Andrew Jackson should be removed from the $20 bill.

"But this makes no sense however for you did say that, "Fiat money represents the force of a tyrant, not an exchange of values between good common men" since this statement has no source cited to it, it must be an opinion." And? What of it? Are you going to dispute that paper which has no value except that derived from the fact that you have to pay taxes in it or go to prison represents the force of a tyrant? And I used the wording "honest men," not "good common men." :). "t he is also saying that Andrew Jackson's pecuniary ideology was ethical and echoed "an exchange of values between honest men" which helps my side in saying that Andrew Jackson was the people's president." Well, not quite. It would help your case, if the $20 bill were as ethical, which is not the case. Being "the people's president" is largely irrelevant to this of course, as that would be mere ad populum. "But to entertain my opponent's ridiculous claim, the cost of making a printing machine plus the initial cost of the raw material that would be used in the machine would make no sense." A currency can be backed by commodity without being made of it.It's merely a matter of redesigning the paper to distinguish it from the old notes, and keeping enough commodity on hand to exchange for the notes on demand. "Not only would this cost an obscene amount, but in this economy we cannot afford things as frivolous as this. " "This economy" was caused in significant part by the fiat system and the deficit spending, etc, that comes with it. There is nothing frivolous about preventing recessions like the current one from happening. "Our currency is fine the way it is" It is fine to point a gun at someone and tell them they had better pretend a piece of paper has a value it doesn't, and then hand it over after accepting it on such false premises? "and changing it now would not be logical in our current recession." Generally, when one has a problem, I was under the impression the logical response was to stop doing the sorts of things that help that problem to happen. Having a fiat currency is one of them. Note, too, the resolution does not specify time-- if you prefer to do it a few years from now instead, my point remains intact. "It's better to keep things the way they are and not dishonor any presidents by taking them off currency." We are dishonoring him by keeping him on. Putting Andrew Jackson on a Federal Reserve Note to "honor him" is roughly comparable to worshipping Jesus by frequenting a prostitute at a Greek temple, or wearing KKK robes with Martin Luther King's initials inscribed over the heart. " Another point made by my opponent was that Andrew Jackson hated centralized banks, and that he went so far as to DESTROY the Bank of the United States. And I could not agree more with this statement. This bank of the United States was at the time favoring the Northern States over the southern states in the distribution of taxpayer dollars. This was making the south angrier and angrier and then when Congress passed extra Tariffs on imported goods, John C. Calhoun, from North Carolina, wrote a doctrine of Nullification and threatened to secede from the Union! Faced with an extremely hard choice, Andrew Jackson had to get rid of the national bank to preserve the Union of the united states." This is absurd revisionism. Andrew Jackson did not cite any "regional favoritism," he cited publicly his concerns of the cost of a monopoly with no corresponding benefits. Tariffs were a largely unrelated issue. " On a side note to the previous point... The National Bank did not reflect American ideals. It was a government owned corporation and in this sense, The National Bank was a communist business." As a matter of fact, Jackson's veto message cited the nature of the bank in question as being owned in large part by the wealthy, including many foreign owners. It was, in short, "privately owned," but created by an act of Congress and controlled accordingly-- more or less the same as our current Federal Reserve. If you wish to denounce the National Bank as communist, you will have to denounce the Federal Reserve on the same grounds, since it had similar ownership structure. "My final word on this particular point is that Jackson actually did not "destroy" the national bank. He simply did not renew the bank's charter so the bank slowly, but surely, closed down, without any harm to the economy, or the employees of the national bank." This is also unwarranted revisionism. Jackson arranged, through his Treasury secretary, to remove the deposits of the government from the bank. The suddenness probably did cause short term economic harm, though I would hold such as justified by the gains. He did not merely wait on his heels and refuse to renew the charter, he took proactive action to, in his wording, "kill" the bank as quick as he thought he could. "In the word's of Bert Lance "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Why should we fix the $20 bill, if it "ain't" broke." It is broke, because the dollar currency itself is broke, indeed, it was created that way. It is losing it's position in the market, even among other tyrant currencies, and will be losing out even more as our deficit continues to grow.