john1schn on November 11, 2009 at 9:38 PM

Epic Fail, again.

They represent US Funds but are not the medium of exchange they are a contract to provide the funds (which are the actual legal tender). License plates may be manufactured by private companies but they are an instrument of the state. They are NOT a private instrument between two persons.

So, Personal Checks do not equal license plates. Do you understand now or do I need to speak more slowly?

Checks are not legal tender, they are a private contract between two persons with the bank acting as a guarantor.

That was my point, you arrogant prig.

Squid Shark on November 11, 2009 at 8:42 AM

Again, you ignorant dork, they represent US funds. Maybe you should actually go check with a bank before you post. A check is an IOU, payable to the presenter in US funds. Nobody EVER said they were legal tender. And again, license plates are commissioned by the state, and manufactured by private companies and by captive contract labor in state prisons.

If you’re going to be an idiot, at least be an entertaining idiot. That’s how Obambi became president.

Someone else isn’t using the state to promote their religion. How much simpler could this issue be? Buy a bumper sticker.

RightOFLeft on November 11, 2009 at 4:02 PM

How do you know the whale or the kid or whatever symbols the state allows on the plates doesn’t constitute a religion.

I just invented a religion, and its icon is the whale. Ok, take whales off the plate, right?

If citizens can petition to use the real estate on the plate to depict secular themes, then, under the “free exercise thereof” doctrine, other citizens should be able to petition for the same to depict religious themes.

The only solution is for the government to not allow inspirational messages or thematic plates, and to return to putting just the stuff on a plate that is necessary for law enforcement — the state’s name and the registration number.

If the state allows any other symbols upon the plate, then they must allow religious symbols as well.

I think that, upon appeal, Americans United will wind up paying the bill instead.

Why do the mouth-breathing bible-lovers feel a need to share their nuttiness with everyone else – in this case the guy in the car behind them? I wonder if it was like this 2000 years ago when the planet was born and dinosaurs roamed the earth.

simplesimon on November 10, 2009 at 9:48 PM

Jesus called it The Great Commision, to go into all the world to preach the Gospel.

MaximusConfessor on November 11, 2009 at 1:12 PM

Wow, where do I start? read Ezekial 38,39 again…slowly.

Israel is the church? Read Ephesians chapter 3. Ephesians 3:6 This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.

The bible clearly states the Jew and the gentile or anyone that accepts Christ’s death, burial and resurrection, as sinners saved by God’s grace are the church.
John 3:16, Ephesians chapter 2, Romans chapter 2…..

It must be such a relief for atheists to no longer have to worry about being offended by a car in front of them with a license plate bearing a cross.
I guess they can resume their belief in nothingness, secure in the belief that God doesn’t exist and that once again their whiny bit*hing has made Christians think they’re schm*cks.

katiejane on November 11, 2009 at 4:01 PM

You may have hit on something there. Think of all the problems that could be eliminated by pretending they don’t exist because they are invisible! They seem to believe it works, i.e. MSM ignoring news they don’t care for.

By his standard, since churches have to register with the state as non-profits, the state is therefore promoting religion and should deny any churches the right to exist.

It must be such a relief for atheists to no longer have to worry about being offended by a car in front of them with a license plate bearing a cross.

katiejane on November 11, 2009 at 4:01 PM

At least until that heathen driver pulls a gun on them in a fit of road rage that could’ve been stopped by a moment of prayer…

Apparently you don’t understand that same Constitution very well either. Please re-read my comment above yours about how, if the state allows the petitioning to put any message on a license plate, they have to allow the petitioning to put religious messages on a license plate. Again, if you can put a whale on a license plate, you can put a cross.

The only thing I’ve left out is the obvious — if the state doesn’t permit customized backgrounds on its license plates, then it’s under no obligation to allow a religious background.

Why should I have to buy a bumper sticker when someone else can get their message on the plate itself?

unclesmrgol on November 11, 2009 at 2:24 PM

Someone else isn’t using the state to promote their religion. How much simpler could this issue be? Buy a bumper sticker.

Do you not see the disconnect between citing Russia as the “center of Christendom” and in the same post refer to relatively recent martyrdoms there?

Oh, and Putin may be Orthodox, but he’s also KGB. Not exactly the next Constantine.

And if you have seen this enough, you know 1) that judges are going to do this. And 2) it doesn’t make it any less activist because the Jedi mind trick doesn’t really work.

Observing #1, you can successfully predict that there might be a disclaimer at the end of an activist decision. But, along with #2, it doesn’t make it any more right that they made that decision, simply because they argued to themselves that they made it correctly.

Thus that you predicted that the license plate would fail the Lemon Test is a separate question from whether it should . Along with that disclaimer, in those opinions that I have read with the Lemon Test usually contains something to the effect that the court is not convinced that their decision will inhibit religion.

I’ve read enough LT decisions that I can predict BOTH, but it doesn’t make me happier with either self-satisfied find-some-rationale-for-saving-the-people-from-their-own-decisions-rather-than-demurring-to-popular-vote pronouncement. The courts have established themselves as filters for the people to express their will in votes.

Patting yourself on the back because 1) you’re happy with the outcome and 2) you predicted it is no way to defend a republic from its potential oligarchs based on a similar sentiments among the expert class.

People get fined and jailed in Russia for INSULTING THE RELIGION OF RUSSIA: Orthodox Christianity.

MaximusConfessor on November 11, 2009 at 2:57 PM

As well they should…an abomination of a religion…do you still sacrifice young virgins at the altar?

Federal workers will be ripping those crosses out of the ground at Arlington in my lifetime.

Rational Thought on November 10, 2009

I second that prediction. It’s odd because the judgments taken together seem to be arguing a slippery slope, while saying that there is no slippery slope on the other side.

Thus, they can go further up the hill, and the only danger is to slip down toward religion, the hill never crests and they’re never in danger of sliding down another slope–but by this they are treating religion as special, and the impetus to get as far away from its entangling vines as possible does serve as a cumulative suppression of religion. We’ve still got a little more to go up the hill to get a little more distance from the entangling vines of religion…just a couple more steps.

Which is one of the reasons I think Slippery Slope is probably one of the weakest brands of “fallacy” out there–our COURTS use it! “No, it’s not an establishment, per se–but it’s like a thicket that gets you all wrapped up and when it has you immobile enough, BANG!, up pops a church.”

When you’re saying that you can always take steps one way, but not the other you are basically creating the ratcheting mechanism needed for a slippery slope. Definitely saying that because we’ve reached point X, we will inevitably reach point Y by some propagation mechanism is probably fallacious. If we don’t know that force of propagation, to suggest that there must be one because we’ve reached point X is probably the case in which SS is sharpest as fallacy. But we see the method and manner of propagation: some fools are feeling “un-protected” because the government is complicit in creating a license plate for religious expression!!

There is one slur that underlies all this: you can’t trust religious people to stop at license plates and expression. Religious irrationality is something that we’ve been trying to get away from and it is something that will drag us back into the Dark Ages if we don’t guard against it. But ever advancing the rationale of this slur is not “inhibiting religion” because the judges just don’t think so.

On the other hand, we can expect that people who have named themselves “rational” will be “rational” and can be trusted to have our best interests at heart, because they are rational and they say they do. (Something I’m beginning to formulate as “Intentional Fallacy”. It is impossible for any of my actions to result in X, because I am not for X.)

FIFY, just like I did for Joe….

Tim Burton on November 11, 2009 at 1:47 AM

Sorry, turn it back…it was to limit all government. It addressed what was federal and states, but he intent was to limit government interference with our lives…the burden was on the government to prove their case. We are innocent of breaking any law until proven guilty.
That extends to we are free until restrained by any of the government agency’s…some are good like Police and road rules…and many are bad like health care and license plate restrictions…
Please, ask before you use my words and change them…and if you don’t, remove my name and replace it with yours.

Why do the mouth-breathing bible-lovers feel a need to share their nuttiness with everyone else

simplesimon on November 10, 2009 at 9:48 PM

Perhaps for the same reason mouth-breathing athiests do? Maybe it just something about mouth-breathing and not about the religious issues.

Caesar and God all rolled up into one.

No it’s called SYMPHONY between Church and State. The State cannot interfere in the practice or beliefs of the Church and the Politicians are all members of the Religion of the Country and protect the Religion.

Because America does not have this(except for the State religion of Atheism)..America will surely fall and will soon become a communist country.

BTW,

The Constitution of the United States ALLOWS official state religions for each individual states.

This judges decision is UNCONSTITUTIONAL and if people here care about what is going in their country they will surely revoke the illegal decision of this judge.

Why do the mouth-breathing bible-lovers feel a need to share their nuttiness with everyone else

simplesimon on November 10, 2009 at 9:48 PM

But the state cannot define it as “nuttiness” or otherwise they are in violation of Lemon Test principle #2. So, that hardly characterizes a position that the state could hold.

Perhaps you can delve into your own motivation to share your nonsense…

It’s that pesky 14th Amendment

unclesmrgol on November 11, 2009 at 2:27 PM

Actually it’s not. It’s the expansion of the 14 Amendment to eclipse the 10th amendment, called the “Incorporation Doctrine” based on an continual expansion of the idea of “equal protection” under law. You see if you allow people to have religious license plates atheists have become “un-protected” or something. SC has a license plate that says “In Reason We Trust” by an SC Secular Humanist organization that in no way identifies itself on the plate.
(However it’s a stupid point, which I will belabor below.)

But no matter how many times a day an anti-theist might see a secular humanist plate, they become “unprotected” when they see a religious one.

—

Now, the contradiction. If I can reason something, but suggesting that I then have to trust the product of that reasoning is actually to throw doubt on the process. So what value does trust add to the equation? You’re actually suggesting that you can reason X and be wrong–thus the value of trust is questionable. Or if you reason right, what did trust add?

It is a statement of faith. Rationalism will win. Thus, before the Turing proved the Halting problem, if we believed that reason would empower us to sort definite solutions from undefined conditions, we were still wrong. It is actually a statement that not resorting to well-meant platitudes is the way to go–so the statement as a platitude is rather contradictory.

If we accept that it is a statement of faith, then, as a government produced license plate it advocates a replacement of a trust in God with a trust in man’s capacity to reason. And thus advocates against religion. And so is a government advocacy against religion, which wouldn’t pass #2 of the Lemon Test if cases were ever decided on that side.

Thing is I see removing these license plates as equally as petty and overbearing as having to remove the religious license plates.

Russia is the largest Christian country in the world.

Orthodox Christianity is the State Religion.

Christians have more freedom in Russia than they do in the United States BY FAR!

This unconstitutional atrocity that this judge has committed here would NOT happen in Russia!

In fact exactly the opposite happens there.

People get fined and jailed in Russia for INSULTING THE RELIGION OF RUSSIA: Orthodox Christianity.

MaximusConfessor on November 11, 2009 at 2:57 PM

‘nuf said. Caesar and God all rolled up into one. I think I like our system better, even if they don’t like crosses on license plates.

cs89 on November 11, 2009 at 2:26 PM

Apparently YOU are one saying dumb things.

Look it up.

Russia is the largest Christian country in the world.

Orthodox Christianity is the State Religion.

Christians have more freedom in Russia than they do in the United States BY FAR!

This unconstitutional atrocity that this judge has committed here would NOT happen in Russia!

In fact exactly the opposite happens there.

People get fined and jailed in Russia for INSULTING THE RELIGION OF RUSSIA: Orthodox Christianity.

In Russia, they do not teach kids that we are animals and there is no God…they teach Orthodox Christianity in the Schools in Russia.

In Russia, jews,muslims and atheists are treated as second class citizens and have to be very careful to not insult the Christian religion or they will fined and imprisoned.

In Russia, homosexual parades are NOT allowed.
Vladimir Putin(a devout Orthodox Christian)recently forbid homosexuals from holding parades in Moscow and has recently established a new holiday, national babymaking day.

Cs89 you have all your facts backwards.

Russia is the largest Christian country in existence and is the center of Christendom. This is why we have endured so many attacks by the enemy(70 MILLION martyrdoms in the last century)but thanks to Vladimir Putin have emerged from this mess again as a Christian country and the center of Christendom.

Russia IS rightfully Third Rome because the Russian King married the Byzantine princess,developed Byzantine ceremonials and took the title of Tsar(Caesar) after the fall of Byzantine New Rome(Constantinople)in 1453.

MOSCOW THIRD ROME:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ai7Jg-m6Gss

Best: no vehicle licensing whatsoever.

Better: 2-color plates like in most other countries. No slogans, no images. Close the whole can of worms.

Mark Jaquith on November 11, 2009 at 4:28 AM

Yup. Let’s get it started. No specialty plates, no extra money for states. Because the state doesn’t need to be involved in advocacy anyway.

Make the scatter-brained atheists be consistent. If it’s “advocacy” or “promotion”, we don’t need the government “promoting” anything on license plates. It’s government propaganda.

That’s the problem with conservatism, liberals can actually whip themselves up to believe something like that. Still though, if they’re going to use words stupidly and pretend they are smart, we’re only demurring to their wisdom. No promotion of NASCAR is needed on license plates, they’re doing fine already.

If they argue “free expression” then they really are the double-thinkers I suspect them to be. Everything else is “free-expression” but printing a religious license plates is an “excessive entanglement” with “religion”.

I really don’t care. I don’t have bumper stickers of any kind on my car–and only a Jesus fish when they were popular (I’m fonder of symbols than slogans.) before all the fish-fighting symbols (started by in-your-face atheists no less).

Look, I’m somewhat of a socialist, but I advocate for conservatives and traditionalists because the media shuts you guys out. The left also believes in “noble” subterfuge because people don’t know what’s good for them, and I believe in a social contract–besides their idea of “justice” is extremely flighty and based on nothing and their erstwhile nihilism can’t hold any of their concepts together anyway.