O
oldcelt
Guest
To a large extent our founding drove a stake through the heart of monarchy. It would take WWI to kill the barely breathing remnants. We are still an experiment that has fortunately spread.
- Status
T
TEPO
Guest
The Puritans were a strange bunch. I can’t even imagine coming in contact with an old village of Puritans. Yet they were a major force in building this nation. Their influence on early American culture shaped a lot of thought back then.
C
Cojuanco
Guest
I believe a nation or a people has a mission of sorts. But this is true of all countries. I agree that God worked in a special way in the creation of the Constitution, but this applies to other countries and their founding documents.
T
TEPO
Guest
Manifest Destiny
America the new Israel
“We shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us…,” the Puritan John Winthrop wrote. The Puritans who disembarked in Massachusetts in 1620 believed they were establishing the New Israel. Indeed, the whole colonial enterprise was believed to have been guided by God. “God hath opened this passage unto us,” Alexander Whitaker preached from Virginia in 1613, “and led us by the hand unto this work.”
gbgm-umc.org/umw/joshua/manifest.html
P
phil_at_dayboro
Guest
It does help if you get a few hundred years head start..
R
Robert_Sock
Guest
Here’s what the bible says about liberty, which differs from the understanding of secularists:
Gal 5:13 (Douay Rheims)
13 For you, brethren, have been called unto liberty: only make not liberty an occasion to the flesh, but by charity of the spirit serve one another.
It’s this definition that I adhere to, and not self-centered forms of liberty that are utterly despicable. What’s your definition?
LOVE!
T
TEPO
Guest
Yes, the Puritans were an odd bunch, with an odd culture. I still don’t understand the wigs, makeup and stockings, but times do change and people do too.
R
Ridgerunner
Guest
I maintain that it’s still around, but not quite in the way many think.
The Puritans made a fetish out of (not surprisingly) being “pure”. They disdained ornamentation and had absolute intolerance for anything they considered “evil”. They were very intolerant of human weakness of the fleshly sort; not so much of the intellectual sort. They believed that God would reward virtue with earthly success, or rather that earthly success was indicative of God’s favor.
American puritanism has simply changed its objects of abhorrence and hard-edged intolerance. Writ large, it broadly tolerates some fleshly weaknesses, but is utterly intolerant of others. It’s just that the new “unforgiveable sins” are things like smoking, being overweight and those sorts of weaknesses that might somehow cost them or the indulgers money. We often see that argument when people talk about penalizing smokers or the overweight when it comes to healthcare.
R
Ridgerunner
Guest
Privilege of birth is not dead in most of the world. It just isn’t formalized in the way it used to be. America has always had a distaste for that; abolishing the formalization of it, but also doing things that tend to frustrate it. Easy acquisition of productive assets by anybody with the talent to acquire them, along with relative ease of loss thereof by those without it, was an early mark of America, or at least a serious ideal. Among other things, it found its expression in such things as a general approval of the notion of “From shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations.”
D
Deltadeliquent
Guest
The privlidge of birth is not even dead in America.
Those who have a head start because of their background usually wind up further ahead down the road. It’s not a good thing, or a bad thing. It’s just how it is, everywhere.
As someone who has lived in countries other than America, there is no such thing as American Exceptionalism. We are all just doing the best we can with what we were given…
Those who have a head start because of their background usually wind up further ahead down the road. It’s not a good thing, or a bad thing. It’s just how it is, everywhere.
As someone who has lived in countries other than America, there is no such thing as American Exceptionalism. We are all just doing the best we can with what we were given…
S
Sarcelle
Guest
I see the terms liberty and freedom used here quite a bit.Here’s what the bible says about liberty, which differs from the understanding of secularists:
Gal 5:13 (Douay Rheims)
13 For you, brethren, have been called unto liberty: only make not liberty an occasion to the flesh, but by charity of the spirit serve one another.
It’s this definition that I adhere to, and not self-centered forms of liberty that are utterly despicable. What’s your definition?
LOVE!
We have to define what we mean when we say liberty or freedom.
My spiritual director used to tell me that freedom is an invitation to responsibility and not license to do.whatever one wants. However there is an increasing segment of society that think that freedom is license
R
Ridgerunner
Guest
That’s different, though. Those whose parents emphasize achievement and education usually do fare better than those whose parents don’t. But that’s not by reason of position due to birth alone. “Social class” into which one is born does not have much affect in America. Except among a very few, one’s “social class” is determined by one’s economic class, not the other way around. In much of the world, it is the other way around.
I realize that, for example, Margaret Thatcher’s “shopkeeper class accent” did not preclude her from being a prime minister. But it was certainly talked about as if it might or should. Among many, no doubt, it did, both positively and negatively. There’s a touch of that in the U.S., but it’s largely regional, not a social class into which one was born. Yankees make negative assumptions about one with a southern accent and undoubtedly act on it at times. But it’s based on the region, not the social class.
I am no expert on European social stratification, but I really was wowed on learning that some cousins of mine have a hereditary right to visit/stay at, a fabulous estate in Germany. They don’t own the estate or any part of it. Can’t sell or mortgage it. They just have a birth privilege to go there and “be nobility” by German law. There is nothing like that in America.
Z
Zoltan_Cobalt
Guest
Robert, since you adhere to Galatians idea of liberty…you would then be open to SERVE me…right? I might remind you that the one being served is usually the master and the one who is serving is usually the slave. Does that appeal to you?Here’s what the bible says about liberty, which differs from the understanding of secularists:
Gal 5:13 (Douay Rheims)
13 For you, brethren, have been called unto liberty: only make not liberty an occasion to the flesh, but by charity of the spirit serve one another.
It’s this definition that I adhere to, and not self-centered forms of liberty that are utterly despicable. What’s your definition?
LOVE!
My definition is very different:
Liberty is the quality or state of being free
a : the power to do as one pleases
b : freedom from physical restraint
c : freedom from arbitrary or despotic control
d : the positive enjoyment of various social, political, or economic rights and privileges
e : the power of choice
Liberty is NOT having to ask permission to do or not do something.
Z
Zoltan_Cobalt
Guest
Freedom, in a political context, means freedom from government coercion.
It does not mean freedom from a landlord, or freedom from an employer, or freedom from the laws of nature. It means freedom from the coercive power of the state—and nothing else.
P
phil_at_dayboro
Guest
Are you saying you don’t need permission to do things in the U S. ?
Z
Zoltan_Cobalt
Guest
I don’t know what South Park is…
Since you offer no objection to my post, I thank you for your agreement and support.
Z
Zoltan_Cobalt
Guest
P
phil_at_dayboro
Guest
South Park is a Canadian satire comedy , I’m surprised you have never heard of it,I don’t know what South Park is…
Since you offer no objection to my post, I thank you for your agreement and support.
Unless you watch no television… Google it,will give you a laugh
I offer no objection to your post, fortunately we both live in democracies where we have relative free speech .so your welcome to say whatever you like, I just find your opinion amusing … God Bless
Z
Zoltan_Cobalt
Guest
Glad to provide a little mirth.
R
Robert_Sock
Guest
It sounds like you may be twisting things on me; Galatians idea of liberty centers on the spirit to serve each other by acts of charity, not slavery in any sense of the word.
Gal 5:13 (Douay Rheims)
13 For you, brethren, have been called unto liberty: only make not liberty an occasion to the flesh, but by charity of the spirit serve one another.
Are you Libertarian? What you’re proposing is likened to gods, not a humble servant of Christ.
Matthew 20:26 RSV
It shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant,
John 13:8 RSV
Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part in me.”
- Status