Yeah, and next we’ll have a really important poll on what color socks I should wear. Right now, you’ll have to settle for answering this question: What do you think of the decision to block the “I Believe” license plate? The results so far:
Good. The plates are a violation of church and state 18.16 % (69)
I disagree with the ruling. I have a right to show my faith 63.95 % (243)
They should get rid of all vanity plates and have one standard design for the state 17.89 % (68)
The second, and so far winning (but you’ll turn that around fast), choice is palpably stupid. Of course you have a right to display your faith! Slap a Jesus fish and a bunch of bumper stickers on your car. Go out and get a vanity license plate frame that is dripping with crosses. Buy some trucknutz. You can flaunt your faiths all you want, you just don’t get to demand that the state endorse them and promote them.
I still don’t understand why vanity plates are ok in the first place. Sure, they provide revenue for a state, but for the sake of safety, they ought to be standard for each state. Makes for easier identification for the car that hit you etc.
What’s with the “one vote per day” on the poll? Does that mean you can vote as often as you like, if you vote today, tomorrow, and the day after? That makes no sense…
Black socks.
PZ, do you realised you are violating the integrity of online polls???
@ #4…
Wow, just wow. Integrity in a statistically unsound sampling? Obvious troll is quite obvious today.
Speaking of custom car tags.
Good thing he won.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/timtimes/3000859890/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/timtimes/3000019255/
Enjoy.
…Unless you live in the The state shaped like a penis.
Heh, that was quick:
Good. The plates are a violation of church and state 56.76 % (445)
I disagree with the ruling. I have a right to show my faith 31.51 % (247)
They should get rid of all vanity plates and have one standard design for the state 11.73 % (92)
That’s what you think.
*chuckle*
Pretty sure that was a joke – it made me laugh anyway.
You do not begin to understand the magnitude of PZ’s eviliciousness. Tomorrow we’re gonna violate the aridity of the Pacific!
I live in SC and while I don’t care for the religious vanity plates. However we have “our own” athiest vanity plate too, thanks to the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry (Charleston, SC):
“In Reason We Trust”
http://lowcountryhumanists.org/IRWT.php
I have no complaints about the vanity plates, since they are allowed on both sides. However, I am yet to actually see the “IRWT” plate on the road… :)
Chris
in indiana they have one that says “in god we believe.” i dunno how i feel about it. it’s fine for people to be proud of their religion and display it, but at the same time it seems like a violation of church and state…’cuz how about the other religions? why do they not have one of the fsm? on the other hand, people pay extra $ for them. but on the other hand, if that money goes to religious organizations (via the state of indiana), then i’d think that’s pretty wrong
It goes against the grain to vote for such an ill-written option. The plates are a violation of church and state *separation*. (But I did it anyhow.)
Carly@1
I disagree. If all plates have a standard format, it’s much harder to remember a license plate that if it is distinctive, especially since most vanity plates approximate some condensed phrase. Much more memorable.
Also, single character errors are easier to identify, since searching for a particular $COLOR $VEHICLE with a given combination of (in WA state) three letters followed by three numbers has a much larger pool of potential hits.
What do you think of the decision to block the “I Believe” license plate?
Good. The plates are a violation of church and state 59.39 % (509)
I disagree with the ruling. I have a right to show my faith 28.94 % (248)
They should get rid of all vanity plates and have one standard design for the state 11.67 % (100)
I voted for the 1st option because I wanted to vote for respecting the constitution, but I really prefer the 3rd option, one standard plate, because that would make life easier for the government employees who sell license plates. Last year I had a temporary job working for Florida in mail order, processing license plate renewals, and it always slowed me down when I had to leave my desk to search for one of the many dozens of different special plates Florida sells.
Oops. Three numbers then three letters.
Just for giggles I checked into availability of a ‘GODLESS’ license plate. Apparently somebody else in arkansas already had that idea.
HEATHEN was still available.
61% against gawd soaked plates. That didn’t take long.
On the subject of Trucknutz, aren’t trucks, like boats, considered female? I have to wonder about the repression found in the rednecks that turn their truck into basically post-op trannies.
Witness the power of this fully operational battle station …
god – you’re powers are weak.
soon you’ll be nothing but a strawman blowing in some creotards corn field in Kansas.
Michael H:
Yeah, I wonder about that too. When I see a good looking car I think ‘that’s sexy’. Maybe it’s different for ‘truck guys’ but I gotta wonder about a group of homophobic rednecks who give their trucks male personas.
I loved the ad alongside the poll “Blinded by Satan.” I chortled every time I saw it.
I agree with Carlie at #1. Vehicle licence plates should be of uniform design for easy identification of state. Whatever extra revenues ‘vanity’ plates bring in – and it can’t be much, as a percentage of revenues – it’s not worth it.
Chris I live in SC as well and you should be concerned with the I Believe plates. Look a few posts back to find the other one PZ had on this and read the comments. The i believe plates were pushed through by the legislature without having to follow the protocol every other vanity plate has too, including the Secular Humanist plates we have.
It’s blatantly getting special treatment.
Good. The plates are a violation of church and state 66.73 % (750)
I disagree with the ruling. I have a right to show my faith 22.60 % (254)
They should get rid of all vanity plates and have one standard design for the state 10.68 % (120)
My FSM nutz are hanging lower than my yule log.
Fun,
This poll is on the Aiken, SC news website. That is where my Father in-law lives!
Argyle.
“I have a right to show my faith!” clicks the moron whose vehicle is festooned with Jesus fish and “God Is My Co-pilot” bumper stickers.
Yay! We did it!
Doh! Should have read the entire post rather than just clicking the link.
how about:
“I disagree. The plate may aid in my search for another car after the rapture”
I voted twice in succession. Once for #1 and once for #3.
I don’t suppose anybody cares but the second response “I have a right to show my faith” is dishonestly phrased. It should read, “I have a right to state-sponsored endorsement of my religious beliefs.” Of course, that would make it harder for the religios to portray themselves as victims of bad old secular humanism.
If all plates have a standard format, it’s much harder to remember a license plate that if it is distinctive, especially since most vanity plates approximate some condensed phrase.
Mmm, I do love turning a poll in our favor with an army of voters.
TYou never see TruckLabia, do you?
Just sayin.
“”I have a right to show my faith!” clicks the moron whose vehicle is festooned with Jesus fish and “God Is My Co-pilot” bumper stickers.”
That’s probably my biggest problem with this. Religious whiners whining about a “right” that they didn’t even know they had, and a totally inconsequential one at that. Don’t worry guys, you can still have all the crappy bumper stickers you want, and I promise we won’t even rip them off or key your car for displaying them.
That and the fact that people who feel the need to “express myself” on a license plate are typically the people whose selves are the least worth expressing.
how useful is a poll that let’s you vote once a day anywa? but at least common sense is coming through
What do you think of the decision to block the “I Believe” license plate?
Good. The plates are a violation of church and state 74.85 % (1280)
74 %74 %74 %
I disagree with the ruling. I have a right to show my faith 15.50 % (265)
15 %15 %15 %
They should get rid of all vanity plates and have one standard design for the state 9.65 % (165)
9 %9 %9 %
Total Votes: 1710
We allow just one vote per day
Jason A. and Michael H.
I get the vague impression that truck-guys treat trucks not like “girlfriends” but like alter-egos. a car might be sexy, but a truck is tough, rough, and drips testosterone.
But if the State also endorses irrelevant things like sports teams and manatees, as in Florida, who cares? If the people think that “I believe” is cooler than NASA, then it is a pretty good litmus test for deciding whether or not the place is habitable.
What Florida proposed to do with the proceeds is the problem. The State should not be siphoning funds into faith-based education. What does South Carolina plan to do with money made off of the tools who will pay extra for that?
GodIsLove,
since no one has bothered to explain this to you: What PZ is doing is pointing out that online polls don’t have any integrity.
In Austria, vanity plates simply have nonrandom instead of random letter-number combinations behind the mandatory parts that trace the car to the (very rough) equivalent of a county; the background of the plate is identical for all.
In France I’ve never seen a vanity plate, so they probably don’t exist.
Well, that depends on the color of your pants and that of your shoes (…which, ideally, should go well with each other, too). Duh. :-)
I’ve never got that idea — perhaps because all cars are grammatically masculine, in other words, referred to as “he”, where I come from (even though the word “car” itself is neuter).
That’s GodIsLove’s point. It’s satire.
It’s just beginning to get slightly boring by now…
I believe, and my memory may be failing me here, that the “I believe” tags were going to be a no extra cost option for S. Carolinians to choose instead of the standard plate. I don’t have a problem with the state of S. Carolina soaking the populace for an extra $50/year to display a stained glass window on their tag, but giving it away is the part where the government endorses religion. Here in Alabama, you have your choice of the standard plate, or one that says “In God We Trust.” I think that should be a violation, but doubt it would get anywhere in court while we still have that silliness on our money.
For what it is worth (not a lot) to have an English Christian’s comments:
1 design of clear easily-read plate with no extras other than possibly a state symbol.
In Church and State this is a State issue and you render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar. That’s the Bible and the Constitution.
Thank you David, I agree. PZ has been posting requests to skew online posts for too long and its getting boring. You should just leave them alone and see what the REAL results are based on an HONEST cross section of the internet community. (Not just PZ bots who just follow their messiah)
GIL, but we are a very vocal subset of the online community, and belong doing things like trashing bad meaningless polls. Whereas you represent an imaginary being, and should fade into the bandwidth.
OK – time to get “they should get rid of all vanity plates” up to second place.
GodIsLoveIsPoe. If you want it to go away, ignore it scrupulously.
Over on the “No Proselytization Allowed” thread:
” Posted by: GodIsLove | December 13, 2008 2:41 AM
PZ’s nature has shone through so I am going to say a few things
ONE – This is going to be my LAST post. I am going to leave on my own FREE WILL instead of being CENSORED by PZ”
Not that I’m surprised that someone who calls himself “GodIsLove” lied to us, but really, bye bye now. Sincere or yanking our chain, your shtick has gotten pretty tiresome.
(I’m intrigued by Patricia’s notion that it’s actually MAJeff, as I recall “God is love” was a sarcastic catchphrase of his.)
DogIsVole is back? I do believe I can hear the distant rattlings of manacles in the dungeon as they are polished and shined by the dungeon master in preparation for a new occupant.
DiscoveredJoys @38…
Mudflaps.
And plaid.
Jadehawk,
You might be right. I couldn’t find any definitive website that had a truck’s gender listed. So I decided to look at the romance languages since they assign gender to all nouns. In Spanish, Italian, and French truck is masculine and car is feminine. Though, I do realize that it is nearly sacrilegious to use “forn” sources as authorities on the Great American Pick-up Truck.
I’ve seen that sometimes truckers put stuffed animals and other fetish-like toys on the front grilles/bumpers of their trucks.
I bet some would not be averse to putting boobies on the front of their trucks, either.
Hey, I drive a truck. I use it to haul stuff. No, really. Otherwise I wouldn’t drive it. It’s a smaller Mazda truck that gets reasonable gas mileage. I promise I don’t think it’s sexy. Are there truck and SUV drivers out there who fit the descriptors above? Yeah, definitely. The roads are clogged with them. Of course, I’m in Texas, where they build specific truck models solely to be marketed here.
GodIsADouche is that a promise – you’ll leave?
People like you never leave. You’re like a hemorrhoid that just won’t go away. Physically cutting it out is the only option. After doing so PZ will dispose of you into the imaginary intertubes cylindrical filing cabinet. Don’t worry you’ll have a lot of company with all the other hemorrhoids there.
BTW. I read once that humans are the only mammals that get hemorrhoids. How intelligent is that?
This preliminary ruling clearly discriminates against upper middle class christians, who now will be forced to resort to the tacky festoons of their less fortunate, less holy brethren. They are being stripped, by a godless liberal communist court, of their god-given right as ‘Merkins to the maximum trade-in value for their tasteful gas-horking crossovers. Those fish and rapture stickers leave a residue, you know.
Teh prosperity gospel is being suppressed, and well-dressed believers are hopping mad, I tell you, though not actually hopping. That would be less than elegant.
No, car is
Masculine in Spanish : coche, automovil
Feminine in French : voiture, automobile
Masculine in dutch : wagen, auto
Feminine and masculine in Italian : macchina, automobile
Masculine and neutre in German : wagen, auto
Simple, no ?
Seeing as option 1 has a substantial lead now, new pollees should consider the “no vanity plates” option: we’re close to knocking option 2 into last place.
negentropyeater,
You’re right. I don’t think a actually checked car in Spanish. But what say you about the gender of trucks?
What do you think of the decision to block the “I Believe” license plate?
Good. The plates are a violation of church and state 78.88 % (1845)
I disagree with the ruling. I have a right to show my faith 11.59 % (271)
They should get rid of all vanity plates and have one standard design for the state 9.53 % (223)
Total Votes: 2339
We allow just one vote per day
I think Continental Europe is more unanimous on lorries, masculine afaik.
I’m distrustful of people that wear their politics or faith on their cars or t-shirts.
In my experience smugness and action rarely travel together.
Okay for kids to sing Christmas songs at public school concerts?
Yes, but only religious ones
43%
Yes, but only secular ones
38%
No, keep it nondenominational
19%
Total Votes: 164
http://www.gazette.com/
(scroll down on the right)
truck nuts are meant for other people’s trucks.
Someone should do a serious study on anthropomorphized transportation.
To all those who think they have the right to show your faith……. Stick a cross up your ass and drive around with your balls hanging out the car window!
why does it say “only one vote per day”? I voted this morning and the numbers have gone way up since then. Clearly hundreds of votes have been added, not just one.
#60 negentropyeater,
Both (bil, lastbil) are common gender1 in Swedish and both (gluaisteán, leoraí) are masculine in Irish.
1: Masculine and feminine have merged, leaving two “genders”, common and neuter.
Sure, ships are female, but Your Truck is Your Penis. If your Penis ain’t got no TruckNutz, that means you ain’t got no nutz.
Apparently.
The phrasing on this poll is horrible. Options #1 and #3 are not mutually exclusive, and, as others have pointed out, #2 is completely misleading: you could believe, with every fiber of your being, that you have a “right to show your faith” on your car, and still consider the ruling correct, in this case. As Rev Chimp says, this vanity plate is not being treated like all the other vanity plates. So I suppose that you could consistently vote for all 3 options, if you put thought into it.
Whoever wrote this poll is almost certainly against the ruling himself. That’s a no-no — you should not be able to guess, just from reading an opinion poll — what the poll taker hopes your opinion will be. Very sloppy and unprofessional (as if being a Christian theocrat wasn’t bad enough).
There you go Miko @ 61. Option 2 is now in last place now.
———————–
What do you think of the decision to block the “I Believe” license plate?
Good. The plates are a violation of church and state 81.63 % (2520)
I disagree with the ruling. I have a right to show my faith 9.01 % (278)
They should get rid of all vanity plates and have one standard design for the state 9.36 % (289)
Total Votes: 3087
Discrimination!
They should have an “I WANT TO BELIEVE” option, with a picture of a UFO.
That would give the entire project the air of seriousness that it so richly deserves.
81.89% lets call this one toast.
My parents live in Aiken SC. The Aiken Standard, an ultra-conservative paper, has these results. I don’t know if this is local or statewide,but if local, I’m flabbergasted:
Poll Results
What do you think of the decision to block the “I Believe” license plate?
Good. The plates are a violation of church and state 81.81 % (2662)
I disagree with the ruling. I have a right to show my faith 8.64 % (281)
They should get rid of all vanity plates and have one standard design for the state 9.56 % (311)
Total Votes: 3254
We allow just one vote per day
There’s too much advertising on license plates, period. I remember the old Idaho plates that said “Famous Potatoes.” I always thought: I don’t know what the license fee is in Idaho, but they wanted me to drive around in my car advertising their Famous Potatoes, they’ll damn well be paying me!
julia,
You have just seen a poll pharyngulized.
Emmet @71,
Masculine and feminine have merged, leaving two “genders”, common and neuter
And to think we all laughed at the religious right’s warnings against gay marriage.
the poll must be crashed or pulled. I keep getting “Problem loading page”
Did we DOS the website? I can’t get it to open.
#80 Mrs. Tilton,
I meant the nouns in the language, not the population ;o)
eh, I’m not having any troubles loading the poll Loki or Paul Burnett.
Good. The plates are a violation of church and state 82.72 % (2948)
I disagree with the ruling. I have a right to show my faith 7.88 % (281)
They should get rid of all vanity plates and have one standard design for the state 9.40 % (335)
Total Votes: 3564
“Trucknutz” is absolutely killing me.
Being from South Carolina, (thanks for the sympathy) I am glad to see the Phyrangulators helping out where they can. If only online polls could change minds…
Sadness = the site is down.
And I really wanted to express my view that freedom of expression doesn’t extend to state-sponsored endeavours, le sigh.
I don’t really have a problem with the plates. I don’t see how getting the plates you want from the government does much to endorse or promote it. I think, for instance, that to endorse or promote is something more like the ten-commandments-in-court issue, where the obvious implication is that the law is founded on religious beliefs. this is pretty tame…I think I have go personal freedom here, also just as a consumer, I’d like to get what i want from the government every once in a while, and I would probably be annoyed that someone could challenge my express desire without showing some kind real damage.
I also think people deserve a little more credit (just a little). I think adults should be able to tell that obviously the DRIVER chose the plates. its not as if the government is officially catholic, and everyone has to have ccatholic plates. that would be an endorsement. Again, in the ten commandments issue, the government is explicitly choosing to display the religious laws, but in this case the government is just giving individuals more options. I think more options is better. I’m think I’m pretty secure in my atheism. I’m not going to freak out if I see religious license plate.
#83:
Wrong, the government is endorsing Christianity by having this plate, because they do not also offer plates for every other religion out there.
It is a violation of the law. Clean. Simple.
#88, rather.
@ Mash: “I’m think I’m pretty secure in my atheism. I’m not going to freak out if I see religious license plate.”
Well, mash, you may be an atheist, but you don’t seem like a secularist. Fortunately, the constitution of the U.S. is secularist.
You may not see someone having an official state-licensed piece of property with religion on it as an endorsement of religion by the state. But it’s hard for me to see how the god plate is any different from the ten commandments in the courthouse. It can’t be the individual’s choice when pushing their belief through official government functions. That would be like a judge stating that he based his decision on the ten commandments.
As PZ noted, people can and do plaster their cars with all manner of stickers, decals, emblems, tattoos, and key marks in the form of the Virgin Mary. If someone wants to drive around and make their religious affiliation extremely prominent, it’s neither difficult nor against the law.
But to insist on having a license plate that adds to the clamor is to seek vindication for the idea that at some level, a particular religion has the state’s, and hence the government’s and country’s, unique backing. Since this is not the case, the plates should be relegated to the dustbin of “America is a Christian NAtion” wishful thinking.
Completely off topic but some news that PZ might like from Australia. Atheism is being added to Victoria’s religious education curriculum and the poll on the front page of the site the articles from is in favour of it generally.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=696722
Slightly back on topic what in the name of Chaos are ‘trucknutz?’
If you’re genuinely curious (and not just playing devil’s advocate) the answer to this question is explained very clearly in both the complaint and the preliminary injunction granted by the court.
This is not something that was decided capriciously or after a few moments of idle contemplation, but after careful weighing of clearly established constitutional tests.
Knight @93, Trucknutz.
So far as I know, an American phenomenon.
As of 1990, The top 10 Religious bodies (which are all Christian) in the USA had a cumulative total of almost 170,000 churches.
http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html (about 3/4 down the page).
And that’s only the top 10!
Would you call that number of churches a scarcity of places for Christians to show their faith?
In case anybody’s still wondering, cars, trucks, and all other vehicles are the feminine gender in Arabic.
re my #96, the mind boggles. I’ve just checked out Wikipedia on it:
Weird.
Truck in Spanish is camión, which is masculine. Car is carro, which is masculine.
Or,at least, in my particular dialect. Throughout the Spanish speaking world the name of things often vary greatly from region to region. The words negentropyeater provides for car(coche and automovil ) are also used.
@IDer and Bootsy (#94 and 91) – I believe the “endorsement” issue is that these plates did not go through the normal approval process for special-design plates. They also are not associated with a charity organization that benefits from the proceeds of the plate. As a result of that, they don’t have the same additional cost as with other specialty plates. (They do cost more, but it is a much smaller fee than other specialty plates.) See here for details.
In short, the state legislature itself designed and created these plates. That makes it a clear act of government endorsement of a single religion.
I do have to give my state one thumbs up…We have an “In Reason We Trust” plate sponsored by the Secular Humanist of the Low Country.
Thank you PZ for being able to sway the SC gov’t with such grand donations to a truly valid poll.
Jokes (albeit poor ones) aside, I am glad to see that this will at least let some people know that non-believers exist everywhere.
I’m actually going to lunch with a fairly new-to-the-call preacher relative of mine tomorrow, so I can’t wait to see if he says anything about this recent assault on Christian liberties.
My faith, such as it is, would probably be best expressed by a set of “Trucknutz”. Sadly, even such simple and honest expressions are UNDER ATTCK!!
Wow. Y’all have made my evening considerably brighter. Thank you so much.
Website’s back up now, by the way.
Oh, and Sastra (#73): Excellent analysis but incorrect conclusion.
My feminist friends really should festoon their vehicles with Trucknutz.
I drive a Prius. On a board I was visiting I once saw another Prius driver in Nevada was turned down his choice of a vanity plate:
PRIUS-NV
Frankly, I don’t see anything wrong with that – unless maybe you happen to put it on in Florida.
JC
I’ve held back long enough, it is time for the floodgates to open. I am deeply offended by how few vehicles I see on the road sporting trucknutz. I think we need a Constitutional amendment to require all Hummer owners to install trucknutz immediately.
Randy @94
Constitutionality as determined by the lemon test seems to be what they used / are using.
Prong two seems pretty obviously violated.
I live 30 minutes away from Aiken, and I have to say that all of the newspapers here are heavily biased… they probably won’t even mention this in their printed paper- most of their readers are computer illiterate so it’ll gather dust on the internet now that their results didn’t go as they most likely planned.
Gotta love the wording though, “I have a right to show my beliefs” pfft, yeah right. As long as they’re conservative.
Well whether we visited or not the poll is useless the minute they put it on the internet.
But even more blatant is the invite to vote once a day. That alone ensures the poll is worthless.
I have the solution to this problem and it is simplicity itself, involving no more than personal motivation.
Let us agree that to obtain a vanity, or “special” license plate, the applicant pays a fee similar to what the pony up today. But instead of receiving a fully made plate they receive a plate that has all of the identifying features of a normal plate but no identifying sequence of alpha-numeric symbols.
For the extra fee they receive a set of waterproof markers, maybe some templates in different fonts, and are thereby encouraged to craft their own embarrassing confessions for all the world to see.
As long as the authenticity of the plate can be maintained this should work just fine. Additionally, the unique faith and ignorance of each individual could be codified in a way that no one could miss.
Win for the state, win for the people, win for comedy.