Who’s “we,” bub?
Small bizarre item. I was innocently half-watching a dopy tv show about lawyers last night and was suddenly jolted to notice that on the wall behind the judge hearing that episode’s case there were large metal letters prominently spelling out “In God We Trust.” What?! In a courtroom? In Chicago? Is this supposed to reflect reality? Do courts actually do this?
So I Googled and found out about In God We Trust America, whose mission (you won’t be surprised to learn) is to force that ridiculous, childish, like hell I do motto on everyone everywhere by nagging public officials into sticking it in prominent places, like on walls behind judges.
85 “yes vote” cities in California. 75 in Arkansas. Apparently none in Illinois. Yet.
In America, public religiosity is, on average, 3,000 miles wide and half an inch deep. An example of this is the lip service that is paid to religion by such trappings of vague ceremonial deism as “In God We Trust.” A variation on that phrase appears in one of the seldom-sung verses of the Star-Spangled Banner, but it wasn’t until 1861 that some “faith leader” began lobbying the Treasury Department to put “In God We Trust” on U.S. coins and currency. Adding that phrase was approved by December 1863 and began appearing on U.S. coins in 1864, paper money a little later.
The U.S. had no official, adopted-by-Congress “national motto” until 1956 –in the depths of the battle against “godless communism — when Congress adopted “In God We Trust” as the official motto, displacing the de facto motto E Pluribus Unum.
Much as it would offend me to see “In God We Trust” emblazoned on the wall of a courtroom (just as it irks me a bit that my Indiana license plates have same words on them; they were the only plates available 2 years ago when I renewed my vehicle registrations), it’s not the first colorable violation of church-state separation that I would protest or complain about, because to most of my fellow Americans, it means so little. It’s background noise. It’s a way for citizens to pretend that at least occasionally, they are “people of faith,” or want to be.
The only thing behind the judge in a British Court (if anything) is something symbolizing the Queen (EIIR, for example), or perhaps the symbols of the constituent nations: the English Rose, Scots Thistle etc. The interior of the new UK Supreme Court (established after the House of Lords sitting in a legal capacity was done away with) is shown here (some good photographs):
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1203675/THE-WIDER-VIEW-Inside-imposing-interior-Britains-new-36m-Supreme-Court.html
So if they trust in God, why are they even in court? Are they saying God didn’t get it right the first time round? And if so, why do they trust him?
If we were to unpack “In God We Trust” and monitor both the speech and the behavior of a representative sample of American adults, I think we’d find that “God” is the least important word in the phrase. Americans don’t really agree on the nature or attributes of “God,” or on whether “God” acts at all.
“In God We Trust” is just a signaling device, a phrase that people can mouth when they want to signal to others that “We are all members of a group of some sort, and we are trustworthy cooperators.” People who are not bothered by the display of “In God We Trust” on license plates, in courtrooms, and on money do not really have confidence that “God” is looking out for them or will provide for them. They may “pray” daily, or weekly, or less often; they may harbor a weak, flimsy hope that Providence or blind luck will occasionally favor them; but in all other important respects, they pay their insurance premiums, pay attention to the weather forecasts, and conduct their lives as if there were no intervening deities.
If the royal arms are on display in a UK courtroom, then they will of course include the words ‘Dieu et mon droit’, which is Norman French for ‘F*ck you, peasant’.
Honi soit qui mal y pense.
Vas te faire foutre, canaille.
Sacre bleu! Le tone, c’est non-civile! Vous ‘atheists’, sont tous les memes! Je pense que vous sont aussi mauvais de les fundamentalistes! Humph!
Humph alors – il faut conjuger le verbe “être” m’sieur.
Je suis
tu es
elle est
nous sommes
vous _______
:- )
Vous… etes. Oui, etes. Je suis hoisté de mon own petard. Ou quelque-chose.
snortle
We top that here, Ophelia. We have real wood-and-plastic crucifixes in our courtrooms! Right over the words, TEH LAWZ BE DA SAME FO’ EVVYONE. Yup. Evvyone.
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Ah, l’esprit de Miles Kington vive encore!