Anyway, I like the designs and I really like the idea of using currency as a means of education (e.g. Bill of Rights, and branches of government on the bills.)
One thing I don't get though is this: "One thing I definitely don't want is the government deciding what cultural figures or movements are the most important or 'American.' Instead, I think the most important politicians should be on money." I'm not sure how you determine what political figures are on the bills without influence from the politicians in power.
However, if the politicians featured are significantly old enough, they lose a lot of their political nature. Most people don't think about, say, Indian removal when using a $20 bill or suspension of habeas corpus when using a $5 bill. Assuming enough time has passed, the furor over certain decisions disappears because the winning decision becomes part of our culture. Slavery was a heavily divisive topic in the 1800s and Lincoln became a key figure on the anti-slavery side, but with enough time passed everyone (or at least a number dominant to the point that others are considered fringe) has become anti-slave.
People who trust a higher power depend on said power to come to their aid, they don't stow away cash and grab real-estate properties, effectively hedging their bets against "God"'s will or betting on his mercy ;-)
Take your "O" somewhere else. This isn't the place for making borderline offensive generalizations about people's cultures.
Putting quotes from the Bill of Rights is pure propaganda. Money, in the U.S. is not issued by the government and has nothing to do with Presidents, the Constitution, or Bill of Rights.
These are Federal Reserve Notes, issued by the private, for-profit central bank. The only connection with our government are the federal legal tender laws that force citizens to accept these pieces of paper as "legal tender for all debts, public and private"
For a quote -- instead of something from the great Bill of Rights -- I'd love to see Woodrow Wilson's sad lament of his signing of the Federal Reserve Act. It would be much more appropriate.
"I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men." -- Woodrow Wilson
That and other nitpicks aside, if these were our new dollar bills I'd be perfectly happy. They represent a great amount of boldness and brushing away stodginess while still being totally reverent to the heritage they're supposed to represent.
"I'd like a small pizza and a medium Coke."
"OK, [kaching] that'll be one search-and-seizure and one free-speech..."
There doesn't seem there was much thought about that in the designs, other than the wavy web-like background. I think that would make for a much more interesting (to me at least) case study in design were that the case.
