America--In God We Trust....or do we??

March 9, 2012

In God We Trust...do we?

I received an email last week that accused the U.S. Mint of now producing, new dollar denomination coins that do not contain the words “In God We Trust”. I was requested to pass this message on to everyone I know and to refuse to accept these new coins as a protest. As I usually do, always should, and wish more would, I went to snopes.com to check the validity of the message. Guess what...it's false. (Please note that for those of you who don't think Snopes can be trusted...I Snoped that too and they said that they can!) The new $1 coins actually do have In God We Trust inscribed on them, but it's on the coin's edge instead of on the flat front or back. This caused me to wonder when the phrase was first used on our currency, what did it mean, and to ponder the really big question...do we? I decided to do a bit of research and my first stop was at Wikipedia...and here's what I learned.

In God We Trust was first placed on some coinage during the Civil War beginning In 1864 when Congress passed a law that placed this phrase on cents coins only. This was apparently done to help prove that the Union had God on its side...and, considering the reasons for the war, it would be hard to deny. Then in 1865 additional legislation placed the phrase on gold and silver coins. Then in 1873 another bill allowed the treasury to add the phrase to all coins.

The use of this phrase has not been uninterrupted since then. It was removed from the nickel in 1883 and did not reappear until 1938. Then Congress in 1908 ordered that all prior coinage with this phrase have it inscribed on all future production. Since then, with the exception of the nickel, In God We Trust has appeared on all U.S. Coinage. Why not the nickel? I didn't pursue that further because at this point I knew more than I wanted to!

Interestingly the phrase never appeared on paper currency until 1956 when the 84^th Congress and President Eisenhower officially signed the law changing the U.S. Motto from E Puribus Unum (Out of many, one) to In God We Trust. It was roughly about this time when the Pledge Of Allegiance also had the words , “one nation under God” added. The new motto and the change in the nation's pledge were precipitated by the cold war and the McCarthy era battle against the atheist communists. I wonder what phrase Communist country's currency displayed? Maybe, “We Don't Need No Stinking God”?

Our Congress spent time re-affirming in 2002, 2006, and again in 2011 that “In God We Trust” is indeed our official motto. President Obama was critical of the time Congress spent in affirming this in 2011 because he thought they ought to spend more of their time in helping him solve all of our problems instead. Interestingly, our President in November of 2010 in a speech in Indonesia told the audience that our nation's motto is E Pluribus Unum. Maybe Congress was simply trying to remind him that we had changed the motto 55 years earlier?

The last official challenge of the constitutionality of this phrase was refused by our federal courts in 1978. The court concluded that this notion of our nation's link to God was too deeply woven into our national fabric to be challenged. Many remain convinced that this phrase represents the continuing attempts of Christians to hijack our nation. Why blame only Christians for wanting to continue using this phrase? After all, isn't God a generic term that could be applied to most religions? (of course we would have to exclude Scientology).Where do I stand on all of this? Actually, as usual, a bit confused. Do we need to have this phrase on our currency to re-affirm our belief in God? What about atheists? Many others argue that this violates the premise of separation of church and state. Not hard to understand their argument. Theodore Roosevelt was opposed to having In God We Trust on our coinage because he thought it was an insult to God to have his/her name on money.

Looking back at our nation's history it caused me to wonder if most of us actually believe in God...let alone trust in him. Did we believe in God as we ran the American Indians off of their land? Did we believe in God when we allowed slavery to flourish in the first place, and then allowed discrimination for another hundred years? Did God play a role when we allowed our leaders to leave our borders unprotected for over thirty years...and we now blame the immigrants for coming through the open door to this famed land of opportunity? Do you think that God approves of our elected leaders pillaging our children's future? Is our lack of willingness to change leaders an example of us Trusting In God? Seem more like simple apathy. Does God approve of our using this phrase as our national motto? I'm guessing that God is most likely saying, “I gave your country every advantage possible...don't blame me for the mess you and your leaders have created”.

My opinion? Our actions speak louder than words. What do you think?

Mike Tower

Hendersonville, NC

Please visit:

Citizens Against Politics As Usual


Lees Political Opinions

Where and when will U.S. leaders face our financial reality

March 4, 2012

America's financial reality?

We are broke, at least we are if you define “broke” as having a boatload of debt and having to borrow over a third of what we spend each year. To make it even worse, our unfunded future entitlements make the current debt look like chump change. The following numbers were taken from www.usdebtclock.org. (Check it out for yourself).

2012: U.S. National debt now stands at $15 trillion+

2012 federal spending                          $ 3.6 trillion

2012 revenues (mainly taxes)                   2.3 trillion

2012 deficit (borrowed funds)               $1.3 trillion

This pitiful financial condition has resulted from decades of continuing failed leadership from both parties. Meanwhile what are the vast majority of our federally elected officials doing to face these challenges...they are running for election full time...and practicing politics as usual. They don't have time to even consider collaborating to develop strategies to help our nation face its many challenges. They are literally and figuratively giving we the people the infamous middle finger signal. We complain, but they know that we don't have the collective courage to actually do anything about it. They know from past experience that we will just keep re-electing them no matter how much evidence exists about their collective failures. Instead of us uniting as Americans first, too many of us remain divided and stranded by party labels that contain nothing more than empty promises. It's easy for any reasonable person to see that cuts will have to be made, and the categories most affected will be among the following. Look at the following and reach your own conclusions regarding exactly where the cuts should begin.

Largest U.S. 2012 budget items:

Medicare/Medicaid                             $ 830 billion

Social Security                                      727 billion

Defense/wars                                        700 billion

Income security                                    404 billion

Interest on debt                                    222 billion

Federal pensions                                  216 billion

Total of these items                         $3.099 trillion = 86% federal spending

Then add to our financial problems the unfunded liabilities for future entitlements:

Social Security                                $15.5 trillion

Prescription drugs                             20.4 trillion

Medicare 81.3 trillion

Total unfunded:                               $117 trillion with a “T”

None of the above considers the additional levels of local, state, and even personal debt that our nation and citizens must find ways to deal with. What do you think? Can we afford to even consider allowing politics as usual to continue?

What we desperately need is visionary, courageous, and unifying leadership that will openly acknowledge these truths and then begin to immediately focus on the drastic actions that must be taken if we are to save our nation from a future of complete and utter ruin. And folks, the future is now. What we as citizens must do is to signal our understanding and acceptance of the grim reality that was caused by the failure of our elected leaders in Washington. We know that we can expect little real leadership from our elected in either party. That means that we will have to collectively unite to lead from the bottom. Too many of us have continued to stay loyal to our chosen party and they have both kept practicing politics as usual. They did what they have always done, spend our money completely recklessly, mainly for the benefits of the powerful special interests, and to buy votes. One important question to be answered is; how will the majority of our citizens respond when they finally realize that we will all have to share massively increased taxes, smaller retirement benefits and reduced health care services? Unfortunately, I'm afraid, the majority of us will allow future generations to face the music rather than accept personal sacrifice today. I hope I'm proven wrong...but actions will speak louder than words.

These are my opinions. What do you think?

Mike Tower

Hendersonville, NC

Please visit: 

Citizens Against Politics As Usual

Lee's Political Opinion