Posted on 08/15/2005 9:29:54 AM PDT by dukeman
bttt
I'm glad Texas has a centralized textbook adoption board. These kinds of attempts to rewrite history get caught. Texas is such a big market that revisions forced by Texas get put in textbooks around the entire US.
Bump and Marked. Thanks!
Thanks, dukeman.
My favorite bit of revisionism is that we live "in a democracy", but by looking around you can see that it "has failed", requiring massive and radical reform to get it back to the democracy that jefferson and the other founders dreamed of.
I don't think that's revisionism so much as just plain old ignorance.
The author, David Barton, is a Texan and consults with the state on curriculum. I saw him speak at a conference this past June. His talk on the Christian foundations of America's founding BLEW ME AWAY! The guy is encyclopedic in the breadth and depth of his knowledge. Spend a little time on his website. It's an eye-opener!
Excellent read.
This is a topic that comes up often in our house. My husband has always been a lover of history, and while not anywhere near as knowlegeable as this author, pointed out revisionism in textbooks when he was in HS (did not go over well with the teacher) and he graduated in 1973..........
When asked about this by an audience member, Barton said Jefferson would have slapped anyone who called the book the Jefferson Bible. More importantly, the libs (as usual) have taken the book wholly out of context. Jefferson's purpose was to produce a volume useful to those missionaries who were trying to take the Gospel to the Indians. He reasoned that it might be more effective to first teach the moral lessons of the New Testament to the Indians before getting to the deity of Jesus and the redemption which comes from His death and resurrection. So, the "Jefferson Bible" was an evangelistic tool, and not a statement of agnosticism. And the libs hate evangelism!
To say that someone is Deist is not to say that they are not religous. Deists don't believe that the Lord has given Divine revelation directly to any human, but they do believe that there is a God and that He created the universe and all that is in it.
Most of the parents we know don't even look at their kids textbooks. Sigh.
As I mentioned above in another reply, I saw this guy speak this summer. He is absolutely on fire for the truth of America's founding.
Thank you, I will make a point of having him take a look at it.
At teh beginning of our nation there was a big debate over Republic vs Democracy, and the Republicans outnumbered the Democrats, and had a more compelling logic. So we are a republic.
There are those who would rather we have a democracy, without the encumberments of the constitution (hence persistent revisionist views of that document).
I think that by teaching kids that we live in a failed democracy, you prime them to accept radical changes towards democracy and socialism- if it has failed and gone astray, then let's fix it up toot sweet, like let's get rid of the Electoral College, or have Universal Health Care.
I don't see the "failed democracy" tactic as being accidental at all.
I learned something new! Thanks again.
"A Patriot's History of the United States: From Columbus's Great Discovery to the War on Terror" (Sentinel, 2004).
(They won't let me post a graphic of the cover, as that might be "solicitation." But others may do so if they wish).
See Edwin Gaustad, "Faith of the Founders," 2nd ed.
Great!
Patrick Henry is your man. He was a devout Christian. TJ was not.
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