Category: david barton

Glenn Beck Does Double Take as David Barton Says Third Great Awakening Has Started

According to David Barton, the Third Great Awakening has started.
At Glenn Beck’s website, we learn that Beck and Barton talked after Glenn Beck’s Restoring Unity Rally on Saturday about the GA3.

GLENN: I think this is — I think we’re at the beginning. I flew back with David Barton yesterday. And David said, just matter-of-factly, he said, we’re in the awakening. And I said, I leaned up and I said, hold on. What did you just say. And he said, we’re in the awakening. And I said, the third great awakening? And he said, oh, yeah. I truly believe it’s happening now. That’s great that’s great. He’s the one that told me about the great awakening. He’s like, we need the great awakening to happen. And we had people of all different faiths walking together.

I am not a Great Awakening scholar but I am pretty sure you don’t get to declare the beginning of a great historical movement like that.
I am also pretty sure David Barton’s declaration that GA3 is here is a good sign it isn’t.
 
 
 
 

Salon Article on David Barton

Julie Ingersoll posted on David Barton’s historical misadventures today at Salon. The article is a lengthy section from her book Building God’s Kingdom: Inside the World of Christian Reconstructionism.
Julie’s article brings together several strands of thinking which have influenced Barton and is a good introduction for those wanting some background on the collector of historical documents. It is a plus that she includes a mention of Getting Jefferson Right (one correction, we published our book in 2012, not long after The Jefferson Lies by Barton came out).

Barton’s work has been the subject of extensive critique by bloggers, reporters, and other critics, some of whom are scholars publishing peer-reviewed critiques, but, for the most part, scholars have not devoted a lot of attention to debunking his claims. Beginning in about 2011, two conservative Christian professors from Grove City College, Warren Throckmorton, professor of psychology, and Michael Coulter, professor of humanities and political science, published a critique of Barton’s The Jefferson Lies entitled Getting Jefferson Right: Fact Checking Claims about Our Third President. The book was received well by scholars, and the authors’ credentials as conservative Christians undermined Barton’s defense that criticism of his work was ideological rather than factual. The Jefferson Lies was withdrawn by its publisher. One might expect under the weight of such resounding rejection, Barton would disappear into obscurity. Yet Barton’s supporters remain as devoted as before. Criticism from scholars (whether Christian or not) is dismissed as liberal, socialist, and even pagan. Discredited in the larger culture, Barton remains influential in the conservative Christian subculture.

Go read the rest at Salon.

Note to David Barton: The Obama Admin's Justice Dept Has Prosecuted 12,859 Defendants for Child Porn Related Crimes Since FY 2009

Yesterday, David Barton told his Wallbuilders’ Live audience that the Obama administration has not prosecuted a single case of child pornography. He said, “there has not been a single prosecution of child pornography under this administration. There were many under previous administrations; this administration just shut it down.”
I also pointed out that Barton has made this claim before. A quick review of the press releases for the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the DOJ’s website reveals numerous actions by the Obama administration to prosecute crimes involving children (see 2009, 2010,2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014).
Today, I asked the Justice Department’s Office of Public Affairs for the number of prosecutions during the Obama administration. Spokesman Peter Carr sent the figures for years 2009-2014 . The number of defendants per fiscal year are as follows:
2009 – 2,075
2010 – 2,058
2011 – 2,254
2012 – 2,012
2013 – 2,331
2014 – 2,129
The crimes involved are described by the Justice Department as:
18 U.S.C. § 2251- Sexual Exploitation of Children (Production of child pornography)
18 U.S.C. § 2251A- Selling and Buying of Children
18 U.S.C. § 2252- Certain activities relating to material involving the sexual exploitation of minors (Possession, distribution and receipt of child pornography)
18 U.S.C. § 2252A- certain activities relating to material constituting or containing child pornography
18 U.S.C. § 2260- Production of sexually explicit depictions of a minor for importation into the United States
Mr. Carr didn’t have figures for previous years but I did find this article also citing Mr. Carr in 2007. According to an article in the Washington Post, defendants prosecuted for child porn increased from 594 during President Clinton final year to 1,549 in FY 2006. I wasn’t able to quickly find how many prosecutions took place in 2007 and 2008, but I think the picture is plain enough.
One must try very hard to be as wrong as Barton is here. Barton says the Obama administration hasn’t prosecuted a single case; the Justice department says that nearly 13,000 cases have been prosecuted.
I believe Mr. Barton owes his audience and the hard working law enforcement professionals an apology.

Ted Cruz and Bobby Jindal Headline David Barton's ProFamily Legislative Conference

Ted Cruz and Bobby Jindal will headline David Barton’s ProFamily Legislative Conference in early November. Cruz and Jindal are both running for the GOP’s presidential nomination.
In all seriousness, how can this be a good thing when the person sponsoring the conference can’t get his facts straight? Just in the last two days, Barton has made false claims about gender identity in the military and the Obama administration’s record on prosecution of child porn.
Watch this video to see if your state senator or representative endorses the conference.
[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/134212588[/vimeo]
 
 

David Barton Doubles Down on His Gender Identity Nonsense

Before you exclaim, “Not another David Barton post!” I want you to remember that at least two men running for the GOP presidential nomination (Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee) take Mr. Barton seriously and encourage others to do the same.
Recently, David Barton said on a Mission Radio podcast that churches had to hire pedophiles to run their nurseries because you can’t discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. Nearly everything he said about that topic was incorrect.
Now, Right Wing Watch discovered that Barton is telling evangelicals (click the link for the audio) that the military can’t discharge soldiers for bestiality and/or pedophilia.

“There’s 82 official gender identities now and they all have equal status and protection here,” Barton said, “so we’re talking pedophiles. If you’re a military member and you have an inclination for young children, you can’t be kicked out of the military for that anymore because that is your gender identity. If you are into having sex with animals, bestiality, that is one of the 82 gender identities, you cannot be kicked out for your lack of judgment and your very perverse taste on that.”

If Barton protests that he is only talking about inclinations, then he is making things up just to generate unfocused outrage. You never could be kicked out of somewhere for thinking something unknown to anyone but yourself.
The Uniform Code of Military Justice addresses these matters.
Media covering Cruz and Huckabee: When you have some down time and you are not talking about weighty matters like Iran and abortion, ask the candidates about their praise for a pundit who didn’t know that ENDA hasn’t passed yet and thinks that, by law, churches have to hire pedophiles. Oh, and ask them if the Constitution quotes the Bible verbatim. Ask if violent crime in the nation is going up or down. And how about asking if HIV/AIDS research is a pointless effort since God won’t allow an HIV vaccine.