-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
David Barton is an evangelical minister and author who describes himself as “an expert in historical and constitutional issues.” Barton is the darling of the religious right receiving praise from Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, and Michele Bachmann.
In the video, below the fold, Barton makes some remarkable claims.
As far as the Founding Fathers were concerned, they’d already had the entire debate over creation and evolution, and you get Thomas Paine, who is the least religious Founding Father, saying you’ve got to teach Creation science in the classroom. Scientific method demands that!
However, Charles Darwin published his theory of evolution in 1859, long after the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The prescience of our Founding Fathers is greater than anyone suspected. Interestingly, Thomas Paine died in 1809, the same year that Charles Darwin was born.
As pointed out by Stephen Jay Gould, creation science is an oxymoron:
As a tern, CREATION SCIENCE is an oxymoron – a self-contradictory and meaningless phrase – a whitewash for a specific, particular, and minority religious view in America, biblical literalism.
In the same interview, Barton claims that abolishing slavery was the main reason the colonies wanted to break away from England. Barton also said that Jesus opposed both the minimum wage and the progressive income tax.
OK, maybe the “Deer Crossing” wasn’t a joke.
H/T: Right Wing Watch, Mother Jones, Pharyngula.
David Barton’s Tax Records Boast Expertise In Black History
Huffington Post, 5/18/11
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/18/david-barton-tax-records-gop-history_n_863758.html
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON — David Barton, the Republican establishment’s favorite amateur historian, claims in tax records reviewed by HuffPost to be something of an expert on African-American history.
In filings with the Internal Revenue Service, Barton’s nonprofit, Wallbuilder Presentations, Inc., justified its tax-exempt status by highlighting among its “accomplishments” a video project “of the moral heritage and political history of African Americans.”
It’s a curious claim for the Tea Party favorite, who has twice given speeches in front of white supremacist groups — protesting later that he was ignorant of the groups’ professed racist ideology.
But Barton can’t boast ignorance of his more controversial lobbying. The Texas-based former school principal once advocated that Thurgood Marshall be removed from the state’s text books and that Martin Luther King, Jr. got too much credit as a civil rights leader.
Barton has claimed that Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower was the powerful influence of the civil-rights movement. He argued that African-Americans couldn’t have had much impact since they weren’t the majority. “Only majorities can expand political rights in America’s constitutional society,” Barton has said.
“I call it historical creationism,” said Rob Boston, senior policy analyst with Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “All I can tell you is everything that Barton does is to promote ultra conservative politics and to persuade people to vote for extreme conservative Republicans.” It’s a strategy that has worked.
Barton’s selective editing of African American history hasn’t hurt his stock among the GOP elite and Tea Party favorites. In recent months, he has received the kind of backing not usually associated with amateur historians. Barton’s evangelical reading of history–arguing that the Founding Fathers never intended for a separation of church and state–and his trove of historical “documents” have proven catnip to the Tea Party generation light on history and policy experience. More established heads also find his right-wing document dumps credible.
THANKS I WILL:)))))
Maggie, have you asked your doctor about clozapine? Maybe clozapine is right for you.
ust 2nd 3rd faileddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd and all tht glitters lost its shine!!!
you got it bad!
Winski, you’ve got more than that. These people, the extreme evangelical right seek nothing less than the reigns of power in America so that they can reconstitute this nation (and then the world) into their own twisted, death-cult, image of the stage-set for Armageddon. They are delusional and dangerous IMO.
YOU GOT IT REAL BAD LOL!
YOU GOT IT BAD!!! LOL
Take off the first layer of spin and all yoy end up with is just another hater..
Barton is a disgrace as a scholar.
That should NOT disturb Democrats and leftist dirt-bags.
They have a Constitutional scholar, not for heaven’s sake, usurping the Constitution as we speak.
Mike S.,
I agree that we are still paying for Reaganomics.
it’s not like anybody wants to force us to listen to david barfon
Elaine, yes, that is a particular kind of stupid that conservatives have all to themselves. It’s what makes them so special! 🙂
Les,
BTW, I agree that there’s more than enough stupid to go around. That said, I think you’ll find a lot more conservatives than liberals–if any–who think our planet is 6,000 years old and that humans and dinosaurs co-existed.
Elaine, oh, I don’t doubt that there are conservatives who buy into the vaccine/autism myth (probably from an anti-government angle), but its loudest proponents are liberal, and the very liberal Marin County has one of the densest populations of anti-vaccine parents.
Just as I’m sure there are conservatives who believe in homeopathy, astrology, psychic powers, “human energy field,” ancient astronauts, etc., those are beliefs more traditionally adhered to by liberals.
And, really, it’s only just slightly more stupid to say that the Founding Fathers discussed evolution, than it is to say,
“When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened.”
That’s our brilliant Vice-President, Joe Biden.
(Disclaimer: I am a liberal, though it’s easy to forget that, based on my posts, I’m sure.)
I just think the “conservatives are dumber than liberals” assertion is silly.
Les,
Don and Deirdre are two well-known conservatives who espoused the theory that thimerasol/vaccines are a cause of autism.
Maggie Simi-
This is the Jonathan Turley website. The website you are looking for is:
“SCREWY THEORIES ALL IN CAPS.COM”
THE MMR VACCINE CAUSES AUTISM! PERIOD!
I’ve not heard anyone say that both parties are the same. I think they’re equally corrupt and inept, but in their own, special ways.
For every insane conservative who thinks the Founding Fathers discussed evolution, there’s an insane liberal who thinks that vaccines cause autism. There’s plenty of stupid to go around.