A few weeks ago I was told about how a prosecutor was trying to challenge the character of a witness testifying here in Arizona by pulling out a Facebook quote of the witness. The goal was to demonstrate her anti-government tendencies by reading a sentence where she referenced the evils of “Statan”. She was confused at the time and could only speculate that it was a typo (instead of a Freudian slip of the finger). Only later after telling the story to others did she realize the humor of it all.

Well, the prosecutor was left flat and didn’t get the response that he was hoping for and would lose the case against my friend. But I was floored by the obvious use of the word as a meme and quickly positioned myself in front of my monitor to see just how much this word had been used to reference the shared traits of the State and Satan.

In the Bible, Satan is described as being ‘the model of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty’. But then these traits lead to pride, arrogance and the idea that he should rule by whatever means available. Sounds like the path taken by every government I’m aware of.

The word “Statan” must have seemed like a neon flashing light to a prosecutor and I’ll bet that he was very excited about bringing to the judge’s attention the use of such an evil word in reference to The State… aka ‘Statan’. My only shock was that it hasn’t been used more often. Just a fun aside I thought that I would share :)