License plates

Apparently license plates are a hot topic in Indiana. Whoever said Indiana is a boring state, well! Um... OK, maybe you got us this time.

We now have an alternative plate that says “In God We Trust”, and there is no additional cost for it. I could simply say that if we did not have government vehicle registration/licensing, this would not need to be an issue (OMG! We'd all die), but that makes for far too short a post, and I wanted some variety.

The most prominent concern is probably the 1st Amendment (tangent: I think we'd all be better off if this was left at its first 5 words, “Congress shall make no law.”) I do not understand this concern. Congress has not passed a law “respecting an establishment of religion” here, nor “prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The Indiana state legislature has not done so, either. They passed a law that allows for an alternative license plate, that's all.

The other concern (OK, so there's only 2 that I really know of; I alluded to the interest level of this story already) is that the state is not charging extra for these plates like they do specialty plates. The problem here is that the organization fees for specialty plates go to support an organization. Where would the organization fees for these plates go - on an altar for God to lick up from the sky by fire? (I Kings 18) I suppose the argument could be made that they should at least charge the $15 administrative fee as with specialty plates, but aha - even some of them are excluded from the administrative fee (“Support our Troops”, “Pearl Harbor Survivor”, and “POW”). Honestly, my instinct tells me these administrative fees are just a fleecing, anyway. This concern seems to be closely associated with the first one: to prevent the state establishing a religion by stamping some vague cliché on a piece of metal, the state should charge more money for it. Or so the argument seems to go?

No, I'm not really arguing in favor of the plates. I would not get one personally; I think it's an overused phrase that essentially means nothing (not to mention the collectivist nature of the “we” is irksome). Overall I think it's a petty issue, though.

(This post is brought to you by the left and right parentheses.)

Coming up next: Congressman Ron Paul's run for President in 2008.

This article was originally published on INtake Blogsquad.