After moving to Washington, D.C., I quickly noticed the slogan on the local red, white, and blue license plates. Every D.C. plate says:
Taxation Without Representation
That's right. A full 235 years after the Sons of Liberty - led by prominent founding fathers like Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, Patrick Henry, John Hancock, and John Adams - dumped tons of British tea into Boston Harbor among cries of, "No taxation without representation," this basic issue has still not been resolved. D.C. residents lack a voting member in either house of Congress, yet we pay federal taxes like everyone else. Just last year, Congress again voted to disenfranchise its half-million residents.
Now, the U.S. Mint has rejected DC's protest in the form of its quarter design. More after the jump.
On the one hand, the slogan on D.C.'s license plates makes me smile. Even after 200 years, no taxation without representation is still a great slogan. The founding fathers new knew how to attract attention and popular support.
On the other hand, the fact that half a million people don't enjoy the basic right of representation that dates back to the Magna Carta and the 13th century is disheartening. The cause is just, and so is the form of protest. This slogan should not die until all Americans have representation in Congress.
The U.S. Mint apparently disagrees. Today, the Mint rejected a proposed design for D.C.'s commemorative quarter that included the above slogan. The quarter, part of the Mint's state quarter series, was rejected for its controversial nature:
Changing how the District of Columbia (the Seat of Government of the United States) is represented in Congress is a contemporary political issue on which there presently is no national consensus and over which reasonable minds differ.
Although the United States Mint expresses no position on the merits of this issue, we have determined that the proposed inscription is clearly controversial and, therefore, inappropriate as an element of design for United States coinage.
Not only are D.C. residents denied the right to determine what happens with their tax dollars, now they can't even determine what goes on their own damn quarter. It's pretty insulting, not to mention wrong.
This country was founded on the idea that government should be responsive to the people. When a group of citizens are forced to support the government but don't receive a say in that government's actions, every American's liberty is diminished. At the very least let D.C. publicly protest its plight.
You can sign the petition to urge the U.S. Mint to reconsider, though I doubt they're listening…
(originally posted at The Seminal)