MS-NOW moderator Mrs. Tur has been righteously roasted for her question to a panel on May 18:  “What about this passage from [House Speaker] Mike Johnson declaring that our rights do not derive from government, they come from you, our Creator and heavenly father.  Is this him putting God over the Declaration of Independence?”

Speaker Johnson, of course, was quoting from the Declaration itself:  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

But we can hardly blame Mrs. Tur for her historical illiteracy.  Quite a number of my students express surprise that the Founders believed in God at all.  They have never been told!  Even those who do know and understand the language of the Declaration of Independence are usually amazed to learn how much the Founders said about God in their various writings, and how deeply their faith influenced their actions.

What were they taught in school?  What were they not taught?

Once, when a high school textbook editor asked me to make the language of the Declaration of Independence clear to students, he objected because I complied.  After I wrote that by the “Creator,” the Framers means God, he protested, “Couldn’t you say ‘good’ or something?”

One can only assume that in high school, little Katy Tur was taught this way too, poor girl.

I wonder what principles she now holds.  Would she say that our political documents should be over God, making a god of the government itself?

But the question almost answers itself.

MORE NEW STUFF:

“Clear Thinking in a Crazy World” – Review of my new book Pandemic of Lunacy by Jeff Mirus at Catholic Culture.

“AI, Education, and the Collapse of Thinking” – Part 1 of a two-part conversation between me and Andrew McDiarmid at The Human Adventure.