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Founding Fathers have a new fan base that is growing daily
The Sarasota Herald-Tribune ^ | June 5, 2010 | Krissah Thompson (The Washington Post)

Posted on 06/05/2010 2:13:15 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - Earl Taylor has spent 31 years teaching that "the Founding Fathers have answers to nearly every problem we have in America today." Only in recent months has he found so many eager students.

On a recent Saturday, he held the rapt attention of 70 of them. The eight-hour seminar held at a roadside inn here was one of half a dozen "Making of America" sessions nationwide that day, all sponsored by a little-known organization based in Idaho.

Two years ago, Taylor, president of the National Center for Constitutional Studies, made about 35 trips to speak to small church groups and political gatherings. This year, he has received so many requests that he enlisted 15 volunteer instructors, on pace to hold more than 180 sessions reaching thousands.

If a "Tea Party" event is where the disaffected go to protest the present, his classes are where they go to ponder the past. Participants include members of "9.12" groups inspired by commentator Glenn Beck, Republicans, home-school groups and people affiliated with militias.

In Springfield, the day's students included a lawyer, a farmer, a local politician and a project manager for a construction company. Except for one man, all were white. Most were middle-aged, and there was nary a Democrat to be found.

Taylor walked them through a 131-page, fill-in-the-blank workbook that frames the nation's founding in a religious context and portrays the size and scope of the modern federal government as a form of tyranny.

His course became popular in part because of an emotional endorsement last year from Beck, who has praised the late Cleon Skousen, who wrote the course's curriculum. He was an anti-Communist Mormon fundamentalist and professor of religious studies at Brigham Young University, whose historical work has been criticized by academics as ill-conceived and inaccurate.

(Excerpt) Read more at heraldtribune.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Idaho; US: Missouri
KEYWORDS: 16thamendment; 19thamendment; 5000yearleap; 921; amendments; benfranklin; billofrights; cleonskousen; constitution; earltaylor; foundingfathers; godsgravesglyphs; history; inaccuracies; nccc; teaparties; thefounders; theframers; therevolution; thomasjefferson
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1 posted on 06/05/2010 2:13:15 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

adams...in regard to atheists...”that’s their problem”


2 posted on 06/05/2010 2:15:11 PM PDT by Sacajaweau (What)
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To: Sacajaweau; Clintonfatigued; 70th Division; unkus; freekitty; flat; rodguy911

We The People will be cleaning out the DC sewer in November. Thank God our founding fathers anticipated the disgrace that we have today and gave We The People a means to clean up their mistakes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJRIdeoceh4


3 posted on 06/05/2010 2:19:05 PM PDT by ExTexasRedhead (Clean the RAT/RINO Sewer in 2010 and 2012)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Simplistic nonsense. But hey, if it convinces people to vote for smaller gubmint, that’s fine.


4 posted on 06/05/2010 2:19:31 PM PDT by Huck (Q: How can you tell a party is in the majority? A: They're complaining about the fillibuster.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
But scholars say the course's emphasis is flawed. Gutzman, a Republican-turned-libertarian, found Skousen's work "filled with inaccuracies" and a religiosity that gives the free-market system a "patina of religion." Sean Wilentz, a professor of history at Princeton University, called Skousen a "fake authority."

Leave it to an atheist libertarian to believe that the free market CAN work without Chrisitan-Judeo values.

5 posted on 06/05/2010 2:22:38 PM PDT by aSeattleConservative
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To: Huck

I read The 5000 Year Leap, which is a publication based on Skousen’s teachings, and it relied on actual quotes from the founders themselves. I’m aware that such quoting, in and of itself, does not guarantee complete accuracy, but I’d rather rely on The 5000 Year Leap, than on some book or article that makes unsubstantiated claims.


6 posted on 06/05/2010 2:27:28 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (70 mph shouldn't be a speed limit; it shoud be a mandate!)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

The founding fathers were brilliant. Today’s career politicians are mere azzhats.


7 posted on 06/05/2010 2:35:55 PM PDT by VRWC For Truth (Throw the bums out who vote yes on the bail out)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Anyone who thinks that the Founders were libertarians, especially in the social sense of that word, is an uninformed dunderhead.


8 posted on 06/05/2010 2:37:42 PM PDT by Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus (We bury Democrats face down so that when they scratch, they get closer to home.)
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To: ExTexasRedhead
"We The People will be cleaning out the DC sewer in November."

In November we may get a look under the manhole lid. We might even get the chance to get rid of some of the worst sewer rats but unless we're careful well just get a newer, more devious breed.

9 posted on 06/05/2010 2:39:14 PM PDT by oldfart (Obama nation = abomination. Think about it!)
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To: aSeattleConservative

Absolutely NOTHING works well without Christian-Judeo principles.Those principles gave us the greatest system ever devised. It takes Godless men to undo it. If Americans permit this, they deserve what ensues.


10 posted on 06/05/2010 2:42:49 PM PDT by Paperdoll ( On the cutting edge)
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To: oldfart

I agree. November (and subsequent elections) is step one. We must be on them CONSTANTLY! If we don’t remain ever vigilant and informed they (those who would destroy what has been built over a span of two centuries) will prevail. It’s a damn shame we don’t have an active, patriotic press to help us watch the bastards.


11 posted on 06/05/2010 2:44:00 PM PDT by Thom Pain (2 + 2 = 4 : Defending the Constitution is CENTRIST; not RIGHT WING! Don't be labeled!)
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To: oldfart

Too bad We The People can’t hire several hundred private investigators to dig out all the corruption in our government and truly clean the sewer. Do we have a prison big enough to hold all those that should be prosecuted and convicted?


12 posted on 06/05/2010 2:44:18 PM PDT by ExTexasRedhead (Clean the RAT/RINO Sewer in 2010 and 2012)
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To: Paperdoll

Hence my ongoing battle with libertarianism. From the Ayn Rand Institute, to the Austrian School, to the Mises Institute, to the Cato Institute, to Ron Paul and the Libertarian Party; their inevitable failure will be due to just what you posted: “NOTHING works well without Christian-Judeo principles.”


13 posted on 06/05/2010 2:49:20 PM PDT by aSeattleConservative
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To: ExTexasRedhead
Thank God our founding fathers anticipated the disgrace that we have today and gave We The People a means to clean up their mistakes.

Unfortunately this may be the last time that we have that possibility. If 0bummer and the Demonrats have their way there will be millions more Democrap votes come 2012.

14 posted on 06/05/2010 2:59:42 PM PDT by luvbach1 (Stop Barry now. He can't help himself.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

15 posted on 06/05/2010 3:33:30 PM PDT by Bean Counter (Stout hearts...)
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To: ExTexasRedhead
We The People will be cleaning out the DC sewer in November.

Even if true, it won't do any good. The bureaucracy needs purging more than the elected officials, and only 535 Chris Cristie's could make that happen.
16 posted on 06/05/2010 4:14:00 PM PDT by BikerJoe
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To: Bean Counter

O man, did you have to post that image? I am about to have my dinner. Come on be nice =)


17 posted on 06/05/2010 4:19:58 PM PDT by Patriot Babe
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Glenn Beck does a Friday show of one Founding father bio....it’s very good.


18 posted on 06/05/2010 4:42:48 PM PDT by Ann Archy (Abortion,,,,,,the Human Sacrifice to the god of Convenience....)
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To: Ann Archy

Obama voted “present” more often than he voted yes or no in his previous incarnations as a state and federal office holder.

Contrast those “present” votes to the founding fathers. In July 1776 when they put their names on the Declaration of Independence they knew that the most likely outcome would be that they would be arrested by the British, tried for treason and executed. Further their property would be forfeited and their families made destitute. No one voted “present.”

Rather than signing their own death warrant they signed the most famous declaration of human rights in the history of the world and they bet their life on it. These men did not vote “present.”


19 posted on 06/05/2010 4:53:11 PM PDT by nj patriot (Gore is beyond help.... Snakes in the head.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Our Constitution is the fortress wall around each and everyone of us, we surely best start defending it!


20 posted on 06/05/2010 5:42:44 PM PDT by SWAMPSNIPER (The Second Amendment, A Matter Of Fact, Not A Matter Of Opinion)
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