Leap Of Faith?: Tea Party Activists Promote Bogus Religious ‘History’ Of Constitution

[Adsos Letter]

SOURCE: The Wall of Separation The official blog of Americans United for Separation of Church and State
by Rob Boston


Over the past few months, I’ve had several people call or e-mail to ask me if I know anything about a book titled The 5,000 Year Leap.

I have to admit that I was not familiar with the tome, so I looked it up. Published in 1981 by a conservative Mormon named W. Cleon Skousen, the book is just a tad unusual. It’s loaded with conspiracy theories and argues that America’s Founding Fathers modeled themselves on the biblical tribes of ancient Israel.

Despite its daffy premise, The 5,000 Year Leap has become influential in some circles of the Tea Party. Recently, George Washington University law professor Jeffery Rosen, writing in The New York Times, called Skousen “the constitutional guru of the Tea Party movement.”

This is not good.

LINK: http://blog.au.org/2010/11/29/leap-of-faith-tea-party-activists-promote-bogus-religious-‘history’-of-constitution/
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I have an ongoing interest in how eschatology affects the way people interpret the present and the degree to which it shapes their behavior, especially in the political realm of things. I've heard Skousen's name but haven't read anything he's written, so I may check it out.

Theocracy, and the theocratic interpretation of American history is where I believe many of the Teabaggers and Republicans will find some of their strongest common ideological ground. For anyone who has not read Rob Boston's book The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America I recommend it to you as an outstanding work which can provide anyone with the understanding necessary to challenge the theocrats on their interpretation of America's founding principles.

[TlalocW]

1. The Constitution being religious is catching on

By fundamentalists who will make whatever leap of faith necessary to prove it - from a "Biblical precedent" of 3's - Father, Son, Holy Ghost; Church, Spouse, Children; Executive, Legislative, Judicial to the insistence that leaders are called upon by God to do so, thus the founding fathers were all like-minded conservatives like the people pushing this nonsense.

TlalocW

[Adsos Letter]

2. And along with their interpretations come their policy decisions...

and unless we find an effective means to combat it, we're gonna be stuck living with it.

So not good for freedom, liberty...everything we believe the Constitution is meant to safeguard.

[ashling]

3. I gave an assignment in my Government class on

"Living Constitution vs. Original Intent" based, in part, on a video in which Justice Bryer debates Scalia.

One of the papers started with "The Constitution is divinely inspired."

[Adsos Letter]

4. How do you address that type of reasoning?

Or are you only allowed to address the gneral structure of argument, like thesis/evidence/conclusion/did-you-consider-the-strongest-argument-against-your-position type of thing?

[MedicalAdmin]

8. Reasoning? What reasoning?

You can't reason with a fanatic. You really need to understand this. One cannot challenge "premises" or "logical stucture." They are fanatics and need to be put down like the mad dogs they are.

The only good fanatic is a dead fanatic.

[Adsos Letter]

9. I'm pretty sure it doesn't work that way in the school system

especially at the secondary level.

As for "putting them down" I would prefer to work at strengthening our adherence to the Constitution; fanatics are allowed to be fanatics as long as they aren't allowed to impact my life.

[elleng]

5. Tell us more, please. Any discussions, or just papers?

[ashling]

13. First of all, I tell my students that

They are encouraged to form and express their opinions but they must be prepared to have them challenged by others. Therefore, they need to be able to support their argument with evidence and logical reasoning. "Your right to have and express your opinion," I tell them, extends only as far as your willingness to hear out the opinions of others.

In this case the student went so far as to talk about Moses recieving the 10 Commandments, the quoted them from the bible, and said that none of the Hebrews would have had the afrontery to ask what was meant by "covet," etc.

I try to stay out of theological arguments - I am only a lowly adjunct - so I told her that I realized that her life was strongly informed by her religion and that I did not want to question her faith, but that most of her argument (she did have some good stuff)was supportable entirely on faith and that that gave way to truncated or circular logic and that the most I could give her was_____.

But this stuff comes up quite a bit.:

such as "every descendent of a muslim was associated with 911" I replied that that could not be supported as fact, but only as opinion, and that as opinion it was not logical. To make that claim she would have to agree that every descendant of a Christian was associated with the Crusades, the massacre of French Hugenots, the genocide of indigenous peopless on three continents, all of which were attrocities that were comitted in the name of Christ.


or that the New York Mosque issue was not a freedom of religion issue because Islam is not a religion as they do no accept Jesus Crist as the Son of God, etc., et

[elleng]

15. Thanks, ash; good work.

[elleng]

6. dupe

[Xicano]

7. Great response

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD52OlkKfNs#t=1m35s

[FrancisTreptoe]

10. And so the old saying goes..

"If Fascism Comes to America, It Will Come Wrapped in the Flag & Carrying the Cross"

[cleanhippie]

18. Actually, Its "WHEN fascism comes...."

Its already on its way, wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.

[Xicano]

11. "You ain't taking my ten commandments!, You ain't taking my bible!"

"And you ain't touching my faith!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvPkHpE-oks#t=4m30s

[MissMarple]

12. If they want to emulate the Massachusetts colonists, they'd better put away their Christmas trees

And the wreaths, and the eggnog. All that pagan paraphernalia is not properly Christian. And the only thing they should be reading besides their bible is "Pilgrim's Progress".

These people are so ignorant.

[Adsos Letter]

17. And to live under the mental strain of predestination.

[starroute]

14. Glenn Beck is heavily into Skousen

Salon had something on it a couple of months ago:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/09/16/beck_skousen

Beck has created a massive meet-up for the disaffected, paranoid Palin-ite "death panel" wing of the GOP, those ideologues most susceptible to conspiracy theories and prone to latch on to eccentric distortions of fact in the name of opposing "socialism." In that, they are true disciples of the late W. Cleon Skousen, Beck's favorite writer and the author of the bible of the 9/12 movement, "The 5,000 Year Leap." A once-famous anti-communist "historian," Skousen was too extreme even for the conservative activists of the Goldwater era, but Glenn Beck has now rescued him from the remainder pile of history, and introduced him to a receptive new audience.

Anyone who has followed Beck will recognize the book's title. Beck has been furiously promoting "The 5,000 Year Leap" for the past year, a push that peaked in March when he launched the 912 Project. That month, a new edition of "The 5,000 Year Leap," complete with a laudatory new foreword by none other than Glenn Beck, came out of nowhere to hit No. 1 on Amazon. It remained in the top 15 all summer, holding the No. 1 spot in the government category for months. The book tops Beck's 912 Project "required reading" list, and is routinely sold at 912 Project meetings where guest speakers often use it as their primary source material. At one 912 meet-up I attended in Florida, copies were stacked high on a table against the back wall, available for the 912 nice price of $15. "Don't bother trying to get it at the library," one 912er told me. "The wait list is 40 deep."

[Adsos Letter]

16. Thanks for the link. I rarely watch TV or listen to much radio...

and I admit to avoiding Beck. I'll have to order this to see what kind of travesty of history they are now promoting, and what kind of policies are likely to be pushed because of it.