My conservative friends manage to keep me abreast of all the scurrilous right-wing emails that are fraught with lies, deception and stupidity. A new one is making the rounds complaining about the new president dollars that the mint has just issued.
The allegation is that “In God We Trust” has been left off this new coin: “By omitting these words, our politically correct, secularist leaders made a conscientious decision that either 1) God does not exist, 2) that God exists but can no longer be trusted.”
The email goes on to say, “I am personally offended and fed up with the denigration of God and Christianity in my country. I am certain George Washington would never have agreed to his picture on the coin if it in any way diminished faith in God.”
Setting aside for the moment the fact that the writer is abysmally ignorant of Washington’s religious beliefs, the real kicker is that the inscription is on the coin. In a departure from tradition – something conservatives are loathe to tolerate – the inscription is on the outside edge of the coin and not on the obverse or reverse. The date, “E Pluribus Unum,” and the mint mark are also there. (Visit the U.S. Mint’s page devoted to the new dollar to see all of the markings in great detail.)
To send such a message the writer had to be: 1) dull-witted; 2) deliberately lying, or 3) non compos mentis – not that those terms are exclusive nor infrequent attributes of the writers of right-wing screed.
Watch for this one and, if the sender has violated the protocols of email and revealed all recipients, which they seem inclined to do, reply to all of the recipients with a dose of the truth. I get interesting responses from the “reeducated.”
Such tomfoolery would be out of place in Sweden, which trails only Estonia in the percentage of the population that doesn’t believe in God.
(I should note that it is possible that the writer obtained some of the early issues that missed the edge printing but that error was publicized widely and the defective coins have become collector’s items. I doubt that such is the case with this author of the off-the-wall criticism that I received.)
- The Old Viking
1 Response to “Stupidity? Dishonesty? Duplicity? An email that has it all.”