Thursday's column on Wednesday: God goes 1-for-2 in specialty license tags

God went only 1-for-2 in the Florida Legislature this year.

He did get a new state license tag bearing the slogan, “In God We Trust.”

But the Legislature did not approve a more Christian-themed tag featuring a cross, stained glass, and the slogan, “I Believe.”

“In God We Trust” now joins the game of tennis, the preservation of lighthouses, and the declaration that this is “Horse Country” as the subjects of Florida’s 110th, 111th, 112th and 113th specialty license tags.

In a way, I wish the Legislature had gone right ahead and given the cross its own tag too, which might help us get this business cleared up in court once and for all.

Either that or it also should go ahead and create tags for Judaism, for Islam, for Buddhism, and even for atheists (I am thinking of the slogan, “I Do NOT Believe,” and the rest of the design a blank.)

Or maybe — and I am just talkin’ kooky here — maybe a government-created tag for the purpose of displaying a valid registration is not the place for expressions of religious or political beliefs.

(If only there were some other place on the back of a car for expressing beliefs...)

We started issuing specialty tags in the late 1980s, in honor of the space shuttle Challenger. Then they multiplied.

Former Gov. Jeb Bush kicked off the new era of controversial tags by approving the “Choose Life” tag, which last year was the 10th-most popular in the state, selling 39,878 copies.

(The most popular tag last year was the University of Florida’s, which sold 105,361 copies. Numbers two through nine: panthers, dolphins, sea turtles, Florida State University, manatees, coral reefs, the U.S. Marine Corps and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.)

Good grief! Other tags honor golf, the state wildflower and the largemouth bass. We support the oceans, aquaculture, hospice, estuaries and NASCAR, along with every podunk college in the state.

At this point, it would be impossible to abolish them all by fiat. Every do-gooder group that gets a little bit of cash from them would rise up.

But I have an alternative.

The way it works now, to get a tag, a group has to do “market research” showing a potential market of at least 30,000. Some of the “research” has been shaky at best.

They ought to have to sell the tags up front — get people to put their money where their mouths are.

Secondly, our standard for getting rid of unpopular tags is far too low, with the cutoff being a puny 1,000 sales. Too few tags have been phased out under this rule, including a couple of arena-football teams and the Girl Scouts. (They can sell cookies, but not auto tags?)

Let’s raise the bar. If it were 30,000 sales, then only 12 tags would have made the cut last year, the 10 named above, plus the Challenger tag and “Support Education.”

Each year, any tag that fell short would be put on “probation” for the next year, giving supporters a chance to save themselves. Otherwise, they would be out of luck, from the University of Miami (29,642 sales last year) to the Corrections Foundation (46).

Am I trying to suppress speech? Not at all. In fact, if God did indeed endow us with inalienable liberties, surely they include the ability to  express our causes and beliefs for ourselves, instead of  running to the government to do it for us.

Comments

[David Mathews]

Howard,

Worrying about the design of a tag seems silly when oil is $123.50 a barrel and rising, gasoline is $3.61 a gallon and rising, and diesel is $4.24 a gallon and rising ...

Instead of everyone getting stressed out about a tag, the St. Petersburg Times should tell its customers that they are going to be losing their cars & SUVs soon.

Gasoline may or may not reach $4.00 a gallon this year, but gasoline will be at least $6 a gallon next year. Americans should begin planning to live differently.

Within five years, gasoline won't be available to the average consumer at *any* price. The automobile age will end within five years.

So these license tags don't amount to much of a cause to worry about. Americans should really begin to worry about the collapse of the United States of America & perpetual food shortages for Americans.

[Allan]

May 7, 2008: The word "god" when turned around means "dog." Saying "god" created everything could be changed to "schplug" created everything. It's meaningless.

The First Amendment says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." This legislative law violates that and legislates an "establishment of religion." Thomas Jefferson in 1802 told Danbury, Connecticut, clergymen, the original intent of the Constitution was to establish "a wall of separation between church and state." The Florida legislature has said, Thomas Jefferson should have dropped dead.

Jefferson and James Madison were the Virginia legislators who, in the 1770s and 1780s, worked for passage of the Virginia Religious Freedom Statutes. They were passed in the 1780s. They were the basis for the Establishment Clause of Amendment One of the Constitution of the United States, the clause that read, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." The Virginia Religious Freedom Statutes were intended, Madison and Jefferson contended, to establish strict neutrality of government between religious belief (faith) and nonbelief (non-faith or faithlessness).

The Florida legislature has said, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson both should have dropped dead.

[get-smart]

David. There is plenty of gas. The rising prices are due to the incredible greed of Goldman Sachs and the like. These are the same people that are trying to rob us of our downtown.

[David Mathews]

Hello get-smart,

It matters not a bit who you blame for the rising gasoline prices. What matters is that you & the American consumers are going to lose their cars & SUVs very soon.

This is a tragedy, but as a tragedy it cannot compare to what the cyclone has inflicted upon the impoverished people of Myanmar. The impoverished people of Asia cannot afford gasoline -- nor do they need to because they have no cars -- so they cannot escape from a hurricane's storm surge.

Residents of Florida should take the threat of hurricanes seriously. Florida's evacuation plan relies nearly exclusively upon personal mobility -- i.e., the automobile -- for evacuation. Such an evacuation plan has an obvious flaw even now (see: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans), but what will Florida do when this is no longer an option?

The automotive age is going to end by 2012. How will Florida evacuate the coastline when the next major hurricane threatens?

There isn't any sort of public transportation system robust enough to evacuation millions of Floridians from the coast in the event of a hurricane. Florida should build such a system right now ... you know, planning for the future.

If Florida doesn't plan for the future this state is going to surrender thousands of lives to a hurricane some day.

[Allan]

May 8, 2008: First, the way to resolve the oil price gouging is, first, for labor to expropriate, without indemnification or compensation, big oil (all the big oil companies) through labor's forging elected and armed workers' councils nationally and internationally; to impose, again, price controls against the oil capitalist monopolies' price rises by armed and elected workers' councils and workers' committees performing the deed and service nationally and internationally; and that all should be part of an effort of all workers in America forging a government of workers, and in that context, a democratically planned socialist economy governed by elected and armed workers' councils. That's the only way to stop the price-gouging by the big capitalist oil companies.

As for trying to stop women from getting abortions, that's simply telling Thomas Jefferson and James Madison: DROP DEAD. The lynch mob against abortion rights is the same lynch mob against (a) evolution, (b) stem cell research, (c) family planning, (d) birth control, (e) Thomas Jefferson's 1802-enunciated precept that the Constitution was about building "a wall of separation between church and state." The reactionary rightwing hatemongers against evolution, stem cell research, family planning, birth control, are also the hatemongers against a woman's personal privacy right under the 4th Amendment to do whatever she wishes to do with her own body. But for the 4th Amendment to have any force, the 1st Amendment separation of religion and government has to be recognized, and for the Bill of Rights as a whole to have any force, the 14th Amendment provision for equality before the law applying every provision of the Bill of Rights to every single state and locality bar none (which went into effect in 1868 after approval of the 14th Amendment) must also have force.

Additionally, the 14th Amendment equality-before-the-law IMPLICITLY endorses and IMPLICITLY recognizes inclusion of sections of the population in equality before the law whose equality before the law was RATIFIED AFTER 1868, most specifically, women, when they got the right to vote in 1920.

What are we? Living in the medieval and feudal period?

I love women and I love looking at them, but, you see, if we love women, why in the h--- can't we endorse their equality before the law, their rights to do with their own bodies what they choose, and, implicitly, the First Amendment separation of religion and government that underscores and supports the Fourth Amendment right of privacy of both women, and men, and, I might add, also so-called "gay" and so-called "straight" and so-called "bisexual" and also transgender people?

The only opposition to these precepts comes from the sorts of Florida Christian Taleban types who are, in mindset, no different in fundamentals from Osama bin Laden's Islamic Taleban types.

I favor equality before the law for women, for atheists, for Muslims, for Jews, for same sex and transgender people, for all, in accord with the implications of the 14th Amendment's application of EVERY PROVISION of the 1790s'-ratified Bill of Rights to EVERY locality of the U.S.A. That INCLUDES strict separation of religion and government a la Jefferson and Madison.

[River]

The separation of church and state was never intended to remove “In God We Trust” from our money, it was never intended to remove prayer (silent meditation) from school, it was never intended to prevent public places from displaying the Ten Commandments, etc…

It was intended to prevent Government from “recognizing” a, or “forcing” a… single religion on the masses. You can play the semantics and interpretation game all you wish, but that’s the bottom line.

And Allen, your second to the last paragraph is exactly why the moral structure of this nation is bankrupt. That is an ignorant, offensive, hypocritical, and ill-informed comment.

[Rich]

Allan,

Price controls don't work. Just ask Nixon. Dave the world is not coming to an end. They told us Oil was running dry in the 70's. It's not oil that is becoming scarce it is the dollar that is being printed with reckless abandon that is causing price spikes in all comodities.

Simple way to halt inflation and that is to raise interest rates to protect the value of our dollar. Problem is the central bank doesn't want to crash the stock market. Inflation robs the poor (those who buy milk,gas,rice, etc on a fixed income) and benefits those who own all the assets that increase in value.

[Reality]

Rich,

Great post, well done.

[Richy]

Check out what ed bullard, the plate's sponsor said about other ideas for plates, specifically the one that Howard brought up, "Bullard, the plate's sponsor, isn't sure all groups should be able to express their preference. If atheists came up with an "I Don't Believe" plate, for example, he would probably oppose it."
(From the Times, 4/24 http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SOU_RELIGIOUS_LICENSE_PLATE_FLOL-?SITE=FLPET&SECTION=HOME)
I always laugh when I see a Georgia plate with a Confederate flag on it, because it is a de facto endorsement by the state. Makes you like the idea of South Florida seceding from North Florida, but we have to go with them.

[Larry]

Howard, lots of gloom and doom today. Yesterday it was peppers and Wal-Mart. I too believe that the days of "cheap energy" are long gone. We have a ways to go to catch a lot of other countries in the price of gasoline. The global economy and the fact the folks in other countries now demand a share of the pie has and will continue to drive energy (nonrenewable) prices higher. Americans will have to make adjustments in the coming years and they will. But, life will go on, and someone will benefit by finding a solution to our continuing reliance on non-renewable energy for transportation. There is always the bicycle.

[get-smart]

They should have a plate with a blank writable area for magic marker. So if you chose the cross motif you could write "And Jesus For All" or a football helmet motif and say "How Are Your Bucckin-Ears." That would solve part of the problem.

[Kay]

River, I suspect that Allan came to that paragraph through much research and deep introspection. I happen to agree with him.
Kay

[River]

or, he came to that through years of propaganda designed by partisan hacks to sway the minds of the malleable.

I happen to agree with the 90% of Americans who don't agree with him... on that.

[Jon McPhee]

On a practical note, why can't the state use a type face for the numbers on its plates that is legible from more than a few feet. I wonder how many law enforcers and crime witnesses struggle with some basic questions: "Is that a zero, or an "O," or maybe a "Q?" A "B" or an 8?" There are lots of other visual ambiguities too, compounded by the slight tone and color differences between the background and the numbers.

Of course, maybe it's all intentional. I can see our Legislature thinking it through and deciding that if they ever have to blow out of town ahead of an angry mob of taxpayers, it will be easier to lose themselves in the crowds on I-4 and I-95.

[Chris Jenkins]

David, Rich has already begun the answer, but the simple fact is this: gasoline and oil prices cycle in value, and it is tied to the value of the US Dollar, thus the concept of "Petro-Dollars". When the Fed is offering extremely low interest rates in its cheap money bank (i.e. print as much money as is asked for, at the amazingly low rate of 2% simple interest), the global market, and the value of a barrel of oil, reflect the devaluation of the dollar by adjusting price to maintain an inflation-indexed constant value.

Contrary to what you think, we are about to see the price of fuel drop drastically, probably down almost a full dollar, within the next six months. With the Fed signaling that the drop in interest rates is over, oil commodity futures traders will adjust their projections on the future value of oil in the market, adjusting once again for the drop in inflation. This will drop the supply side price substantially, although not all the way down to where it should, as the oil companies have historically always kept a few cents back each adjustment.

What is indisputable fact is that our system is non-sustainable, that it will run out at some point, although perhaps not as quickly as the doomsayers would tell you, and that long term replacement sources of sustainable energy have to be explored, researched, and on the path to implementation now for it to have any meaningful effect within our lifetime. It might not be 2012, but it could be 2020, or 2025, or sometime in the future where it's likely that a good many of us will still be alive to realize the error of our ways.

Allan, I appreciate your chutzpah, but communism has proven to be a failure over and over again. Society requires incentive to do their best. Utopian ideals do not provide that incentive. Elements of capitalism do. It's not perfect, it has many flaws, but a free market must be part of the equation. Otherwise, we wait shivering in the cold for 12 hours hoping for a loaf of bread from the state grocery store. Dig me, comrade?

Jon, the typeface on license plates is very specific in order to be recognized by OCR driven scanning systems mounted in Police cruisers and helicopters. Patrol cars equipped with those scanning devices are capable of scanning through hundreds of cars an hour without ever making a stop. Stolen cars, suspended drivers licenses, outstanding warrants and such can then all be determined without ever detaining a driver sans probable cause, and the method is not TECHNICALLY a violation of 4th amendment rights because the license plate is an implied contract between vehicle owner and state to provide vehicle ownership information in a visible way. Changing the typeface would entail changing the entire text recognition system.

Hiya, Howard. I've been buried with work, but trying to pop in when I can. The very significant other (who is also an anthro/archeo student) are reading your thesis in full. We'll send you our critique. ;)