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Founding Fathers have a new fan base that is growing daily
The Sarasota Herald-Tribune ^ | June 5, 2010 | Krissah Thompson (The Washington Post)

Posted on 06/05/2010 2:13:15 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - Earl Taylor has spent 31 years teaching that "the Founding Fathers have answers to nearly every problem we have in America today." Only in recent months has he found so many eager students.

On a recent Saturday, he held the rapt attention of 70 of them. The eight-hour seminar held at a roadside inn here was one of half a dozen "Making of America" sessions nationwide that day, all sponsored by a little-known organization based in Idaho.

Two years ago, Taylor, president of the National Center for Constitutional Studies, made about 35 trips to speak to small church groups and political gatherings. This year, he has received so many requests that he enlisted 15 volunteer instructors, on pace to hold more than 180 sessions reaching thousands.

If a "Tea Party" event is where the disaffected go to protest the present, his classes are where they go to ponder the past. Participants include members of "9.12" groups inspired by commentator Glenn Beck, Republicans, home-school groups and people affiliated with militias.

In Springfield, the day's students included a lawyer, a farmer, a local politician and a project manager for a construction company. Except for one man, all were white. Most were middle-aged, and there was nary a Democrat to be found.

Taylor walked them through a 131-page, fill-in-the-blank workbook that frames the nation's founding in a religious context and portrays the size and scope of the modern federal government as a form of tyranny.

His course became popular in part because of an emotional endorsement last year from Beck, who has praised the late Cleon Skousen, who wrote the course's curriculum. He was an anti-Communist Mormon fundamentalist and professor of religious studies at Brigham Young University, whose historical work has been criticized by academics as ill-conceived and inaccurate.

(Excerpt) Read more at heraldtribune.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Idaho; US: Missouri
KEYWORDS: 16thamendment; 19thamendment; 5000yearleap; 921; amendments; benfranklin; billofrights; cleonskousen; constitution; earltaylor; foundingfathers; godsgravesglyphs; history; inaccuracies; nccc; teaparties; thefounders; theframers; therevolution; thomasjefferson
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

It’s fine. I’d rather have people believing in fairy tales about the Founding Fathers than fairy tales about socialism. Those seem to be the options.


21 posted on 06/05/2010 5:46:03 PM PDT by Huck (Q: How can you tell a party is in the majority? A: They're complaining about the fillibuster.)
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To: ExTexasRedhead

“We The People will be cleaning out the DC sewer in November.”

We can replace the public face of corruption but the behind-the-scenes termites and career bureaucrats will still be there. It’s a start though.


22 posted on 06/05/2010 6:32:19 PM PDT by dljordan ("His father's sword he hath girded on, And his wild harp slung behind him")
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To: Huck

Life seems to have given you indigestion.


23 posted on 06/05/2010 7:19:14 PM PDT by Mind-numbed Robot (Not all that needs to be done needs to be done by the government)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Taylor . . .spun stories (of) Thomas Jefferson as a conflicted soul who wished to abolish slavery but because of his benevolence was reluctant to free his own slaves. "If you've been to Monticello and you see how Jefferson cared for them, they didn't want to leave," Taylor told the class.

He didn't free them because, as property, they were assets on which he could borrow. Jefferson liked to live the high life was almost always in debt. He needed those people held in slavery to hold off creditors. At his death, his estate was $107,000 in the red. The man who made the word "democrat' acceptable (it had been a slander) is the poster boy of what the Democratic party is now and has always been.

24 posted on 06/05/2010 7:28:17 PM PDT by Brugmansian
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To: Mind-numbed Robot

I always find it funny when people comment on how I must “feel.” The truth is what it is.


25 posted on 06/05/2010 7:48:36 PM PDT by Huck (Q: How can you tell a party is in the majority? A: They're complaining about the fillibuster.)
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To: ExTexasRedhead

I’ve always though the island of Adak in the Aleutians would make a great prison. It used to be a naval station and has living quarters, power plants, water supply... everything but access to the mainland.


26 posted on 06/05/2010 8:05:45 PM PDT by oldfart (Obama nation = abomination. Think about it!)
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To: Pharmboy

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2528605/posts?page=8#8


27 posted on 06/05/2010 10:26:19 PM PDT by SunkenCiv ("Fools learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others." -- Otto von Bismarck)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

"I HAVE SWORN UPON THE ALTAR OF GOD ETERNAL HOSTILITY TO EVERY FORM OF TYRANNY OVER THE MIND OF MAN"
--Thomas Jefferson

28 posted on 06/06/2010 12:07:16 AM PDT by LomanBill (Animals! The DemocRats blew up the windmill with an Acorn!)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Thanks for posting this article! The left is busy trying to protray the Founders as godless satanists in an effort to derail this movement. The Tea Party should recruit from this desire.


29 posted on 06/06/2010 3:59:10 PM PDT by SaraJohnson
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Never mind. This story relates to white, middle aged tea party/militia type Christian Men, worshiping middle aged white Christian Man slave owners who rebelled against the king who owned everything. The Constitution is irrelevant because of that.

barf


30 posted on 06/07/2010 4:59:27 AM PDT by o_zarkman44 (Elect Chuck Purgason US Senate http://purgasonforsenate.com/)
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31 posted on 06/15/2010 2:51:11 PM PDT by SunkenCiv ("Fools learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others." -- Otto von Bismarck)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
I am working my way through the Federalist Papers and I have started Tempest at Dawn by James Best. It is a fictionalized account of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia, based largely through James Madison's eyes. It is awesome.
32 posted on 06/15/2010 2:55:37 PM PDT by Lando Lincoln (Reconciliation will happen in November.)
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