Ignorant flippin' out over
coin By David Harsanyi
- The Denver Post Article Last Updated: 10/29/2007
12:17:27 AM MDT
Loveland resident Daniel Carr's work is exceptionally
beautiful.
A designer of collectible coins, he's the man behind the
official New York and Rhode Island state quarter designs for
the United States.
Sadly, some people are taking Carr's entire oeuvre a bit
too seriously. They should not.
Not long ago, Carr, who also casts funny and gimmicky coins,
came up with a bright idea. He fashioned a collectible coin
based on an imaginary currency called the "amero"
- a mix of "America" and "dinero." It
is something analogous to the European euro. Analogous but
fake. Carr's denominations range from 20 to 1,000.
The fact that this currency doesn't, you know, actually exist
hasn't stopped a crush of orders from coming in or paranoia
from erupting.
Scores of people who believe evil globalists, government
officials and "multinational" corporate heads are
working in implausible secrecy and cooperation to hand over
our sovereignty to a shadowy "North American Union"
were quick to jump on the amero as proof of a scheme afoot.
"I had started to read reports about the discussion
regarding the government going to a union between all the
countries in North America," Carr tells me. "The
amero would be modeled on the common European currency. My
first thought was not that this is not so much a political
statement rather than just an interesting issue."
I find the idea of a North American Union, as I do most conspiracy
theories, pure baloney. How could all these enormous institutions
have the ability to work in precise cohesion to control the
entire continental economy when the government can't even
figure out how to plow the snow on my street?
Carr, a Denver native who earned a mechanical engineering
degree from the University of Colorado in 1982, says he's
not exceptionally political, though he likes to "spark
discussions." This discussion, however, has surprised
him.
"It wasn't more than a day after I had posted the amero
when a talk-radio show host by the name of \[name redacted
because the host is a bigot who deserves no space in this
column] ... took my image without my permission. He said,
'Look! We've exposed government leaders who are about to betray
us, and here is proof in the amero!' I e-mailed this person
and told him that he didn't have permission to use the image,
and it wasn't real, anyway. But he never responded."
Real imaginary amero
"Real"? Who cares? And when a listener sent the
host a real-life imaginary amero, not only didn't he get it
(or perhaps he was deliberately ignorant - ignorant being
the key word here), he advised his audience that the amero
had been smuggled out of the Treasury Department by an employee.
Needless to say, message boards filled up with tall tales
about the new emerging currency of North America. It was a
dramatic day for some, I'm sure. (It should be pointed out,
there were responsible members of the "North American
Union" crowd who tracked down Carr and found out that
it was, in fact, baloney.)
Carr's amero is as professional as it is sleek. If they were
to ever produce an amero - God forbid - this design would
be a great place to start the process.
One side features "Seated Liberty" and the other
a similar "Eagle & Globe" with the words "North
American Union" above it.
Really cool.
Why doesn't Carr trademark the amero? Make it his own.
"At this time it is perfectly legal to make amero; there
is nothing anywhere in any country that says I can't,"
he says. "But I wasn't the first to think of it."
There have been some theoretical discussions about the amero
in the past. Though not a single official in any country in
North America has ever moved to produce this currency.
Still, for Carr a little controversy is clearly good for
business. And his site, dc-coin.com, now features a disclaimer
for visitors.
"My goal with these coins is not to endorse a Union
of North America or a common 'amero' currency. I fully support
the United States Constitution," Carr wrote. "I
expect that these coins will help make more people aware of
the issue and the possible ramifications. I leave it up to
others to decide if they are in favor of, or against, a North
American Union."