselves, it is not only the right thing to do but it is a moral thing as well. Big government can be a good thing too if the government doesn’t intrude on personal freedoms. If Congress wants to replace Hamilton or Jackson, I say fine but give that honor to Martin Luther King not Ronald Reagan, after all King won a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts on civil rights which is one of the highest honors one can have.
Reagan despite being elected by big margins was not a good president either. His supporters like to say he ended the Cold War but the Cold War started to end not when Reagan took office but when Mikhail Gorbachev became premier of the Soviet Union, and Gorbeichev was willing to negotiate unlike his predecessors. A lot of people deserve credit for ending the Cold War like Pope John Paul II, Lech Walesa, leader of Solidarity, a Polish trade union dedicated to reforming communist policy in Poland and of course Mikhail Gorbachev but Reagan doesn’t deserve credit I believe. Reagan also handled the AIDS epidemic very poorly; he didn’t recognize the seriousness of the disease until his friend and fellow actor Rock Hudson died of it. Reagan did in fact fund Saddam Hussein with money and weapons to help Hussein fight his war with Iran. The ironic thing is Reagan who pledged to reduce government ended up having a bigger government than President Clinton did. Reagan also increased the national debt which was later turned in to a surplus by President Clinton. Reagan’s historic tax cut was much like that of Bush’s 2001 tax cut, the people who benefited the most from it were wealthy. Then of course there’s the infamous Iran-Contra affair when the Administration secretly sold arms to Iran, the proceeds from these sales were used to fund right wing revolutionaries in Nicaragua who were trying to overturn the left wing elected government who the Reagan administration considered linked to Cuba and the Soviet Union, international and independent observers considered the Sandinistas elections fair and free but the US rejected this claim. Reagan may have been a popular president but he was far from a good president.
In conclusion, I offer my sympathies to Nancy Reagan and the Reagan family on his recent death and suffering of Alzheimer’s disease. My nana has lost her memory as well, she doesn’t have Alzheimer’s but I do realize that is a sad thing to see a person slowly lose their memory and forget who important people are. I personally think if we want to cure diseases like Alzheimer’s, we need to permit Stem Cell research. This will enable many diseases to be cured. Reagan may have been a popular president but he wasn’t a good president, and I think he doesn’t belong on any money.
dont have a link sorry.
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