1-22-16
This Mormon pseudo-historian is why the Oregon militants are so confused about the Constitution
Historians in the Newstags: Constitution, Mormon, LDS, Oregon militia
Any time the Oregon militants record a video testimonial — and they do that a lot — they’re conspicuously displaying a pocket Constitution.
That’s inspired some obvious jokes about whether they should pull out those Constitutions out of their pockets once in awhile and read them — but that actually misses the point.
The militants do read those pocket Constitutions, but they’re also reading fraudulent interpretations scribbled in the margins, so to speak, by a communist-hating conspiracy theorist promoted by Glenn Beck, reported the Los Angeles Times.
Those annotations were written decades ago by W. Cleon Skousen, an ultra-conservative Mormon and former FBI agent who believed the Founding Fathers had established a Christian theocracy and never intended for the federal government to have any authority.
Constitutional scholars, however, generally hold Skousen’s theories in churlish regard.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning constitutional historian Jack Rakove, of Stanford University, said Skousen’s writings were “a joke that no self-respecting scholar would think is worth a warm pitcher of spit.” ...
comments powered by Disqus
News
- How Tina Turner Escaped Abuse and Reclaimed her Name
- The Biden Administration Wants to Undo the Damage of Urban Highways. It Won't be Simple
- AAUP: Fight Tooth and Nail Against Florida's Higher Ed Agenda Because Your State is Next
- Texas GOP's Ten Commandments School Bill Fails
- Former Alabama Governors: We Regret Overseeing Executions
- Jeff Sharlet on the Intersectional Erotics of Fascism
- Scholars Stage Teach-in on Racism in DeSantis's Back Yard
- Paul Watanabe, Historian and Manzanar Survivor, Makes Sure History Isn't Forgotten
- Massachusetts-Based Historians: Book Bans in Florida Affect Us, Too
- Deborah Lipstadt's Work Abroad as Antisemitism Envoy Complicated by Definitional Dispute