Lying For Jesus: David Barton
From RRW:
One of David Barton’s standard tricks is simply to assert things as if they are undeniable facts without ever providing any explanation whatsoever.
He does it when he claims that the Bible has teachings on everything from the Capital Gains tax to the minimum wage, just as he does when asserts that ideas central to our system of government were simply plucked wholesale directly out of the Bible.
Nowhere does Barton ever provide any documentation to support his claims; he simply asserts them as facts.
Case in point is the recent addition to his standard presentation that the Due Process Clause and the Fourth and Eighth Amendments all came out of the Bible.
How Barton arrived at this discovery is never explained, but it is not stopping him from spreading it relentlessly, as he did during his recent appearance on Daystar’s “Joni”:
Notice Barton’s repeated use of the vague phrase “they”: they were put on trial; they were not allowed a jury; they didn’t get an attorney; they wrote a book about trials.
Who are they? The Founding Fathers? Religious leaders? Some other group of people? Who knows, because Barton never bothers to say. Instead, he simply asserts that, based on the trial of Jesus and Paul, “they” decided to include the Due Process Clause.
Nor does Barton ever explain how these trials lead to the Constitutional prohibitions against double jeopardy, self-incrimination, excessive or cruel and unusual punishment or guarantees of a right to an attorney – he again just flatly asserts that it is so.
If Barton has actual evidence to support these claims, he apparently doesn’t see a need to share it. And why would he? It is not as if the Religious Right audiences to whom he peddles his pseudo-history is ever going to call him on it.
scotteriology.wordpress.com 
“When you laugh at … blurting out that the moon is made of red communist cheese, these people don’t learn that she is wrong. What they learn is that you’re a dick, that they hate you more than ever, and that they’re even more determined now to support anyone who promises not to laugh at their own visions and fantasies”
On a more serious note, this is a good article on the Barton phenomane:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/05/american-scripture-how-david-barton-won-the-christian-right/238603/
The author points out that there are more than superficial resemblances between how most evangelicals read the bible and the approach that David Barton brings to history.
The Founding Fathers came here in the ark and made up their government based on Biblical verses, being ignorant of a thousand years of British law. And then they cast lots and the lot fell to George Washington to become king. And they totally did not get any ideas like “constitution” or “senate” from any old pagan books about the Roman Republic.
Well, you need to a little bit fair here. This was a 48 second clip taken out of context.
evidence for what he says is true?
he generalized “they” for concision sake NOT precision. He doesn’t have hours to give you a history lesson.
this is why liberals have to nitpick at everything including definitions to try and worm their way out of the obvious and change (rewrite) history.
I’ve never seen David Barton’s clips before nor do I know yet what he stands for. Maybe I’ll vote for him, I don’t know yet. He seems to be good for America off of this clip (possibly) because he doesn’t hate America or what historical Americans (many PURITANS) fought for.