Department Of Defense Promotes Christian Right's fake History in Public Schools

[IChing]

Bruce Wilson: Falsified History Found in National JROTC Program Curriculum

Last Saturday, I uncovered falsified US History within the Unit 6 core curriculum for the national Junior ROTC program ; about 1/2 million American high school students each year are unrolled in the JROTC. I was astounded ; an historical fabrication concocted by David Barton, the leading historical revisionist claiming that the United States was founded as a "Christian Nation", was embedded within a national educational curriculum produced by the Department of Defense and taught, across the nation, to American public high schools students enrolled in Junior ROTC.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/51963/

The Treaty of Tripoli
"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."



http://nobeliefs.com/Tripoli.htm

[IChing]

1. This in indoctrination and using federal money

to promote a lie.

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Please inform the ACLU.

[Igel]

3. There's a funny equation in your post:

"the United States" = "the Government of the United States of America". It's not a small error, but clearly shows the two sides are talking past each other, two disconnected monologues. I think both are essentially right; the US, when it was founded, was a Xian nation, just as Turkey is a Muslim nation; but the United States was not founded to be a Xian nation, or have a religion-enforcing federal government.

As for the treaty, it's a bit of a conundrum: The Arabic is garbled there, it seems, and it's uncertain where it came from.

The way the treaty is usually presented makes the clause's presence enigmatic. But the reason is clear: The 'enemy' had declared jihad, and was basing their attacks on US ships, their demands for tribute (which the US had been paying), and the capturing and ransoming of US citizens, with a bit of torture and enslavement (in the name of Allah), all on the US's status as one of those inferior-yet-not-submissive Christian states. After all, the "Musselmen" made it a religious matter. The clause was primarily a face saving matter for the 'proud' Muslims--they'd made a simple mistake, and could justifiably stop their attacks with no dishonor, unlike what would have come had they simply had their asses handed to them in a sling by Xians, as the facts on the ground would have said. But on the US side there was no problem; the federal government does not engage in religious matters ... whatever the states and populace do.

But part of the clause is simply a face-saving lie. The US *did* enter into war with a Muslim nation, and whipped it. Or perhaps the preferred, face-saving reading is that since it wasn't the over-all nation, just a bit of it, it's not entirely false; just appropriately misleading.

edit: damned typos.

[donkeyotay]

4. There's a wonderful little book called "The Godless Constitution:

the case against religious correctness" by Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore (1996):

John Adams wrote in 1786 that we were "the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature...contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses...governments thus founded on the natural authority of the peoples alone, without a pretense of miracle or mystery...are a great point gained in favour of the rights of mankind" (p41).