“…racist “birther” attacks on President Obama, discussions of the conspiracy behind the problem facing America (complete with anti-Semitic illustration), Christian nationalism, anti-environmentalism, and serious calls for legislation promoting states’ rights and “nullification.”

While Christian nationalism is often in the mix in such far right settings as this, the presentation on the subject stood out to veteran rightwatcher Burghart.  

[One of the speakers was]…Sandpoint High School senior Brady Smith, who had attended something called “the patriot academy” in Texas.  A lanky redhead in a dark suit. Smith read from his notes about how the root cause of the country’s sickness was that we’ve forsaken our Godly heritage as a Christian nation. He listed several problems: the attack on “traditional marriage,” abortion, and our public education system not teaching Christianity, as symptoms of the larger sickness. The cure to all that ails the country, according to Smith, was a return to our Godly heritage. His remarks were warmly received. But to the outside observer, Brady Smith’s youth foretold a tragedy in the making.

You may be wondering, as I did, what is the Patriot Academy?  It turns out that it may not only be where Brady Smith got many of his ideas — it provides us with a window on the growing role of conservative Christian homeschooling in Republican electoral politics.  

Patriot Academy is a training and ideological indoctrination program for young prospective conservative political leaders. Held annually at the Texas state capitol in Austin since 2003, the Patriot Academy is a project of Torch of Freedom Foundation, headed by Rick Green a former State Representative (1999-2003) from Dripping Springs, Texas. Green is also an associate of Christian historical revisionist David Barton’s Wall Builders empire. Green travels the U.S. giving Christian nationalist lectures at churches, Christian academies and home schooling conventions. He ran as a the Republican candidate in a close-but- unsuccessful race for the Texas Supreme Court in 2010. (David Barton is the former longtime Vice-Chair of the Texas Republican Party, who has barnstormed the country on behalf of the Republican National Committee in election years.)

The group’s Facebook page describes the event as “a five-day political training program where students age sixteen to twenty-five learn about America’s system of government from a Biblical worldview.” They claimed that 85 students from 22 states participated in 2010 and that they are hoping for 100 at the next session in August 2011. Many participants have been homeschooled.

Interestingly, the Torch for Freedom Foundation web site, has among its very few links to other groups, one to an apparently forthcoming electorally focused entity called Stand USA.. Also interesting, is that the Patriot Academy’s Facebook site “Likes” only two other sites — Rick Green and American Majority. The latter turns out to be an electoral training organization headed by Ned Ryun, the co-founder of Generation Joshua, the political mobilization arm of the Christian Rightist, Home School Legal Defense Association. He is the son of former Rep. Jim Ryun (R-KS) and is a former writer for president George W. Bush. American Majority, also produces historical material, which while de-emphasizing religious themes, seeks to adjust history to justify their current political views.

History is powerful, which is why the religious and secular right invoke it so often. But progressives have generally not done well in addressing how the religious and secular right manipulates history to craft a contemporary political narrative that places them conveniently as the true interpreters of the will of God and the Founding Fathers. I wrote back in 2007 that

Christian revisionist-influenced political breezes are even blowing in the Democratic Party. Prominent campaign consultants are advising their clients not to use the phrase separation of church and state because it raises “red flags with people of faith” and because the phrase does not appear in the Constitution. This is an excellent example of how successful Christian revisionists have been in their efforts to delegitimize the term as part of their efforts to shape and control public discourse in their direction. This is also symptomatic of the way that our political leaders are so far away from being able to articulate a compelling narrative of the story of religious liberty in America, that some are conceding the ground and listening to campaign consultants who say that it is better to say nothing.

Clearly, we need to do better, much better than this. Meanwhile, homeschoolers steeped in Christian nationalism have been systematically groomed and mobilized to provide fresh blood and perspective in the Republican coalition. And national pols who know better, from John McCain to Newt Gingrich are pandering to Christian Nationalism.

According to an article in World Net Daily, profiling the homeschooled (til the 9th grade) and then-Congresswoman elect Jaime Herrera (R-WA)

Homeschoolers were active nationwide in the mid-term elections, with a division of the Homeschool Legal Defense Association called Generation Joshua deploying 900 students in 21 races.

The Student Action Teams, or SATs, of about 45 or 50 were sent out five days before the election. In previous elections, they have worked for candidates such as Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Gov. Bob McDonnel of Virginia and Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.

Daniel Webster, a homeschooling father, who was infamously smeared by opponent Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., as “Taliban Dan,” was a beneficiary of Generation Joshua’s Florida efforts last week. Webster defeated Grayson by 18 points.

At this writing, American Majority (whose constituency certainly extends far beyond homeschoolers) has trainings coming up in a dozen states, notably the battleground state of Wisconsin.

Meanwhile, the more extreme elements of the homeschooling movement have had many years to develop, and have done so largely unnoticed, with a few exceptions. The 2006 documentary Jesus Camp revealed neo-pentecostal summer camp director Becky Fischer proudly teaching children that their lives would be defined by their service in God’s Army, and that that was not merely metaphorical. The film also showed Religious Right leader Lou Engle personally coaching the children (on a field trip from North Dakota) in antiabortion protest at the U.S. Supreme Court.

All this follows the trends that were clear when I was writing about Christian nationalism and revolutionary theocratic elements of Christian homeschooling for my book Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy. At the time, a staffer at the Home School Legal Defense Association, Chris Klicka wrote that sending children to public school “violates nearly every Biblical principle… It is tantamount to sending our children to be trained by the enemy.” Klicka also urged Christian homechoolers not to have anything to do with non-Christian homeschoolers. “The differences I am talking about,” he insisted, “have resulted in wars in the not too distant past.”

Journalist Eleanor Bader wrote about one revolutionary political training effort in 2009. She reported that longtime antiabortion leader (Operation Save America) Rusty Thomas was organizing what he called a Kingdom Leadership Institute, which is a forerunner to what he believes will be a bloody conflict the goal of which will be, writes Bader,

“…not only to criminalize abortion and homosexuality, return prayer to the schools, get women out of the workplace, and declare the U.S. a Christian nation, but also to impose Biblical rule on all who reside within our national borders.”

In briefly highlighting these elements of the homeschooling movement, I do not mean to suggest that all homeschoolers, or even Christian homeschoolers, are necessarily conservative, theocratic or even political. Rather, it is important to understand these elements that are active and significant, even if mostly operating just beyond our field of vision. It is also important to stress that just because parents and teachers might try to raise children to become theocratic end times revolutionaries and/or faux 21st century versions of the Founding Fathers, that doesn’t mean that they will succeed in raising up a generation of David Bartons, Rick Greens, Rusty Thomas’s, Lou Engles and Becky Fischers. But by that standard, it doesn’t mean that they won’t either.

[Crossposted from Talk to Action]

During the 2008 presidential campaign, then-Alaska Governor Sarah Palin accused candidate Barack Obama of “paling around with terrorists”, referring to one-time Weatherman Bill Ayers, who has long since become a member of Chicago’s political/policy establishment, regularly rubbing shoulders with establishment Republicans as well as Democrats, primarily due to his involvement in urban education policy.

“It was never a concern by any of us in the Chicago school reform movement that he had led a fugitive life years earlier,” former Illinois state Republican Rep. Diana Nelson, told NPR, in a barely-noticed story that got lost in the flood of wild accusations. Nelson had worked with both Obama and Ayers over the years. “It’s ridiculous,” Nelson said. “There is no reason at all to smear Barack Obama with this association. It’s nonsensical, and it just makes me crazy. It’s so silly.”

But now it turns out that another Alaskan Republican—long-time Congressmember Don Young—has not just been palling around with actual terrorists, he’s even signed one of their seditious documents—a “Letter of Declaration”—calling for “alter[ing] or abolish[ing]” the government should it “seek to further tax, restrict or register firearms”. This is a clear-cut call for sedition, given that all the government actions cited are perfectly constitutional according to the most conservative Supreme Court in 70+ years.

A move is now afoot calling for Young to reaffirm the oath of office that he violated in signing the “Letter of Declaration.” The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence has created a petition calling on Young to re-swear his oath to the U.S. Constitution. As explained in a press release:

CSGV’s petition calls on Rep. Young to immediately re-swear his oath to our Constitution and repudiate the “Letter of Declaration.” It also calls on NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre to publicly repudiate the letter and Young’s signing of it.

Young signed the “Letter”, drafted by Schaeffer Cox of the Second Amendment Task Force/Alaska Peacekeepers Militia, on April 13, 2009, as documented on a video posted online that June. (Copy here) On March 11, Cox was arrested as the ringleader in a planned conspiracy to kill state troopers and at least one named judge. (Indictment here.) On March 12, the Anchorage Daily News reported:

Federal agents made extensive recordings of Fairbanks militia members plotting to kill or kidnap judges and Alaska State Troopers and burn their houses, according to documents filed in court Friday.

Four leaders of the Fairbanks-based Alaska Peacekeeper’s Militia — Francis “Schaeffer” Cox, 26, Lonnie Vernon, 55, his wife Karen Vernon, 64, and Coleman Barney, 36 — are charged with conspiring to commit murder, kidnapping and arson. They are also charged with hindering prosecution and possession of illegal weapons.

Cox’s plan was named “241”, meaning that whatever action the government took, Cox’s milita forces were supposed to respond with double the force, according to undercover survelleince information contained in the indictment:

At that February 12th meeting COX specifically unveiled his ’241′ (two for one) plan which called for his militia to respond to attempts to arrest or kill him by responding against state court or law enforcement targets with twice the forces and consequences as happened to him or his familty. If he was arrested, two state targets would be “arrested” (kidnapped). If he was killed, two state targets would be killed. If his house was taken, two state target houses would be burned. COX spent a considerable amount of time logically (in his mind) justifying his actions, stating that ‘at this point, without any further provocation’ he would be ‘well within my rights to drill [Superior Court Judge] McConahy in his forehead’.

Cox’s ideas and actions have a substantial history behind them. He has a history of associating with and espousing the ideology of the “Sovereign Citizenship” movement, which emerged as part of the “militia movment” during the 1990s. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, explains:

Made up of an estimated 300,000 participants, the sprawling sovereign citizens subculture advocates the idea that the sovereigns themselves — not judges, juries, law enforcement or elected officials — get to decide which laws to obey and which to ignore. Most don’t think they should have to pay taxes.

Sovereign citizens have long targeted judges and law enforcement officers Just this past May 20, two law enforcement officers were killed and two others were wounded by a father-son pair of sovereign citizens in West Memphis, Ark. In 1995 in Ohio, a sovereign named Michael Hill pulled a gun on an officer during a traffic stop. Hill was killed. In 1997, New Hampshire extremist Carl Drega shot dead two officers and two civilians, and wounded another three officers before being killed himself. In that same year in Idaho, when brothers Doug and Craig Broderick were pulled over for failing to signal, they killed one officer and wounded another before being killed themselves in a violent gun battle.

Despite openly denying government authority over everything from taxes to traffic laws, “Sovereign citizens” routinely try to pass themselves off as patriots and garden-variety gun-rights advocates, and they are often supported in this by the NRA and conservative politicians. This is exactly what Don Young did, through a spokesman, when his signing of the seditious “Letter of Declaration” came to light, following Cox’s arrest.:

Rep. Young’s communications director, Meredith Kenny, said the video shows Rep. Young signing the letter at an “open-carry day” in Fairbanks in the spring of 2009. At the open carry day, gun rights activists appeared in public openly wearing handgun in holsters.

“Rep. Young attended not because of anything having to do with Cox — nor is he in any way affiliated with Cox — but because he has always been a vocal and staunch defender of the Second Amendment,” Kenny said. “Congressman Young stands strong with gun owners of America, and will always defend the 2nd Amendment rights of Americans.”

Young’s casual endorsement of sedition, and the political establishment’s ho-hum attitude toward it so far stand in stark contrast to the official anti-Muslim hysteria being promoted in Congress. On March 11, Representative Peter King held a hearing on the threat of Islamic radicalization, as reported by The National:

Peter King, the chairman of the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, who called the hearings, has accused the Muslim community of refusing to cooperate with law enforcement and charged that preaching in some US mosques was leading to radicalisation.

“To combat this threat, moderate leadership must emerge from the Muslim community,”

But that same sort of moderate leadership is precisely what’s missing with regard to the “Sovereign Citizens” movement, and other violent rightwing extremists–particularly in the case of Representative Young, who sits on the NRA’s national board. Indeed, King appears to be badly misinformed about the Muslim community, as a report by report by Charles Kurzman, a sociologist the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, found that “ the largest single source of initial information” in disrupting Muslim terrorist plots was the Muslim community itself, responsible for 48 disruptions out of 120.

When presented with an opportunity to be equally responsible in opposing rightwing extremist violence, Representative Young failed the test of patriotic loyalty. In light of this, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence’s petition seems like a mild-mannered response. As CSGV’s Josh Horowitz put it:

“It is simply unacceptable for a sitting member of Congress to sign a document calling for violence against the government of the United States. We call on Rep. Don Young to do the right thing and repudiate this repugnant document.”

But if Don Young were a Muslim, there seems to be little doubt he would already have been expelled from Congress.