Don’t Rest On The Laurels Yet–Christian Radicals, Still A Threat

Cross posted @ the Atheist Oasis

"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." –attributed to Thomas Jefferson

Yes, panic-mongering is exhausting. Sometime I just get worn out worrying over these things. But these people are a very real, very dangerous threat. And here’s something that should get some furrowed brows going…

10 Plans Christian Radicals Have For America

A fundamentalist Christian ideology called Dominionism is currently infiltrating a segment of the Christian Right. As a political movement, it seeks to overthrow democracy and transform America into a biblical theocracy. Also known as Christian Reconstructionism, it cuts across denominational lines but does not represent mainstream American Christianity. Many Christians even see it as a heresy and perversion of the gospels.

Within the movement are differing views, and its broad complexity should caution us from labeling it as a monolithic conspiracy. Liberals are often accused of exaggerating the Dominionist threat and are called paranoid conspiracy theorists. But whatever the true numbers of those who hold this radical doctrine, they exert a powerful influence on policy makers of the right wing.

10 The Seven Mountains Mandate

Dominionists believe that Jesus Christ is not going to return until He has gained control of the world’s nations through Christians. This is how they interpret Jesus’s command “Occupy till I come.” The Dominionist blueprint for “reclaiming America for Christ” is spelled out in the Seven Mountains Mandate—Christian takeover and control of the “seven mountains” of society: business, government, media, arts and entertainment, education, family, and religion. Lance Wallnau, a leading Seven Mountains theologian, explains that Christians must install a theocracy governed by “true apostles” to battle Satan and his Antichrist.

Wallnau envisions the conquest of the Seven Mountains as a covert operation. He said, “[A] very small minority of people . . . as small as 3–5 percent . . . can control how the agenda works in a nation and thus create or dominate the culture.”

The Seven Mountains concept was first enunciated as a supposed revelation from God given simultaneously in 1975 to two “generals” of the faith, Loren Cunningham of Youth With A Mission and Bill Bright of the Campus Crusade For Christ. In all likelihood, they plagiarized it from a TV talk by theologian Dr. Francis Shaffer. The mountains are portrayed as “mind molders” by which the “rulers of darkness” influence people, leading to such trends as gay marriage, pornography, and abortion.

9 Capture The Republican Party

Perhaps most of us are wondering why, in spite of the Constitution, there seems to be a religious test for those seeking public office in the US. The Republican Party in particular has made it an unwritten premise that a candidate’s faith is a matter of public debate. Local party meetings feature activists determined to bring “biblical principles” into government. How did the party of Lincoln become, in the words of an insider, “more religious cult than a political organization”?

To conquer the Seven Mountains, Dominionists are stealthily infiltrating the GOP and increasing their political influence. Recent presidential candidates Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann have ties to Dominionist groups. In 1979, GOP strategist Paul Weyrich politically mobilized factions of fundamentalist, Pentecostal, and charismatic churches under the umbrella term “Moral Majority.” It was led by Rev. Jerry Fallwell. Weyrich made no secret of its goal: “We are talking about Christianizing America. We are talking about simply spreading the gospel in a political context.” The clout of the Religious Right became apparent in the 1980 elections, when it unseated liberal Democrats in the Senate and helped propel Ronald Reagan into the White House.

The Moral Majority is no longer around, but Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition has continued its work. “We want . . . as soon as possible to see a majority of the Republican Party in the hands of pro-family Christians,” Robertson declared in 1992. He and fellow pastors have schools and universities to train Christians how to run for public offices and how to influence policy once in power. Robertson named his institution Regent University because its students are destined to take over the government as Christ’s “regents.” Robertson himself made a losing bid for the presidency in 1988.

Robertson did not mince words: “We are not going to stand for those coercive utopians in the Supreme Court and in Washington ruling over us anymore. We’re not gonna stand for it. We are going to say, ‘we want freedom in this country, and we want power.’ ”

8 The End Of Pluralism

In a disturbing rant, Randall Terry, founder of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, said: “I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good . . . Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a biblical duty, we are called on by God to conquer this country. We don’t want equal time. We don’t want pluralism.”

Once Dominionists are in power, only one religion and lifestyle will be recognized—fundamentalist Christianity. Democracy and Christian nationalism are diametrically opposed. While theocrats will invoke the religious liberty guaranteed by the Constitution to further their agenda, they have no intention of keeping it when they win. Gary North, one of the movement’s ideological founders, made their goal clear: ” . . . a Bible-based social, political, and religious order, which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God.” They view the system that treats everybody equally as the greatest obstacle in their plans.

Secular humanism and all systems that bypass biblical knowledge will have to go. The “us vs. them” mentality that treats the rest of the non-Christian world as satanic will make pluralism impossible. Rick Joyner admits, “At first it may seem like totalitarianism, as the Lord will destroy the antichrist spirit now dominating the world.” But he assures those willing to be deluded that the Kingdom of Christ “will move toward increasing liberty.” That would be “liberty” as defined by a Fascist dictionary somewhere.

7 Undermining The Constitution

The US Constitution, the bedrock upon which pluralism thrives, will obviously have to be abrogated or else reinterpreted under the Dominionists. In its place will be a government based on Old Testament laws. The Law of Moses features, among other things, 1) the death penalty for idolaters, i.e. non-Christians, 2) the likelihood of the reinstitution of slavery, 3) abolition of the income tax in favor of the tithing system, and 4) elimination of the prison system in favor of the system of restitution for non-capital offenses.

Dominionists themselves are divided on how to apply these archaic biblical laws to modern America. Not all of them are keen on reintroducing slavery, but some do think that its legalization would be a good thing. While a majority support the death penalty, they differ on the method of execution. Strangely, though polygamy was permitted in ancient Israel, they define marriage as between one man and one woman. It is also unclear what they will do in the “Jubilee Year,” when estranged property is supposed to revert to its original owners. Will they give back the land to Native Americans (the Christian ones, of course)? Will they return Hawaii to the Hawaiians?

The Christian Right has the means to exploit loopholes through the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), its legal advocacy arm. Founded by Pat Robertson and armed with a $30 million annual budget, it seeks to overturn rulings the Right abhors, like Roe vs. Wade. It is also noteworthy that ACLJ supported the Bush administration in its holding Guantanamo detainees without charges and without trial.

In a Public Policy Polling survey released on February 24, 2015, an astonishing 57 percent of Republicans favor abandoning the Constitution to make the US a Christian nation. Only 30 percent are opposed, and 13 percent are not sure.

6 Death Penalty For Gays And Rebellious Teens

Being a worshiper of false gods (i.e., non-Christian) is not the only capital crime under Mosaic Law, besides murder and rape. Dominionists believe those deserving the death penalty include homosexuals, children who struck their parents, brides who were unchaste before marriage, juvenile delinquents, psychics (“false prophets”), adulterers, and blasphemers. Executions would be made public with full participation of the community, like square dances and quilting bees. Gary North prefers stoning as the method of killing because stones cost nothing and are readily available.

North laments that our humanist society paints the Mosaic Law as barbaric. He himself has no problems executing rebellious teens: “The integrity of the family must be maintained by the threat of death.” What’s more, North says that those accusing a suspect of a capital crime must be among the executioners. For citizens to arm themselves in self-defense is a mark of their judicial sovereignty, North asserts, something gun control advocates want to take away. He extends this concept of judicial sovereignty to executions. He doesn’t want people to delegate the task to agents of the state. Participation in public executions is “an act of citizenship.”

How does this system propose to deal with perjury and false accusation? Perjury would be considered a crime against the accused, not against the court as in the present system. False witnesses will suffer the same penalty supposed to be imposed on the accused had they been found guilty. North believes that the Mosaic system of justice will actually reduce perjury in courts.

5 Historical Revisionism

David Barton is a pseudohistorian obsessed with altering historical facts to portray America as a Christian nation founded on biblical principles. This makes him a darling of the Right, with an enthusiastic Mike Huckabee proclaiming him America’s greatest historian, who should be writing the curriculum for the schools. Huckabee suggested (in jest, presumably) that all Americans should be “forced at gunpoint” to listen to Barton. To Glenn Beck, he is “the most important man in America.”

Such accolades come in the wake of Barton’s best-selling books, which claim that the Founding Fathers were devout Christians inspired by colonial preachers to found a society based on the biblical model. Barton teaches that America’s constitutional government was patterned after the ancient Hebrew “federative republic.” He accuses academics of hiding these truths from the average citizen.

In response, academics and even fellow conservatives have exposed Barton’s lies and errors. Barton is caught distorting or even inventing quotes placed on the lips of deist Founding Fathers to prove his point. One blatant example of Barton’s deception is his quote of John Adams’s letter to Benjamin Rush in 1809. In it, Adams says: “There is no authority, civil or religious—there can be no legitimate government—but what is administered by this Holy Ghost. There can be no salvation without it—all without it is rebellion and perdition, or, in more orthodox words, damnation.” Barton makes it sound like Adams was proposing a government led by the Holy Ghost. But Barton has left out the last part of the quote, in which Adams mocks the very notion: “Although this is all Artifice and Cunning in the secret original in the heart, yet they all believe it so sincerely that they would lay down their Lives under the Axe or the fiery Fagot for it. Alas the poor weak ignorant Dupe human Nature.”

Barton makes the tortuous argument that the Constitution, which never once mentions God, is in fact a godly document because it makes a passing reference to the Declaration of Independence which does mention a “Creator” (a deist Creator, alas for Barton). Barton was also forced to admit that he fabricated out of thin air a supposed quote from James Madison in which the staunch advocate of church-state separation was made to beseech Americans to “govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”

David Barton is a propagandist masquerading as a historian. Though exposed as a fraud, he remains unrepentant.

4 Abolition Of Medicare And Social Security

Dominionists base their economics on Deuteronomy 28, the “Blessings and Cursings” chapter of the Pentateuch. They believe that wealth is a sign of God’s favor, and poverty and illness are visitations of His displeasure and wrath. The poor and sick deserve their lot. It is God’s way to prick their conscience and provoke introspection. Therefore, governments who seek to alleviate their plight are contravening God’s will. Poverty is not seen as a problem to be solved. This is why Dominionists view Social Security and Medicare as evil programs that take money from others to give to those being punished.

In a 700 Club interview, economics professor Dr. Walter Williams gave this rationalization: “I think Christians should recognize that charity is good. I mean charity, when you reach into your pocket to help your fellow man for medical care or for food or to give them housing. But what the government is doing to help these older citizens is not charity at all. It is theft. That is, the government is using power to confiscate property that belongs to one American and give, or confiscate their money, and provide services for another set of Americans to whom it does not belong.” The Right’s creed of “personal responsibility” has no place for such economic safety nets. If you die of hunger, that’s your fault. Or, in the case of senior citizens, your children’s or family’s fault for not taking care of you.

If on the other hand, you’ve become filthy rich—well, the Lord must be mighty proud of you. So for the government to lay more taxes on you to even out the playing field is an abomination. It is God’s intention that the rich get richer. Charismatic pastor Larry Huch predicts an “end-time transfer of wealth” to blessed Christians who are destined to become God’s bankers. The Dominionists’ promotion of laissez-faire economics of minimum government intervention in business, and repudiation of its licensing and regulatory powers, can thus be seen as self-serving.

3 Abolition Of Public Education

Christian theocrats are aware that they cannot hope to spread their miseducation through the present public school system, which propagates secular knowledge and values. In its place, they want a Christian-sponsored educational system that will assure that children are indoctrinated into fundamentalism, have daily prayers, teach creationism, do away with sex education, and propagate David Barton’s false history.

“I hope to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we don’t have public schools,” wrote the Rev. Jerry Fallwell. “The churches will have taken them over again, and Christians will be running them.” Michelle Bachmann once started a charter school to replace the “godless” secular schools but was forced out of the board of directors when she proselytized the students.

Before a takeover happens, Christian parents are urged to take their children out of public schools to be homeschooled instead. A glimpse into a Dominionist homeschool gives us an idea on what American kids could expect to learn once Dominionists have taken over:

Government: “All governments are ordained by God, but none compare to government by God, theocracy.”

Economics: “We present free-enterprise economics without apology and point out the dangers of communism, socialism, and liberalism to the well-being of people across the globe.”

Science: ” . . . the universe as the direct creation of God and refutes the man-made idea of evolution.”

Math: “Unlike the ‘modern math’ theorists, who believe that mathematics is a creation of man and thus arbitrary and relative, we believe that the laws of mathematics are a creation of God and thus absolute . . . [These books provide] mathematics texts that are not burdened with modern theories such as set theory . . . ”

2 Female Subservience

We read in Ephesians 5:22: “Let women be subject to their husbands, as to the Lord.” This forms the basis of women’s roles in the proposed theocracy. Simply put, it will mark the end of gender equality and women’s rights. Women will be relegated to the home, pleasing their husbands, taking care of the kids, and making more babies, or as a critic put it, “dishwashing, suckling and sex.” The Dominionist newsletter Chalcedon Report deplored the situation in America today: “The devastating curse of women ruling over men is getting the press it deserves today . . . Our nation is under judgment. As the home goes, so goes the nation.”

Young girls are taught that their place is in the home and that any desire for a college degree or a job outside the home is prideful and sinful. Homeschooler Doug Phillips says, “Daughters, by no means, are not to be independent. They’re not to act outside the scope of their father, and then later, their husbands. As long as they’re under the authority of their fathers, fathers have the ability to nullify or not the oaths and the vows. Daughters can’t just go out independently and say, ‘I’m going to do this or marry whoever I want.’ ”

Once married, they are encouraged to “pop out some kids” to swell the ranks of Christian soldiers. So says Leah Smith in her to-do list for dominion, where she prompts Christian mothers to “get busy” and outstrip the Muslim birthrate (six kids per household average). Besides household skills, girls should learn apologetics, theology, and evangelism. Smith tells the ladies to “go back to being women, with joy and celebration” as slaves of men.

1  World War III

If Dominionism poses a threat to American democracy, it is even more dangerous to world peace and stability. Dominionists taking over the US would give America’s nuclear stockpile to religious fundamentalists with an apocalyptic mentality. And recent news has shown us that religious fanaticism and military firepower are a lethal mix.

Consider Lt. Gen. William Boykin, who can be described as a Christian Jihadist. He believes in holy war against Islam, with the US military as God’s army. He reports seeing demonic entities in photos of fighting in Somalia, enemies who “will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus.” Incredibly, this intolerant warmonger became deputy Undersecretary of Defense for intelligence. With people like Boykin in command positions, World War III just might be the mother of all religious wars.

With a mindset that regards Israel as an important player in the prophetic end-times drama, the Christian Right is also against a peaceful resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Palestinians are illegal occupants of the land God gave to His chosen people and there could never be a compromise, a two-state solution.

Dominionists can also self-righteously justify overthrowing foreign governments not Christian enough to their liking. Since the US already has a long history of such interventions, only a change in rationale from political to religious is needed.

The gap between the US and Europe may also widen, with Christians mistrusting the secular and irreligious tendencies of their trans-Atlantic allies. The end of the European partnership would have detrimental effects on global economy and security.

Freaked out? I sure am. Almost to the point of going out and purchasing ordinance – because these fucking nutters aren’t ‘hearing the voice of gawd’, these assclowns are just plain hearing voices. Which makes them psychotic AND dangerous.

They’ll try to take my constitutional rights away, but I will put up one helluva fucking fight when they do. Even at gunpoint.

Till the next post then.

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Because Another Word For ‘Republican’ Is ‘Deranged’

Cross posted @ the Atheist Oasis

Does this sort of news frost your hide? It should:

Rand Paul: ‘The First Amendment…Doesn’t Say Keep Religion Out of Government’

Rand Paul, a Republican senator from Kentucky and a prospective 2016 presidential contender, told religious leaders at a private prayer breakfast last Thursday that the First Amendment “doesn’t say keep religion out of government.”

“The First Amendment says keep government out of religion. It doesn’t say keep religion out of government,” Paul said, according to video captured by CBN News. “So, you do have a role and a place here.”

He went on to say that the Senate opens every day with an invocation, which shows that there is a place for prayer in government.

“Religion is part of our daily life and a part of our government,” Paul said. “It always has been.”

The politician, who delivered his comments at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington where about 50 preachers were in attendance, went on to discuss the “moral crisis” that he believes is running rampant in America, urging his audience not to expect Washington to solely solve the problem, and imploring everyone to get involved.

“The moral crisis we have in our country — there is a role for us trying to figure out things like marriage,” he said. “There’s also a moral crisis that allows people to think that there would be some sort of other marriage … really there’s a role outside and inside government, but I think the exhortation to try to change peoples’ thoughts also has to come from the countryside, from everywhere outside of Washington.”

Paul went on to call Washington, D.C. the most “disconnected city on the planet from the people,” and said that America is desperately in need of “another Great Awakening” that sees thousands of people seeking and calling for reform in unison.

Sure, it’s probably just another politician’s lie, so what? I’ll tell you what.  It’s bad enough that the lobbyists buy them off, but it’s insult to injury to tell people that they have to be religious. Because that’s where this sort of thing leads to. Obviously this ditz is talking about gay marriage being a ‘moral crisis’ (geez, how do these people live past 40, they’re always so paranoid about shite!). That ‘unidirectional argument’ was used by David Barton, a known huckster who’s been revising US history (and had his books pulled off the shelves because they were riddled with errors!), a charlatan who is still conning his customer base dollars out of uninformed rubes who think that if they heard it from a fellow Christian, then it must be true!

And the crazies will continue to queue up for the presidency. The cycle of stupidity still flops about in a circle. The sooner the Republicans are gone, the better. They just muddy the waters, and then call them crystal clear despite the silt. The only solution is clear: the GOP has got to go. Chased off the stage amid jeering laughter. (Perhaps pelted with rotting vegetables? Nah –fun thought though.)

Till the next post, then.

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Allegories Gone Wild: The Mad Hatter Joins The Tea Party

Cross posted @ the Atheist Oasis
'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'

Much as I detest the bible, one quote springs to mind: “If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit."

There is perhaps no better illustration of this than this bit of profound stupidity:

Government shutdown just the start for America's Biblical revolutionaries

John Cornyn, the US senator from Texas, has been a stalwart of conservative causes. He did his best to destroy the Affordable Care Act. He opposes reproductive freedom and same-sex marriage. His voting record gets a perfect grade from the NRA, and he explained that cutting government benefits helps the poor because they "need a hand up, not a hand-out".

But apparently, he WASN'T "conservative" enough for many Republicans in Texas. Over the past few weeks, Tea Party activists floated the idea of replacing Cornyn with David Barton, the evangelical activist who has done more than anyone else to advance the "Christian Nation" myth. Although Barton withdrew his name from consideration Wednesday, Glen Beck (among others) is still holding out hope that a "true conservative" might step in to take down the perfidious Cornyn.

The fact that this kind of discussion is even taking place helps put to rest two very common misperceptions about the right wing of the Republican party. The first is that the Tea Party is primarily about fiscal and economic issues. It is not; it is also about religion.

The second misperception that Barton's abortive candidacy exposed is that the Tea Party is a conservative and patriotic force in American politics. In fact, it is a radical movement that seeks to destroy our present system of government. There is nothing comparable to it on the left or the right in American politics.

Let's take a closer look at what David Barton really stands for. He presents himself as a historian, but by now, no serious person can buy that characterization. His most recent book, The Jefferson Lies, turns out to have been filled with distortions of the actual facts. The book came under criticism from numerous conservative Christians – most notably, Grove City College professors Michael Coulter and Warren Throckmorton, who published a detailed refutation of the book titled Getting Jefferson Right: Fact-Checking Claims about our Third President. In August 2012, Barton's Christian publishing house, Thomas Nelson, stopped production of the tome, announcing that they had "lost confidence in the book's details".

But the facts have never stood in the way of Barton's "history", because the history merely serves as a platform for more ambitious goals.

Barton's political agenda couldn't be clearer. The organization he founded, Wallbuilders, holds the idea that church-state separation is a myth as its chief talking point. Barton also launched the Black Robe Regiment, an association of clergy members and "concerned patriots" whose goal is to establish "the American Church" as "overseer of all principalities and governing officials, as was rightfully established long ago".

Barton's ideas spread well beyond American's system of governance. In his worldview, global climate change is God's punishment for abortion. He also takes some interest in economic issues, usually to offer a "Biblical" perspective. People are on welfare, he announced on Wallbuilders Live, because they don't read Bible!

If Barton were some out-in-the-woods extremist, we could appreciate him as a colorful detail in the diverse and vibrant landscape of American religion. But he is on a first-name basis with Newt Gingrich, Rand Paul, Rick Perry, Ted Cruz, and Michele Bachmann. One of Barton's go-to organizations is the American Renewal Project, which is closely aligned with the fundamentalist policy group the American Family Association and whose "pastor briefings" bring rightwing clergy together with politicians.

The immediate cause of Barton's rumored run for office had to do with the government shutdown. Specifically, it had to do with Cornyn's failure to throw his support behind Cruz and push the button on an economic meltdown.

It would be wrong to characterize those who were itching to push that button as the "fiscal conservatives" in the room. Instead, the appeal of the shutdown to folks who follow Barton is precisely its apocalyptic nature. They want to create a crisis because they understand intuitively that the kind of change in our society that they wish to bring about can really only happen in the context of some major crisis.

Which brings up the second lie that Barton's candidacy exposed: that he and the forces he represents are conservative and patriotic. The separation of church and state that Barton decries as a "myth" has been at the foundation of the American system of government for more than two centuries. The claim that Barton and friends want to "take back" America is nonsense; they want to turn America into something it never was.

According to Barton, God is punishing American for its grievous sins, like granting women reproductive rights. Clearly, Barton's God is mad at America. But it isn't hard to see that Barton is doing the judging. He really doesn't like the electorate that returned Barack Obama to power. He doesn't like our diverse, pluralistic society that worships many Gods and no God. He doesn't like our nonsectarian public schools. And if he bothered to study the works of some of our Founding Fathers, such as Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, he probably wouldn't like them, either.

Some establishment Republicans might take solace in the fact that Barton has decided not to burden the Texas GOP with a nasty primary battle, just as they might rejoice in the defeats suffered by the Tea Party in the elections this week. But they shouldn't be overly optimistic. The predictable defeats of Tea Party stalwarts in 2010 and 2012 didn't stop the Tea Party and its raging base from being a persistent force in American politics, and we shouldn't forget that true Tea Partiers, such as Ken Cuccinelli and Dean Young, came within only a few percentage points of defeating their much better-financed rivals. The civil war within the GOP is by no means over, and if, as the Tea Party believes, you've got God on your side, it takes a lot more than a few narrow losses at the ballot box to stop you.

And David Barton has earned the title of ‘Mad Hatter’. How so? Despite the multitudinous quotes and speeches where many presidents have stated that SOCAS is indeed a reality (from Jefferson and Madison to Kennedy and Obama), Barton has declared that SOCAS is a myth. And who told him so? Everybody’s favorite imaginary sky-daddy, that’s who.

He’s had books pulled off the shelf because they were jam packed with lies, he’s also affiliated with racist theocrats like the Christian Identity, and to top all that off, he also is lecturer for Glenn Beck’s online university (another lowly fucktard who also makes too much money off of his moronic lies).

Luckily, Barton has declined – the thought of that particular crazy asshole running for office had me seriously considering purchasing a handgun. Why? Because they’ll pry the SOCAS out of my cold dead hands, that’s why.

That a sane person would even listen to either of these people means that the state of American education is crumbling into sound bites, madness and half-truths.

Till the next post, then.

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They Make ‘Em Big In Texas–And That Goes For Crazy Too…

Cross posted @ the Atheist Oasis

This is more saddening than shocking any more. As far as Texas goes, America would probably be better off it the whole state seceded.

Texas's war on history

Don McLeroy, chairman of the Texas State Board of Education from 2007 to 2009, is a "young earth" creationist. He believes the earth is 6,000 years old, that human beings walked with dinosaurs, and that Noah's Ark had a unique, multi-level construction that allowed it to house every species of animal, including the dinosaurs.

He has a right to his beliefs, but it's his views on history that are problematic. McLeroy is part of a large and powerful movement determined to impose a thoroughly distorted, ultra-partisan, Christian nationalist version of US history on America's public school students. And he has scored stunning successes.

If you want to see a scary movie about this movement, consider taking in Scott Thurman's finely-crafted documentary Revisionaries, currently making the festival circuit, which records the antics of McLeroy and a hard right majority on the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) as they revise the textbook standards that will be used in Texas (and many other states).

The first part of this documentary deals with the familiar "science wars", in which one side seeks to educate children in the sciences, and the other side proposes to "teach the controversy" in order to undermine those aspects of science that conflict with its religious convictions. But it's the second part of the movie where the horror really kicks in. As I explain in more detail in The Good News Club: The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on America's Children, the history debate makes the science debate look genteel. While the handful of moderates on the SBOE squeals in opposition, the conservative majority lands blow after blow, passing resolutions imposing its mythological history on the nation's textbooks.

Cynthia Dunbar, a board member who has described public education as a "subtly deceptive tool of perversion", and who homeschooled her own children, emerges as a relentless ideologue. During the hearings, she yanks Thomas Jefferson from a standard according to which students are expected to "explain the impact of Enlightenment ideas … on political revolutions from 1750 to the present", and replaces him with the 13th-century theologian St Thomas Aquinas. Moderate Republican board member Bob Craig points out that the curriculum writers clearly intended for the students to study Enlightenment ideas and Jefferson in this part of the standard, not a mix of Protestant and Catholic theologians, but the resolution passes anyway.

Dunbar isn't very subtle about her agenda. In one scene, the filmmakers track her to a prayer rally in Washington, DC, where she implores Jesus to "invade" public schools.

The board goes on to remove the word "slavery" from the standards, replacing it with the more benign-seeming "Atlantic triangular trade". They insist on calling the United States a "constitutional republic" rather than a "democracy" – largely because they want students to think of their country as Republican, not Democratic. So convinced are they of the timeless superiority of American/Republican values that one of them introduces a standard asking students to "explain three pro-free-market factors contributing to European technological progress during the rise and decline of the medieval system".

Historical figures of suspect religious views (like Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin) or political tendency (like union organizer Dolores Huerta) are ruthlessly demoted or purged altogether from the study program. Meanwhile, the board majority makes room for an eclectic array of ancillary figures from the revolutionary period, such as Charles Carroll and Jonathan Trumbull. What these marginal figures have in common, other than being dusted off from high shelves and promoted by the board, is the fact that they were loud defenders of orthodox Christianity.

Even by their own admission, the board members were hopelessly unqualified to make judgments about the history. So they appointed a committee of academic "experts" to vet the standards. The committee was a model of "bipartisanship" in the modern era. For their part, the moderates on the board appointed credible historians, professors at Texas universities; one was defended by a moderate Republican board member as "a good Republican … not some kind of crazy liberal".

The conservatives, on the other hand, appointed Peter Marshall of Peter Marshall Ministries, a group that seeks to "reclaim America for Christ" and is "dedicated to helping to restore America to its Bible-based foundations through preaching, teaching, and writing on America's Christian heritage and on Christian discipleship and revival". They also appointed pseudo-historian David Barton, the former vice-chairman of the Texas GOP and founder of the Black Robe Regiment. The latter, sinister-sounding organisation is an association of "concerned patriots" whose goal is to "restore the American Church in her capacity as the Body of Christ, ambassador for Christ, moral teacher of America and the world, and overseer of all principalities and governing officials, as was rightfully established long ago".

Barton is known for fabricating quotes from America's founders, or taking them out of context to build his case that America was established as a so-called "Christian nation". And here's the gruesome kicker: the Texas board actually ignored advice from its own, balanced committee whenever it contradicted the agenda of the far-right majority.

Sometimes, the most important characters in a story are the ones who don't show up. In the Texas battle over history, the heroes who went missing were the kind of people and organizations that might have defended the teaching of history in the way that the scientists mobilized to defend the teaching of biology. The scientists are reasonably well-organized. When creationism rears its paleolithic head in state legislatures or on school boards, it faces the opposition of organizations such as the National Association of Biology Teachers, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Center for Science Education, the American Institute for Biological Sciences, the National Association of Geoscience Teachers, the National Earth Science Teachers Association, and others.

Defenders of biological sciences can also fall back on court rulings such as Kitzmiller v Dover Area School District and Edwards v Aguillard, which prohibit teaching of creationism. They also have a wealth of popular treatments of scientific issues to draw upon, such as explanations of evolutionary theory by Richard Dawkins and other scientists.

History, however, is often left to fend for itself.

To be fair, in the Texas proceedings, some historians and activists made valiant attempts to contain the damage. Kathy Miller, spokesperson for the Texas Freedom Network, an Austin-based research and advocacy group, was allocated several minutes for her impassioned defense of religious and political neutrality in public education. Professor Steven K Green, director of Willamette's Center for Religion, Law, and Democracy, used his five minutes in front of the board to remind them that "the supreme court has forbidden public schools from 'seeking to impress upon students the importance of particular religious values through curriculum.'" The board majority smiled and looked away.

So, where are history's defenders?

Part of the problem here has to do with a common fallacy about history. We think of history as a "soft" subject. We know that it always involves some degree of interpretation, that the "narratives" are always "contested", and that the answers are never so obviously right or wrong as they are in science. We also know that there have been leftwing versions of the history that are just as distorting as the rightwing propaganda served up by McLeroy and friends. But it's plain wrong to think that we can only throw our hands in the air and conclude that history is whatever anyone chooses to say it is.

Some academics have gotten too used to speaking only with one another. Many could do a more forceful job of seeking to protect the public from disinformation. When I was researching my book, I came across plenty of academic historians who were dismissive about David Barton in private; but few were willing to go public, or to invest the effort in refuting him in detail.

Barton recently came out with another piece of propaganda, The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You've Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson. To their credit, a pair of professors who identify themselves as conservative Christians, Warren Throckmorton and Michael Coulter, have stepped forward to debunk Barton's latest exercise in their book, Getting Jefferson Right: Fact Checking Claims About Our Third President. But that hasn't stopped Barton's book from becoming a bestseller.

Maybe, we find it easy to underestimate the harm that bad history can do. McLeroy and his cohorts desperately want students to be taught that America is beyond criticism. It's greatness, they believe, stems from the values, principles, and methods of America's conservatives, and the only safe path to the future is to suppress or eliminate whatever does not conform to their image of a purified America. These "revisionaries" are far from the vision of the US bequeathed by the same founders whom the far right claims to revere.

The "glory of the people of America" as James Madison actually said, is that they broke free from the "blind veneration" of the ways of the past and learned how to draw on the "lessons of their own experience" in order to build the world anew.

The real issue here, as I see it, is that instead of laughing these assholes out the door, most people are too polite, nod, and burble some nonsense about how everyone’s ‘entitled to their opinion’ or somesuch thing. And of course, most crazy people take refuge behind religion to hide their illnesses and/or gain acceptance.

And while I am all for the open marketplace of ideas, these aren’t ideas: these are hidebound screeds that others are forcing upon the general populace. These are people that are polluting the tabula rasa of our children. Our children risk the chance of becoming polluted with the garbage these snake-oil peddlers are peddling. Sadly, because they hide behind religion, they cannot be brought to court for fraud, which is what should be done.

Till the next post, then.

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