Chris Rodda: No, Mr. Beck, That Wasn't 'Some Professor' - That Was Me

[Hissyspit]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-rodda/no-mr-beck-that-wasnt-som_b_675325.html

Chris Rodda
Senior Research Director, Military Religious Freedom Foundation; author, "Liars For Jesus"
Posted: August 10, 2010 03:05 PM

No, Mr. Beck, That Wasn't 'Some Professor' -- That Was Me

Last Friday, on his "Rewriting Restoring History" show, Glenn Beck scoffed at one of my posts from my video series debunking the American history lies being told on his "Founders' Fridays" episodes and other shows. The particular post that Beck was referring to was one in which I debunked one of the lies told by his lovely assistant, and Beck University "professor," David Barton -- that Thomas Jefferson dated his documents "in the year of our Lord Christ."

- snip -

The reason Barton lies about Jefferson being the only president to sign these documents is pretty obvious. As he claims in his presentations, other early presidents only dated things "in the year of our Lord," but Jefferson -- the least religious of them all -- the man who coined the phrase "separation between church and state" -- well, he went even further and added the name Christ! And his audience, of course, believes him.

So, if it wasn't Jefferson, who actually did choose the language of these ship's papers? Well, that would be the High and Mighty Lords of the States-General of the United Netherlands. The language to be used on ships' papers was annexed to the 1782 Treaty of Amity and Commerce with the Netherlands, and the twenty-fifth article of the treaty itself stipulated that this was the wording that would be used. At the time this treaty was made, the Netherlands was still the Republic of the United Netherlands, which was a Christian republic where every public official had to be a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, and their official documents were full of religious language. Now, John Adams did sign this treaty and agree to this wording, but as the foreign minister of a country that hadn't even officially gained its independence yet, who was having a hell of a time even getting the powers of Europe to recognize the United States and make treaties with this brand new country, he would hardly have been in a position to argue with the eight High and Mighty Lords negotiating the treaty over the way they dated their ships' papers, and an inconsequential detail like this would obviously have been the furthest thing from his mind anyway.

Now, between 1782 and 1793, the United States wasn't really all that diligent about keeping to the precise ship's papers wording from the 1782 Netherlands treaty, or even making sure that all ships were carrying papers. In fact, some of the ships' papers from George Washington's first term were even dated A.D. instead of "in the year of our Lord Christ." But this changed when Washington proclaimed the neutrality of the United States in the war between France and England. Now the identification of ships was a high priority matter of national security. American merchants needed to be able to prove to the ships and officials of the "belligerent powers," as they were called, that they were from a neutral country, and the United States government needed to prevent foreign ships from fraudulently obtaining American papers. So, in a May 1793 Treasury Department circular to all the customs officials, Alexander Hamilton made it clear that everything was immediately going to start being done by the book.

- snip -

But here's the most interesting part of the story. Every president and secretary of state, whose signature was also required on these forms, was falsely swearing an oath when they signed them! Why? Because the "in the year of our Lord Christ" line was actually part of the oath section of the form. What the presidents and secretaries of state were actually signing was an oath that they were witness to the administering of the oath taken by the captain of the ship, where the captain was swearing that the ship was American owned. They were also swearing that they had signed the document and affixed the Seal of the United States to it on the date that that was filled in on it by the customs official. Now, since the president and secretary of state were just signing hundreds of these forms ahead of time to be sent to all the ports, they never witnessed the ship captains taking their oaths, and obviously weren't signing the forms on the date that they were swearing they had signed them on. I even found one dated in July 1794 that was signed by Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. What's wrong with that? Well, Jefferson had resigned as secretary of state seven months earlier in 1793. And there's another by James Madison that's actually signed the day before his inauguration, so Madison signed them before he was sworn in and sent them ahead of time to the ports and they started using them before Madison was actually inaugurated. So, apparently, none of our early presidents or secretaries of state had any problem whatsoever falsely swearing they had witnessed something they didn't witness and swearing they had signed a document on a date that they didn't really sign it on, even when that document was dated "in the year of our lord Christ."

MUCH MORE AT LINK

[Ken Burch]

1. Recent scholarship shows that Thomas Jefferson predicted the eventual invention of televions

and foresaw that cop shows set in Hawaii would play an important part in the development of the medium.

Consequently, the phrase he actually used in his letters was

IN THE YEAR OF JACK LORD

[RandomThoughts]

2. I think it is best not to make oaths.

Since it presumes somethings wont change, and do not not swear on things, since that claims knowing things I don't know.


Although verify a signature would not with something like that would not be a problem. That is not an oath on the year of the Lord, just saying it is the year of the Lord.



Although I also have never made any deals also.

[pansypoo53219]

3. beckkk has a insidious stupidity

infecting the even stupider beckkkies.