Reply #7: from this week's newyorker

[rusty charly]

As a national platitude, at the “In God We Trust” level of things, this seems unexceptionable to everyone except those who might be called card-carrying atheists, people who become litigious every time they hear a reference to God in a public place. What makes the Roy’s Rock story so bizarre, though, is that the Justice’s chosen symbol completely subverts the point it is supposed to make. Of the Bible’s Ten Commandments, only two (VI and VIII) proscribe activities that secular law regards as criminal. It is not illegal in the United States to: have another god before Yahweh; manufacture graven images (for instance, pieces of granite with Scriptural texts carved on them); say “God damn it” when you spill the ketchup; go to “Terminator 3” on Sunday; abuse (verbally) your parents; engage in extramarital sex; or (except under oath) tell untrue stories about your neighbor. And if it were a crime to covet the ass parked in the driveway of the people next door, it is hard to know how capitalism would survive. Coveting asses is the whole basis of our prosperity.


http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?030908ta_talk_menand