David Barton Liar, Misquotes and Intellectual Terrorism
Posted by Jim Newman on May 11th, 2012 – 8 Comments – Posted in atheistsPost by Jim Newman
————————
David Barton is the most dangerous man in America. I hate to give him credit but if there were a most wanted list for intellectual terrorists it would be him. In my opinion if there were a prison for intellectual dishonesty he should have a life term. Not because of his opinion but because he lies for it, over and over and over again.
Barton is an intellectual terrorist. He uses lies misquotes to instill fear into Americans that atheism is ruining America and to instill false information into everyone that America is a Fundamentalist Christian Nation and always has been. He pretends that it was originally a theocracy and should be now. He wants to make people afraid and defensive of their Christianity. He lies for religious intolerance of anything but his rigid brand of Christianity.
He was forced to rescind 12 quotes publicly; from the Examiner.
In his 1989 book The Myth of Separation, Barton used twelve quotes which he claimed were from the founding fathers and the U.S. Supreme Court, which supported his claim that the separation of church and state as guaranteed by Thomas Jefferson in his Letter to the Danbury Baptists. He also said in the book that the “wall of separation” Jefferson wrote about was one-directional, meaning that the government has no right to infringe upon the church but not the other way around (3). Thing is, you see, after some tedious research by historians, Barton was called out on this lie. As cited in the article “Wallbuilders Shoddy Workmanship” by Rob Boston (in the magazine Church & State), Barton admitted he had made the quotes up. He was pressured into publishing a pamphlet entitled “Unconfirmed Quotations” in which he admitted such. The word he used was “spurious” which, for anyone who doesn’t know, means “of falsified or erroneously attributed origin” (4). In other words, he made them up.
I am sure Eusebius would be proud of Barton for it was he that said it was good to publish fictions if they supported the church. For Eusebius the church he wished to create was more important than what the church was. Recall that Eusebius was at the time of Constantine.
Gibbons (Decline and Fall of Roman Empire) writes of Eusebius.
“The gravest of the ecclesiastical historians, Eusebius himself, indirectly confesses, that he has related whatever might redound to the glory, and that he has suppressed all that could tend to the disgrace, of religion.”
Jacob Burckhardt the 19th century historian writes ”the first thoroughly dishonest historian of antiquity”.
Leave it to Christianity to breed contempt of truth in favor of ideology. David Barton deserves no exception at his utterly outlandish misquotes. His Christian reconstruction of America is a paradigm of propagandistic revisionism. I can only assume that in future years when I look up Liars in history Barton will be next to Eusebius.
He best champions Neoevangelisiom where it is no longer important or even proper to look at the bible literally or even exegetically or even hermeneutically. Rather, the bible and church are whatever you think it should be. It’s not even important to get the facts straight. It’s best to promote his peculiar Christian agenda.
It’s not that the Founding Fathers were Christian Jesus lovers it’s they should have been so they are. It’s not that a school boy was fighting at lunch, it’s that christian reconstructionists need an example of prejudice against passive prayer at schools to promote their agenda. It’s not that Patrick Henry insisted on a state religion, it’s that he insisted on Christianity as the state religion because that’s what he should have done. It’s not that Thomas Jefferson crossed out the miracles in his bible it’s that he should’t have so he didn’t. It’s not that bibles were printed for Indians, it was that they should have been.
David Barton is enveloped in a religious wet dream where he fantasizes like a little boy that his every Christian Dream will come true when he insists to all of his friends that it is indeed already true.
Newt Gringrich has been called America’s worst historian:
Is the reputation deserved? I am not qualified to judge Gingrich’s knowledge of pterodactyls or the merits of establishing a colony on Mars. However, I have just completed his latest book of history: A Nation Like No Other: Why American Exceptionalism Matters. And I can say, with absolute confidence, that it may be the most inaccurate, least intellectual book about our nation’s past I have ever read.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the Holocaust a lie and is one of the world’s greatest living liars, justifying lies based on ideology.
“The pretext (Holocaust) for the creation of the Zionist regime (Israel) is false … It is a lie based on an unprovable and mythical claim,” he told worshippers at Tehran University at the end of an annual anti-Israel “Qods (Jerusalem) Day” rally.
“Confronting the Zionist regime is a national and religious duty.”
But politicians are often liars so they are more easily dismissed. People who commit economic fraud like Ponzi are great liars. Stalin, Hitler. Mussolini, Mao and many other fascists dictators are wanton liars but we expect it in war. Is Barton engendering a war against history and secularism? Is his intellectual terrorism designed to encourage aggression to fellow citizens? Tea partiers spoke of bringing guns to town halls and DC and I am afraid their history teacher is Barton who wishes to “reclaim” America to it’s nonexistent Christian roots.
But a historian? I think Newt needs to stand aside, for David Barton is the worst and most blatantly inaccurate, purposefully misquoting liar in modern history. His books should be burned. I embrace opposing viewpoints but not intentional intellectual fraud. He should have to apologize for his misquotes every damn day until history is flushed of his wrong words. There are a plethora of sites out there showing his lies.
Barton told Stewart that he “never had to retract a single thing” But we’ve provided a ong list of times when Barton has had to retract his statements and assertions, as well as times that he has been directly called out for misrepresenting quotes and lying about historical events and figures.
This from Barton’s Bunk:
Barton’s work is not just an academic exercise. It is meant to have a political impact. For Barton, “documenting” the divine origins of his interpretations of the Constitution gives him and his political allies a potent weapon. Barton promotes a false reality in which anyone who opposes any element of his political agenda stands in opposition to both the Founding Fathers and to God. He believes that everything in our society – government, the judiciary, the economy, the family – should be governed according to the Bible, and he promotes a view of the Bible and Jesus that many Christians would not recognize. Opponents, even Christians, who disagree with Barton about tax policy or the powers of Congress are not only wrong, they are un-American and anti-religious, enemies of America and of God.
This from Rightwingwatch concerning the celebrated but wrong 18 yr-old misquote of a child punished for praying in school:
On NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press,” Gingrich described the situation as “a real case about a real child. Should it be possible for the government to punish you if you say grace over your lunch? That’s what we used to think of Russian behavior when they were the Soviet Union.”
But school officials said the incident never happened. Rather, they said, Raymond was disciplined for fighting in the cafeteria.
“I can tell you he was not reprimanded for praying,” said Kenneth Brostron, the school’s lawyer. “Do you think it makes sense that the teachers would look around the cafeteria and target the one student who was praying quietly at his seat?”
Herman Mehta wrote on Barton and Stewart’s first interview last year here.
The whole thing is just infuriating. Barton goes on and on (and on), talking over Stewart, saying that Christianity is under attack. Stewart calls him out on it. Barton changes the subject, cherrypicks court cases to prove some obscure point, and acts like he’s victorious.
Chris Rodda wrote “Liars for Jesus” and you can buy it here. If you can’t afford it now you can download the PDF here–she made it available after Jon Stewart’s interview last year. Jon’s interview this year is better but still too soft. Here is the first of her video’s and you can follow the rest at Youtube or here at American Creation.
Rodda has also debunked his latest book on Jefferson at free thought blog.
To begin my debunking of Barton’s new book, I picked the chapter titled “Lie #2: Thomas Jefferson Founded a Secular University,” and there are so may lies in just this one chapter that my video on it ended up being nearly two hours long.
The following is a list of his misquotes. Some will be familiar as they are still used now. That is the danger of misinformation. Learn to spot them and refute them as they are perniciously present.
= = = = = =
It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.
˜ George Washington (1732-1799), 1st US president, American revolutionary
= = = = = =
The only assurance of our nation’s safety is to lay our foundation in morality and religion.
˜ Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), 16th US president
= = = = = =
The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.
˜ Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), 16th US president
= = = = = =
America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.
˜ Alexis de Tocqueville
= = = = = =
I have always said and always will say that the studious perusal of the Sacred Volume will make us better citizens.
˜ Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), 3rd US president, author of the Declaration of Independence
= = = = = =
Whosoever shall introduce into the public affairs the principles of primitive Christianity will change the face of the world.
˜ Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), American revolutionary, author, scientist, inventor, satirist, statesman, and rake
= = = = = =
It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ!
˜ Patrick Henry
= = = = = =
There are two powers only which are sufficient to control men, and secure the rights of individuals and a peaceable administration; these are the combined force of religion and law, and the force or fear of the bayonet.
˜ Noah Webster
= = = = = =
Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise. In this sense and to this extent, our civilizations and our institutions are emphatically Christian.
˜ US Supreme Court, Supposedly from Holy Trinity v. US
= = = = = =
We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves … according to the Ten Commandments of God.
˜ James Madison (1809-1817), 4th US president, “father” of the Constitution and Bill of Rights
= = = = = =
The principles of all genuine liberty, and of wise laws and administrations are to be drown from the Bible and sustained by its authority. The man therefore who weakens or destroys the divine authority of that book may be assessory [sic] to all the public disorders which society is doomed to suffer.
˜ Noah Webster
= = = = = =
A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or eternal invader.
˜ Samuel Adams, American revolutionary
Banish this intellectual terrorism and do not let Christian Reconstructionist liars like Barton continue to sway the public, too easily terrorized in these trying times of global and economic uncertainty.
Jim Newman, bright and well
You can get the new ebook “Getting Jefferson Right” for $5 at
http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Jefferson-Right-President-ebook/dp/B007ZUDUAU
Buy it, read it, and review it at Amazon to get the word out; right now there are only 4 reviews and 2 are negative.
Here is Throckmorton’s site: http://wthrockmorton.com/
This review from http://www.politicususa.com:
This is a point-by-point take-down of Barton’s claims (with the glaring omission of Barton’s claims about Jefferson and Sally Hemmings) and it is brilliantly done, appealing to those same texts Barton uses and showing how Barton cherry-picks Jefferson’s words, fails to understand his meanings, or takes them out of context – even inventing “facts” out of whole cloth without substantiated them textually. They show how Barton invents terms (including especially “Academic Collectivism”) and misinterprets others, like post-structuralism (Barton even omits the hyphen). Barton’s technique is tendentious in the extreme, constructing arguments and terms to attack and destroy.
Throckmorton and Coulter do not cherry-pick Jefferson’s words in order to force history to conform to ideology but carefully examine his words, showing the reader where Barton has led them astray. Simply set this book alongside Barton’s; you can go from Barton’s carefully numbered lies to Throckmorton’s and Coulter’s analysis and almost watch the winds clear away the clouds of deceit.
There is no way of course Throckmorton and Coulter can counter every single one of the lies Barton tells but they do a very good job regardless, beginning with a discussion about how history should be done before examining the all-important issue of Jefferson’s views on church and state and the grounds for disestablishment.
One might accuse Barton of simply not understanding the issues under discussion but the number of times he is caught in an outright lie (for example, with regards the famous Jefferson Bible) make it difficult to accept that Barton is not willfully engaging in a corruption of history for his own ends
Are you sure you hate to give David Barton credit, or just hate David Barton, period?
I hate proven liars.
I hate unproven liars!
Chris Rodda goes to great lengths in this video to prove that David Barton lied about their exchange. From what I see with my own eyes, Rodda interrupts Barton while he is clapping and singing, what I can only assume is a praise song. She presents herself as a rather aggressive sort, slapping her hand on the book twice while it is in his hands. Rodda cloaks her aggressive nature while giving her explanation in this video, however, to go on and say that a very intimidating individual approached her to ask her if she needed prayer for anything is ironic. She admits that not even she can make out what she said exactly on the video, proclaiming what she said was, “I mean, you are just making this crap up, or something like that.” She also admits to telling Barton that he was the inspiration for her book.(Antagonistic much?) She goes on to say that, ” … he mumbled something like …” How’s that for accuracy? She didn’t say, “I beg you, I implore you.” And he didn’t claim that he “befuddled” her, turning her into a “flustering, stammering mess,” on the radio show. If anything, her video is self-incriminating.
I love how defenders of Barton adopt his tactics. Aimee omits something here. Yes, I said that you couldn’t make out exactly what Barton said on the video, but then said that I also had an audio recorder in my pocket, so I absolutely DID know exactly what was said. Aimee just chooses to omit that pesky fact and claim that I “admitted” that I didn’t know what was said. And as for me interrupting Barton while the worship service was still going on, I DIDN’T. It was over. Even Barton himself, on his own radio show, said that I came up to him AFTER the service. This exchange occurred AFTER the minister had already gotten up and ended the service, and had directed people to go to other parts of the church for other things. The band was just playing a song while people were getting up and moving to other parts of the church or leaving. This wasn’t part of the worship service. And, as for me slapping my hand on the book, there was nothing at all aggressive about this. It’s just something I always do when handing someone a book. I put my hand on the book and pat it as I’m saying something about the book. What I did while handing Barton my book was no different than what I do when handing a book to anyone — putting my hand on the book while telling them why I’m giving them that particular book. For some reason, the microphone picked the sound of me doing this louder than anything else, so that what was little more than a pat sounded like a loud slap. Anyone can go watch the video and see all this for themselves.
You might be a liar too
No, I am painfully honest. Ask my friends, my wife, or my children. If anything I do what my mother said not to, from the Italian saying: “all truths weren’t meant to be shouted from roof tops.” But like Sam Harris’s book on Lying admonishes I have to agree it is better to be honest even if it harms you–now, that is at least a tough call. In Barton’s case he is such a patent and superficial lier it requires no intellectual effort to recognize his malevolent maelstrom of factual misuse. I respect sincerity but not blatant bullshit.