Police cars’ ‘In God We Trust’ decals draw complaints (Childress, TX)

A police department in a Texas Bible Belt community has placed large “In God We Trust” decals on its patrol vehicles in response to recent violence against law enforcement officers, drawing criticism from a watchdog group that says the decals amount to an illegal government endorsement of religion.

The decision by police this month to unveil the phrase in Childress, an agricultural community of some 6,100 people at the southern edge of the Texas Panhandle, follows a similar move by dozens of other police agencies elsewhere in the country. […]

… (O)f the dozens of complaints about the decals lodged in recent months by the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, about half were sent to law enforcement agencies in Missouri. Departments in Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Virginia and elsewhere also received complaints from the foundation, which says it will consider suing but acknowledges it can be difficult finding a plaintiff willing to be publicly identified as challenging the use of the phrase. …

The “In God We Trust” decals on police cars is a good example of the 10th Amendment-protected power of the people to address religious issues imo, particularly since the referenced police department is in a Bible belt area.

The remainder of this post is material barrowed from a related thread. I should help patriots to understand how FDR’s activist justices robbed the states of their 10th Amendment-protected power to address religious issues.

Regardless what FDR’s activist Justices wanted everybody to think about “atheist” Thomas Jefferson’s “wall of separation,” the real Thomas Jefferson had clarified that the states had made the 10th Amendment in part to reserve uniquely to themselves the power to regulate our 1st Amendment-protected freedoms, including religious expression, regardless that they had made that amendment to prohibit Congress from regulating our basic freedoms altogether.

“3. Resolved that it is true as a general principle and is also expressly declared by one of the amendments to the constitution that ‘the powers not delegated to the US. by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively or to the people’: and that no power over the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press being delegated to the US. by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, & were reserved, to the states or the people: that thus was manifested their determination to retain to themselves the right of judging how far the licentiousness of speech and of the press may be abridged without lessening their useful freedom, and how far those abuses which cannot be separated from their use should be tolerated rather than the use be destroyed [emphasis added]; …” — Thomas Jefferson, Kentucky Resolutions, 1798 .

And although FDR’s activist justices twisted the 14th Amendment’s “privileges or immunities” language as applying everything in the Bill of Rights to the states, including the 1st Amendment’s prohibition of powers on Congress to regulate our basic personal freedoms, the congressional record shows that John Bingham, the main author of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment, had clarified that the 14th Amendment took away no state’s rights.

“The adoption of the proposed amendment will take from the States no rights [emphasis added] that belong to the States.” —John Bingham, Appendix to the Congressional Globe. (See bottom half of first column)
“No right reserved [emphasis added] by the Constitution to the States should be impaired…” —John Bingham, Appendix to the Congressional Globe. (See top half of 1st column)
“Do gentlemen say that by so legislating we would strike down the rights of the State [emphasis added]? God forbid. I believe our dual system of government essential to our national existance.” —John Bingham, Appendix to the Congressional Globe. (See bottom half of third column)

Note regarding the “No right reserved …” in the second entry in the list above, that the only occurrence of “reserved” in the Constitution is in the 10th Amendment.

Amendment 10: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved [emphasis added] to the States respectively, or to the people.

So the states still have the 10th Amendment-protect power to regulate our basic constitutional rights imo, including our 1st Amendment protections as explained by Jefferson, such powers now limited by the 14th Amendment.

Note that state rights to regulate religion is what gives citizens the power to pray, or not to pray, at public events for example.

In fact, Justice Reed had clarified that it was the job of judges to balance 10th Amendment-protected state powers with 14th Amendment-protected personal rights.

"Conflicts in the exercise of rights arise and the conflicting forces seek adjustments in the courts, as do these parties, claiming on the one side the freedom of religion, speech and the press, guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, and on the other the right to employ the sovereign power explicitly reserved to the State by the Tenth Amendment to ensure orderly living without which constitutional guarantees of civil liberties would be a mockery." --Justice Reed, Jones v. City of Opelika, 1942.

The bottom line is that, as a consequence of many generatons of parents not making sure that their children are being taught the Constitution the way that the Founding States had intended for it to be understood, institutionally indoctrinated judges are getting away with unthinkly following in the footsteps of FDR’s anti-religous expression justices by likewise unconstitutonally stifling 10th Amendment-protected religous expression.

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