[Captain Eddie]

Originally Posted by Old Crow

A pair of relatively recent and excellent books on the subject of the religious faith, or lack thereof, of the founders are these:

The Faiths of the Founding Fathers by David L. Holmes and American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation by Jon Meacham.

I am by no means a scholar on the subject but I think the view of many constitutional scholars, and many Supreme Court decisions, is that the U.S. system of government is, in fact, founded on Judeo-Christian principles. Theism itself does not drive decisions of religion in constitutional matters; rather, it is the often thorny task of interpretation of rights and protections the founders built into the Constitution. Guaranteeing freedom of worship, freedom from government intrusion in religion or protecting one's right to be an atheist are not objectives that are necessarily inconsistent with the views of a man of faith, in my opinion.

Bravo, Old Crow. Very well stated! Wished I'D said that!

[DADoser]

Originally Posted by Captain Eddie

I apologise if I came across as thinking that, DA. I was just throwing my 2 cents in is all!

No apology needed. I was trying to make sure that I was not coming off as accusing you of something you weren't doing. I try to write "generally" and try not to come off as attacking anyone personally. Also, I never perceived you (or anyone else here) coming "at" me in a personal way either. We are just discussing - as if, in a virtual pub.

Take care -

[Captain Eddie]

Originally Posted by DADoser

No apology needed. I was trying to make sure that I was not coming off as accusing you of something you weren't doing. I try to write "generally" and try not to come off as attacking anyone personally. Also, I never perceived you (or anyone else here) coming "at" me in a personal way either. We are just discussing - as if, in a virtual pub.

Take care -

Yes, so far we all are......isn't it nice!

[timbo]

Originally Posted by Captain Eddie

Timbo, I'm not trying to enter what appears to be the start of a flame war here, but I have to respectfully disagree with one thing I think you are saying. I know nothing of the "right wing" Japanese organizations you refer to, so I have no comment on that. But I really hope you are not equating the conservative movement in the US of A with our "Iranian friend" or the neo-nazi's. They are definitly NOT conservative in any way like conservatives here in the United States. So, if it "goes both ways", it would be a good idea to provide better examples than those.

No I'm not - my objection is the use of labels to say that one political side only will manipulate historical research to bend facts to it's own arguments/agenda. Whichever side does it it wrong. The School text books and the Neo's are just the too worst offenders that I could think of at the time. Do some research on the Japanese text books - it's quite shocking what they are claiming and even more Erhart they are ignoring. These groups can not under any stretch of the imagination be labeled "Liberal".

Good example of the Neo-con manipulation of historical fact would be the build up to the Iraqi war and the play down to previous support for the great dictator there against his neighbor (recent but it's still history), and also the distinct lack of analysis and glossing over of previous campaigns though that region including the very bloody nose that the British got in the twenties in very similar circumstances to today - History repeating itself that was dismissed as irrelevant, and lessons told to be ignored in post war planning.

All sides blatantly do it and frankly it's wrong whoever.

[TopHat]

Originally Posted by timbo

All sides blatantly do it ...

Nah, only liberals.....


I'm just pulling your tail.....

[timbo]

Originally Posted by TopHat

Not meaning to start a so-called "flame war" here, but I'd like to have some examples of right-wing revisionism in the USA.

I was fortunate in that one of my history teachers was very hands-on and took the class to civil war re-inactments and did projects that helped to bring history to life, so to speak. And these lessons went beyond reciting dates and names....

Of course, re-inactments are now deemed bad because the participants may be wearing an offensive uniform or bearing a flag with an offensive symbol, so I guess that's not a good thing to expose children to any longer.....

Peoples views on history do change with the times, esp modern events such as WWII - Good example of this would be the release of the Enigma secrets. This wasn't known about for a very long time after the end of the war, and the fact that the Allies had such a magic ear into the entire German decision making process has to alter the cause and effect of a lot of the histories that were written before. Historians information became inaccurate - so assumptions and conclusions that they made would be wrong. If your fact are wrong then the whole stack of cards will come tumbling down.

Not history per-sea but in my eyes the most obvious neo-con manipulation thing going on at the moment in schools the US is the manipulation of Biology education by the "Intelligent Design" movement, which really if you look at it is Creationism by the back door. There is probably a place for it, but it is not in a High school Biology class. In Europe this would be taught in a religious education class - but again that is a touchy subject here so as not to offend one side over another.

[TopHat]

Originally Posted by timbo

Not history per-sea but in my eyes the most obvious neo-con manipulation thing going on at the moment in schools the US is the manipulation of Biology education by the "Intelligent Design" movement, which really if you look at it is Creationism by the back door. There is probably a place for it, but it is not in a High school Biology class. In Europe this would be taught in a religious education class - but again that is a touchy subject here so as not to offend one side over another.

I'm not familiar with the "Intelligent Design" movement, but I can guess what it is. Sounds like the new Toyota ads....

[tank nut]

Hey top hat, I heard that you have The war with the wife every night before bedtime. She wants the bed all to her self and wants you to sleep on the floor hehehehhehehheheh hahhahah

[TopHat]

Originally Posted by tank nut

Hey top hat, I heard that you have The war with the wife every night before bedtime. She wants the bed al to her self and wants you to sleep on the floor hehehehhehehheheh hahhahah

Uh...Timbo...so much for the Intelligent Design theory.....

[Epapazian]

Returning to the subject of this thread, I've seen several installments of "The War" and am wondering if Burns plans to do personal stories of Germans or Japanese who fought against us in WWII. I thought that this "both sides" approach was rather effective in his work on the Civil War. Does anyone know?