I see that David Barton was the No. 1 trending Google topic on Wednesday. Glenn Beck must be beside himself with glee upon hearing that bit of news.
David Barton (Source: The Reid Report)
What prompted Barton — the Texas evangelist, Republican operative, and No. 1 naysayer on the suggestion that there should be a separation of church and state — to become the top trending Google topic? It was a three-part interview he did with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” on Tuesday.
Links to all three parts of the interview appear below:
How does Glenn Beck fit into all of this? Glenn is a major David Barton cheerleader. It’s like they’re joined at the hip. When Glenn goes on his show(s) and starts misinforming people about the true intentions of America’s founding fathers, David Barton is the one he calls in to take on the religion side of things.
Television and radio host Glenn Beck at CPAC. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I’ve seen this combination of characters in action myself for quite a while now. You see, in a way I guess you could say I’m a Glenn Beck “fan.” The dude just fascinates me to no end, and he has ever since he was a morning zoo disc jockey and he pulled stunts like calling a competitor’s wife on the air after she’d had a miscarriage and made fun of her husband, asking if he could do anything right — including having a baby. If you do your own heavy-duty research on Glenn Beck alone, you’ll be amazed that the man’s nose isn’t the length of Pinocchio’s.
Yep, it’s that Glenn Beck who’s so chummy with David Barton, who’s such a key player in Glenn’s past efforts to become a “savior” in Israel.
It’s that David Barton who repeatedly continues to assert that founding fathers such as Thomas Jefferson never intended for there to be any “separation of church and state.”
Barton so coolly and calmly claimed in Tuesday’s “Daily Show” interview that no religion would ever attempt to have any say in what should be considered a “national religion” and that religions would go along to get along on matters of national importance that a few tidbits might have been overlooked. Tidbits such as:
Abortion rights and a woman’s right to choose.
The stem cell research debate.
Gay rights and religions’ various roles in fighting gay rights.
How soon we forget recent Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum saying that there is no such thing as a “liberal Christian.” As in, all Christians (in some people’s minds) must be conservative because liberals are heathens.
Need I go on?
I’m not going to play David Barton’s little game and say that Thomas Jefferson was a complete and total atheist, or at least an agnostic. I do believe that many of the founding fathers did have some form of spiritual belief, including Jefferson himself.
On the other hand, Jefferson and the founding fathers knew exactly the kinds of hazards and the kind of hornets’ nest that can be stirred up when a country starts considering itself a purely “Christian nation” and begins to pass so many of its laws based on religious beliefs.
If it were, I as a Seventh-day Adventist or Glenn Beck as a Mormon just might have to start looking over our shoulder as to how we practice our own religions.
The next time you see or hear David Barton claiming that Thomas Jefferson never said there should be a “separation of church and state,” just remember the words Jefferson wrote in the following letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802.
To messers. Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson, a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.
Gentlemen
Portrait of Thomas Jefferson by Rembrandt Peale in 1800. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, and in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.
I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.
For some reason that doesn’t really matter anyway, I’m in a Jackson Browne mood today. So don’t ask me why, it’s just … one of those moods.
Jackson Browne, Drammenshallen, Norway (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
And why not? There’s certainly nothing wrong with a Jackson Browne tune. They’re not overly complex, but they’re surely not simple tunes either. They’re pretty laid back for the most part, but when they rock … they rock.
They speak to the common man (he did record an album called “For Everyman” in 1973), and the common musician and their musical crew (as in the tune “The Load-Out” from the best-selling “Running On Empty” album that I played to death in my car when I had it on 8-track tape during my first year of college).
He spent a brief period of time back in the 1960s with a favorite country-rock band of mine, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. And he’s been filling up the charts one way or another in the years since — either by having other people record songs he’s written or by turning his own songs into hits himself.
The man is one finely tuned songwriting machine. His songs speak for themselves.
A View From The Middle (Class) 