Because I love America: Reagan's Assistant General Counsel Speaks Out

Corporate interests and the patient and long range plan of Christian Reconstructionists have made this possible with the cooperation and coordination provided by the NeoCons If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I would think it was bad science fiction. But when I wake up the nightmare continues. The threats to my family, the rising tide of violence aimed at me and those I love, and those whose courage has drawn them to stand with me affirm the truth of what we confront.

It began in the early 70s with the thought by a small group of Republicans that control of the GOP could be guaranteed by taking advantage of the newly disenfranchised Southern Democrats through elements in the Evangelical churches there. You will recognize the names of those whose plans have been drawn so large today. Karl Rove, Ralph Reed, Pat Robertson, Jerry Fallwell, James Dobson, D. James Kennedy, John Hagee and Jack Abramoff were among them.

Largely credulous and uneducated the evangelical elements that became their raw material contained strains of thinking from individuals like R. J Rushrooney and Gary North. Margaret Mead once said that only a small determined group ever changes things. Ms. Mead was thinking of positive change; she could not have imagined the vision and motives that moved a small group of Baptists to take over the Southern Baptist Convention by stealth to achieve first a power base and to move on from there to apply the same methods to civil government and our military. But that is what happened.

Today the platform of the Republican Party in Texas reflects their goals. These are consistent and explicit, including the substitution of the Bible for the rule of law in America. In their world capital punishment for sodomy, adultery, for unruly children, and the end of free speech are desirable goals mandated by God. Lying to achieve the ends they believe are appointed by an unimaginable vision of God are entirely acceptable.

Paul Krugman said in his article of last week, For God's Sake, “In 1981, Gary North, a leader of the Christian Reconstructionist movement - the openly theocratic wing of the Christian right - suggested that the movement could achieve power by stealth. "Christians must begin to organize politically within the present party structure," he wrote, "and they must begin to infiltrate the existing institutional order." “

Krugman does not cite the documentation of this, though it exists in a letter written by Dr. Steven Hortzel dated March 13, 1990 . The letter exhorts the recipients on how to take over their local Republican precinct. The back of the letter lays out the Platform which includes ending minority status for homosexuals, an end to the right to abortion, the sovereignty of the family instead of having that status rest with individuals, as intended by the rights theory on which America is founded. And most frightening, in their view the Church will control what is and is not a crime. The same letter sports the direction to, “Vote twice on election day.” So much for respect for our law and the institutions of America.

Today the Platform of the Republican Party of Texas reflects that agenda. The goal of the Texas Republican Party is to "dispel the myth of the separation of church and state."

Organizing and planning far in advance with funding provided by corporations through those we now know as NeoCons, they laid out the stealth plan that has been followed until the present day. You can hear this admitted in clips of a tape assembled recently by Dr. Bruce Prescott. The voices of J. R, Rushrooney, now deceased, and Gary North, his son-in-law, say it all.

No rogue elements were responsible for what took place at the Air Force Academy. Funding provided by those major corporations who put us in Iraq to augment their profits and ensure control of oil funded the NeoCons who wrote the orders taking us to the Middle East against all truth; through the same funding source grew the 'religious' institutions that have taken control of our military. To them the separation of Church and State, the first amendment of the Bill of Rights, is a myth like Bigfoot and Paul Bunyan to be dispelled, by their own words.

We can expect violence. The head cleric of St. David's Episcopal Church of Topeka, Kansas came out to support me; five hours later his church was burned to the ground. A synagogue where I spoke was desecrated. My home has been targeted by feces and beer bottles; our tires slashed; dead animals have twice been placed on our front porch. The death threats come in ceaselessly. It is not convenient and safe to confront and defy those in power; I know that but I refuse to back down. They may try to harm me but I will not go quietly; I will be a Jew from the Warsaw Ghetto, not Berlin. I will be an American from Lexington and Concord, not an American from Halliburton and Blackwater.

With all the bad news it is heartening to note that some people are standing up and fighting back. Every day we are joined by more Americans who hear, understand, and come prepared to take action.

Dr. Bruce Prescott moved to Norman, Oklahoma three years ago and started an organization called, “Main Stream Baptists,” that is challenging the primacy of Christian Reconstructionists in the Baptist faith in the same town that supplied those who carried out the take over of the Southern Baptist Convention. When Bush hosts 'religious leaders,' it is those people who receive the invitations.

Next January between 20,000 and 30,000 Baptists from all races will gather. They will be representing hundreds of thousands of Baptists who affirm the original belief that brought Baptists to America, the freedom to worship as they pleased. Together they will forge a New Baptist Covenant making them the largest Baptist group in the United States. The group includes former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton; the announcement took place in Atlanta, Georgia in January of 2007.

Others, secular and religious, for instance the Methodists who stood up to oppose the Bush Library at SMU stand with us.

I cannot emphasize strongly enough that this is not a partisan battle. I am a Republican who had the honor of serving as Assistant General Counsel in the Reagan White House and as General Counsel to two time presidential candidate H. Ross Perot. I am a Jew proud to stand with Christians, Muslims, agnostics and atheists, and others who, like those I just mentioned, are committed to the vision of an America for which generations have laid down their lives. Stand with me on this and you stand with men and women who dreamed a freedom that the real Jesus would have recognized. At the end of the day, it's simply all about just one thing; our beautiful United States Constitution. Each of us free; each of us equal, living lives where we confront not the dead words of the past but the living truth that is tomorrow

That is America and it is worth dying for. As a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy, the father of two graduates as well as one current Academy cadet, the brother-in-law of yet another graduate, and the son of a graduate of the U. S Naval Academy I believe in the vision that is America with every fiber of my being.

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