On the Fourth of July, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) -- who helped promote the Insurrection -- decided to celebrate the freedoms of Independence Day for all Americans by demeaning the Freedom of Religion. He posted a tweet that quoted Patrick Henry as saying, "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here." Patrick Henry, who is of course best-known for saying, "Give me liberty or give me death," is not known for saying this other quote, but that's for a very good reason. He never said it. Indeed, if you had suspected that might be the case when reading the quote Hawley tried to pawn off because the words seemed a bit modern, there's a good reason for that, too - they are. They were from an article about Patrick Henry for a magazine called The Virginian, written in 1956. That article was published 67 years ago, so it's been around for a long time. Though not nearly as long as if Patrick Henry had actually said it. The quote has been used a lot in the Christian community over the years, despite it repeatedly being debunked. But that's not the point here. It's that it's one thing for U.S. Senator Josh Hawley to have posted this non-existent quote that Patrick Henry NEVER SAID without checking it first. But it's another thing entirely that he's left it up, despite most-certainly knowing now it's a lie (and knowing its source). That is far-more important because it speaks volumes about Hawley's craven inability to be trusted. Indeed, it would near-impossible for Hawley to not know the quote is a lie, because Twitter has attached the actual attribution to Hawley's original posting. (By the way, the person writing the history of the magazine passage and noting the correction explains that "The language is twentieth-century. The word 'religionists,' for example. In Patrick Henry's time it meant a fanatic, a person obsessed with religion; not as here people of different religions (or something like that). Furthermore, he notes other clear red flags that this couldn't have been said by Patrick Henry, even if you didn't know it was from a 1956 article. Among them, he notes that Patrick Henry would have had to have been incredibly clairvoyant to know that "peoples of other faiths" are, in the future, going to be "afforded asylum, prosperity and freedom of worship" in it. Something only really made clear in full over 150 years later.) And if you didn't know all that, if you missed the clues, it's right there linked to the original tweet. And Josh Hawley has chosen to leave the lie up. This profile in honesty and the courage to acknowledge your mistake comes from the same person who wrote a book called Manhood about (as the sub-heading says) "the Masculine Virtues America Needs". And the same tough, masculine guy who, after giving a fist-bump of support to the Jan. 6 Insurrectionists, later was spotted on video running away to safety after those same Insurrectionists broke into the U.S. Capitol. And Josh Hawley doesn't even have the masculine virtue to delete a tweet he got totally wrong. Or the human decency that most people learn in childhood to admit a lie when caught - or just say "Oops, I was wrong." But it turns out to be better in the World of Josh Hawley to be divisive and continue passing along a known lie and try to obfuscate religion, which I guess is ultimately what you should expect from a coward who promotes overthrowing democracy, and is such a fascist thing to do. And this is what Josh Hawley chose to do on Independence Day, when Americans celebrates it freedoms. Post what was an easy-to-know was wrong, and then leave it up because the false words served his needs. In the end, how telling that a guy named Josh is such a joke.
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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