Ruling: No Separation of Church and State?

Before I get rolling let's get things straight. This all started back in post 22. There I quoted the decision... And replied to that portion with... Thus all I was addressing is the court referring to In God We Trust as the national motto which is a "cherished tradition". The second sentence is quite clear, and the third should make it more clear. There is no subtlety there.When you replied to that post you quoted only the first sentence, and I suppose that should have been a clue to me that you were not addressing my actual position, and instead debating your own strawman that was not about national mottos which have a cherished tradition, but simply what is the only motto stated directly as the national motto.Here is what I said in response to your initial reply to me: For a guy into arguing about "a" and "the", how could YOU miss what I am saying here? That there are different mottos used by the US, and EPU was not officially and wholly replaced. That is indeed something that Theodoric's citation clearly showed. Thus EPU is our motto, along with IGWT that came later, and the one with the longest tradition.For my part I didn't pick up that you were only interested in what is titled "the national motto" until one of your last posts when you questioned what tradition had to do with anything. Clearly we were talking past each other. But when I brought this up you chose to be mean, and ironically insisted I must address your strawman before getting to my position. What a hoot.Now there is clearly room for confusion in this matter as "national motto" vs "motto of our nation" vs "motto of the United states" (both "a" and "the") seem to get used in different ways depending on the source. I decided to do a bit more research and found I was in error about how what is officially called "the national motto" relates to "the motto of the United States" (historically) and where it appears. I had assumed there was a connection between that designation and what gets printed over things, many things. That is that there was a free standing national motto, and it is that motto that gets printed on things.And I am not alone in this error, here are some things you have said... I had known all along that EPU as the motto of the United States was not related to coinage, but let you continue saying such absurdities. I mean I tried to to give you a hint when discussing how EPU and Liberty were different. Okay. I let you have your length of rope.Every source handed to you indicated that EPU's origin was not with coinage and does not remain with coinage. Go back and check the wiki entries as well as boyscout citation. The origin and continued use of EPU is with the Great Seal of the US, as well as the presidential seal.Apparently there was no actual designation of something called "the national motto". What there was was a designation of EPU as the motto of the United States to be fixed on the Great Seal. This seal is the closest thing to a coat of arms that the US has and is used to mark documents by the US govt today as official. IGWT is NOWHERE to be found, neither is liberty. Even the secondary mottos on the back of the full seal are not used to mark govt documents as official.The Seal was put on money and continues to be printed on money. That is where EPU first began its presence on coinage. Eventually the seal was removed but they left the motto (on paper the full seal is seen). While EPU was referred to as the national motto, that appears to have been a mere colloquial phrase rather than anything official separate from the motto of the United States on the seal.IGWT was placed on money as a motto in the 1800s, but not even colloquially considered the national motto, just a motto on US coins. The histories of both as part of coinage can be found at the treasury departments pages on EPU and IGWT. EPU was made a requirement on coinage, and remains so even after the 1950s when something new was created... the free standing "national motto".While I was aware that in 1956 the US made IGWT the "national motto", I was under the impression it was creating something in tandem since one had already been made. Even you suggested a similar belief that there was such a thing before and was somehow replaced (despite the fact that the House Judiciary stated IGWT did not replace EPU and I asked what that could have meant). Clearly it appears we were both mistaken.The 1956 act created something new, a free standing national motto. The judiciary committee was stating that that did not act to replace the national motto on the Seal, which was EPU.You repeatedly ask me where else EPU can be found, beyond coinage. And ironically kept pointing at the US Code. Have you read the code? Heheheh... I did.Perhaps if you weren't so bent on YOUR strawman of what my position was, and your ignorance of where EPU exists, you'd have read more of the US Code. Uh, I believe it is Title 4... but I'll let you look it up.What it does is uphold the Great Seal, which is the mark used to make official all documents of the US govt. That Seal was designed to include and still does OFFICIALLY CARRY BY US CODE the motto E Pluribus Unum.So there was a mixture of mistakes on both sides. And while you were correct that the only thing designated "the national motto" in a freestanding sense is IGWT, that was never what I was trying to discuss. As it turns out I was erroneous in assuming EPU had ever been designated an official freestanding motto, but I was completely correct regarding its status as a national motto. It is A national motto (as was suggested in my own original statement which suggested more than one) used officially as a motto of the US govt and has the longest historic tradition as a motto of the US govt.The court is still wrong, even as the only specifically declared "national motto", it cannot have had a long cherished tradition as the OTHER national motto (as in used by our nation to represent sanction of the the US govt) which is E Pluribus Unum.PS---
You decided to avoid dealing with the sex organ issue within the thread it began, bringing it up here. I assume it was to avoid others seeing where it actually came from and so obscure your misrepresentation of that issue. Or maybe it was to avoid people discovering that you are a plagiarist as well as willfully misrepresenting data. In any case, you can continue any discussion of that issue at that thread instead of here.This message has been edited by holmes, 01-03-2006 08:47 AMThis message has been edited by holmes, 01-03-2006 09:04 AM

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)