Today’s crazy Glenn Beck post: America was “Established For The Establishment Of Israel”
A common belief among religious conservatives, especially those who are outspokenly pro-Israel, is that the United States is a “second Israel.” Dennis Prager has made this point before:
Contrary to what you learned at college, America from its inception has been a religious country, and was designed to be one.
As the greatest foreign observer of America, the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville, noted in his “Democracy in America,” “Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power.” Or, as the great British historian Paul Johnson has just written: “In [George] Washington’s eyes, at least, America was in no sense a secular state,” and “the American Revolution was in essence the political and military expression of a religious movement.”
In fact, the Founders regarded America as a Second Israel, in Abraham Lincoln’s words, the “Almost Chosen” People. This self-identification was so deep that Thomas Jefferson, today often described as not even a Christian, wanted the seal of the United States to depict the Jews leaving Egypt at the splitting of the sea. Just as the Jews left Egypt, Americans left Europe.
Today, Glenn Beck stood that idea on its head:
During his speech, Beck boldly declared that the United States was “established for the establishment of Israel,” meaning that the United States was established by God specifically for the purpose of re-establishing the nation of Israel.
Here is the double your money quote:
…that is what happens when you get your history from people like David Barton.
Let’s go to the tape: