MacRaven - Dave Haxton's Weblog

Fri, 10 Jun 2005

For any of you who still don't believe that that we are, in fact, engaged in a mighty struggle for the very essence of the American Republic, I offer these quotes from noted American political and religious leaders. Read'em and weep...

via Sannion's Journal

/Asatru | 2 writebacks | permanent link

On 6/11/2005 06:46:20
JdJ wrote

At least one of those is bogus

You (and Sannion) get this comment since I can't leave a comment on the page with the quotes. While looking those over, I recalled that James Watt did not, in fact, say this: "We don't have to protect the environment, the Second Coming is at hand." Bill Moyers apologized to Watt for using that bogus quote in one of his shows last year. See this post at Powerline: http://powerlineblog.com/archives/009498.php#009498. While many of these quotes have achieved Legend Status, still they'd be a lot more convincing (and I'd be more worried) if there were sources attributed to them. As it stands, I'm reminded of the lists of "dumb politician quotes" that I get and which are attributed to either Dan Quayle or Al Gore - depending on who sends them.

On 6/11/2005 08:45:45
Dave H wrote

Well

You're right on Watt - but since your comment I've spent a couple of hours looking for other in the list that may be bogus, and haven't found any (yet). Watt did say several disturbingly similar things, however, that are attributed. For example: "My responsibility is to follow the Scriptures which call upon us to occupy the land until Jesus returns." -- James Watt, in an interview in the Washington Post, May 24, 1981 Watt was also responsible for banning the Beach Boys from the Independence Day celebrations on the Mall in Washington in 1981, claiming that bands such as theirs "attract the wrong element". Moyers got the quote he cited in error from an environmental website/newsletter, which in turn lifted it from a booklet on Mr. Watt published in 1991 - four years before Watt was convicted of influence peddling at the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development. I noted with some interest that the (mostly) conservative bloggers so intent of bashing Moyers for his (inadvertent) lie made no mention of the fact that Watt is a convicted perjurer. Moyers has apologized for issuing the unattributed quote. In fact, it appears that Moyers embellished the quote by attributing it to testimony before a Congressional committee - something the original booklet did not do. I can only conclude that the page in question, which I linked, was using as it's source the original booklet, or another source which used it, as it was (apparently) last edited in April of 2004, and Moyers op-ed didn't appear in the Star-Trib until February of 2005. The page I linked does not claim that the quote was from Congressional testimony - it leaves it unattributed. I must say that I found Watt's alleged statement entirely believable, given his well known evangelical Christianity and the traditional hostility of Christian theology to any care or concern for the natural world: "And God blessed them, and God said unto them . . . have dominion over . . . every living thing that moveth upon the earth" (Genesis 1:28) "The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every bird of the air, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered." (Genesis 9:1-4) "Man--that great and wonderful living creature, more precious in the eyes of God than all other creatures! For him the heavens and earth, sea and all the rest of creation exists" (Gen. Sermon, II, 1 of Saint John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, 407ce) Thanks for the comment, James! As usual, you made me think (and work)! Be well, Dave H.

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