Rewriting all of history

The wingnuts don't just rewrite recent history. They are hellbent on rewriting the stuff spoonfed to our children as well. Back in January I pointed to some wingnuttia from conservativepetitions.com in which they tried to go after blasphemer Michael Moore. Here's their latest, in which they seek to recreate the Founding Fathers in their own graven image:

Here, in the land of the free and home of the brave, is it not still the duty of our nation's instructors to teach American history as it really happened? The philosophical and religious origins of our precious liberty must not be purposefully ignored or cowardly omitted (sic) to be "political correct" and please a few vocal revisionists.
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Don't let school officials keep teachers from doing their duty.
Let's start with California while Cupertino's situation is attracting attention. Sign this petition to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and State Superintendent of Public Education Jack O'Connell calling for implementation of already existing state standards to teach the religious roots of America's liberty.
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In answer, we the people need to again hear and affirm the message of the Declaration of Independence as the bedrock creed of this American Republic, and the articulation of our nation's civic religion.

Barred from using handouts because some were deemed unsuitable due to the errant misunderstanding (sic) of "separation of church and state," teacher Steve Williams filed a lawsuit. His case, set to be heard on March 28, is based in part on complaints by school officials that intended handouts improperly indicated a religious foundation in the thinking of the Declaration of Independence and the writings of such Founding Fathers as Sam Adams and John Adams.

Williams' school principal, responding to parents' complaints, directed him not to distribute the materials even though the excerpts, such as "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" from the Declaration, entirely are in accord with the mandates of the California Department of Education for social studies and history. Williams not only is ALLOWED to introduce such evidence of the religious and philosophical origins of American Liberty, he is DUTY-BOUND to teach these concepts.

Not only students need to hear and fully realize there is no constitutional "separation" obligation to scour God from public education and civic life, because according to the Constitution's First and Tenth Amendments, there cannot be any federal law pertaining to the issue of religion. This is reserved to the states and to the people.

As Sam Adams once wrote: "Just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty, in matters spiritual and temporal, is a thing that all men are clearly entitled to by the eternal and immutable laws of God and nature, as well as by the law of nations and all well-grounded municipal laws, which must have their foundation in the former."

OK, I'll walk this by you s-l-o-w, OK? By and large, the Founders were Deists. And as discussed at length in the December issue of Harpers ("Jesus without the Miracles"), Thomas Jefferson (remember him -- author of the Declaration of Independence?) created his own version of the New Testament which excised all the water-into-wine, leper-healing, died-for-our-sins and such, leaving only the pacifism and screw-the-rich stuff you modern pseudo-Christians conveniently ignore. As subsequent archeological discoveries have shown, Jefferson's version is probably pretty close to the historically correct one -- Christ's teachings before the ancient version of Hollywood got hold of it and sexed it up for the rubes.

As Deists, they did not believe in a divine Jesus, Bubba. They were not Christians.

A few choice quotes, most courtesy of deism.org:

George Washington: "The United States of America should have a foundation free from the influence of clergy."

John Adams: “Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, ‘this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.’”

James Madison: "Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise."

Thomas Jefferson: "History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose."

and: “In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.”

Oh, and this: "The clergy converted the simple teachings of Jesus into an engine for enslaving mankind and adulterated by artificial constructions into a contrivance to filch wealth and power themselves...these clergy, in fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ."

Also deists: Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, Ethan Allen.....

So if you want to teach our kids that our Founding Fathers were very interested in protecting their new nation from wingnuts like you, be my guest. By all means, let's "teach American history as it really happened."

And while we're at it, let's teach them to write better than you do, too.