The First Installment of My Barton-Jefferson Debunking is Now Available
Chris Rodda printable version print page     Bookmark and Share
Thu Sep 13, 2012 at 04:29:21 PM EST
Two things happened on September 11 this year - I turned 50 and became officially old, and I got the first installment of my debunking of David Barton's The Jefferson Lies done.

At some point as I was writing what I intended to be a single book debunking Barton's Jefferson book, I said to myself that you could write a whole book on each one of his seven chapters, which he calls "Lie #1," "Lie #2," "Lie #3," etc., so that's what I decided to do - a series of seven short books, one debunking each of his chapters. This seemed like a much better idea than cutting stuff out to try to cram it all into one volume. There are just far too many lies in Barton's book to debunk them all in a single volume with any degree of thoroughness, and anyone familiar with my other work debunking this crap knows how I like to be thorough and leave no stone unturned.

I'm not putting these books out in the order that Barton's chapters appear in his book. I'm doing it in order of which are most relevant to current church/state  issues. So, #2 of my series, the one about Jefferson and education is the first one, before #1 (the one about Jefferson and Sally Hemings). The next one will be #5, the one debunking all the lies Barton uses to claim that Jefferson didn't really believe in a separation of church and state. While the other five subjects are interesting regarding Jefferson as a person, it's the subjects of #2 and #5 that are the most important in the so-called "culture wars," so those are first.

Anyway, the print version of my debunking of Barton's "Lie #2" is now available on Amazon, and I'm finishing up the Kindle version today, so that will be available shortly. I'm also going to do a Nook version of this one; I just need to figure out how to do it since I've never done a Nook book before. (You gotta figure all this stuff out on your own if you want to be an independent writer and don't have people doing this stuff for you, but it's worth it not to be answerable to anybody except yourself and your readers, so bear with me if you're a Nook user.)

Instead of spending any more time explaining this project here (time that I could be spending getting the e-book versions done), here's my "official" description on Amazon:

In his book The Jefferson Lies, Christian nationalist pseudo-historian David Barton professes to correct what he claims are seven lies about Thomas Jefferson, in chapters titled: Lie #1: Thomas Jefferson Fathered Sally Hemings' Children Lie #2: Thomas Jefferson Founded a Secular University Lie #3: Thomas Jefferson Wrote His Own Bible and Edited Out the Things He Didn't Agree With Lie #4: Thomas Jefferson Was a Racist Who Opposed Equality for Black Americans Lie #5: Thomas Jefferson Advocated a Secular Public Square through the Separation of Church and State Lie #6: Thomas Jefferson Detested the Clergy Lie #7: Thomas Jefferson Was an Atheist and Not a Christian It is David Barton, however, who is doing the lying, and not those whom he accuses of being the revisionists. Through a series of seven short books, one devoted to each of Barton's seven Jefferson lies, the real liar will be revealed, and the real Thomas Jefferson will be preserved. This volume debunks the many lies and misrepresentations used by Barton in the chapter of his book titled "Lie #2: Thomas Jefferson Founded a Secular University."

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I'll be posting some excerpts from the book here soon. I just need to get the e-books finished and out there first, since hardly anybody seems to want actual printed books anymore.




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Chris, I enjoy your work. I bought your Liars For Jesus Volume 1. Look forward to volumes 2 and 3. Just bought your Jefferson booklet. How is your book going to be different from Throckmorton's? Awhile back you wrote an article in which you and Jeff Sharlet noted the links between the Family and the Christian Embassy, I believe. There was a suggestion that you and he were going to follow-up with some kind of article or report. Have you published that somewhere that I may have missed. Anyway, keep up the great work.

by James Estrada Scaminaci on Thu Sep 13, 2012 at 04:49:04 PM EST
... lies in Barton's Jefferson book that had never been debunked before -- and there are A LOT of new lies that Barton came up with specially for this book! Those are all debunked in mine in addition to the old ones that I and others had already addressed elsewhere over the years.

I can't remember exactly what I wrote about the Family / Christian Embassy connections. That's a while ago. I know that a lot of those connections came up in various things I wrote, but I'd need to look back to see if I wrote any single piece that was specifically about that.

by Chris Rodda on Thu Sep 13, 2012 at 05:02:03 PM EST
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And many, many more. BTW, you aren't old, LOL. I guess I will have to see about the printed books, since I don't have an e-reader. Unless there's an app for my new Droid phone...

by phatkhat on Thu Sep 13, 2012 at 05:21:19 PM EST

May I suggest that you paste a short excerpt of your book on Scribd.com as a tease for those who would buy it?

by Villabolo on Thu Sep 13, 2012 at 07:14:51 PM EST

Barton is close with that other charlatan and evangelist Randian Glenn Beck who I did hear was in support of Barton after you started putting out the debunking books. Wish you were on as much as the Barton fink of a liar is. Still they are out there and those of us who seek not just knowledge, but truth will find them that is a fact. Welcome to half century mark! Just turned 55 last month. But I feel older than that.

by Nightgaunt on Sun Sep 16, 2012 at 07:15:53 PM EST

The first installment of my Barton-Jefferson debunking is now available.  what are the different types of diamond cuts In it, I examine the so-called "fact" that Jefferson said "the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." I show that this quote is a misattribution, and that Jefferson actually said something quite different. I also provide context for the quote that Barton and others use out of context.

by isabelladom on Thu Nov 03, 2022 at 02:07:53 AM EST


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