Hi, Katharine... interesting article. I think one of the biggest myths... all nations seem to have them... is that the early white settlers from England came seeking religious freedom. By the way, I have a long international history like you do... I arrived in New Haven, Connecticut at age 10 in 1960 at a time when the city had lost much of its English heritage and had become a major Irish Catholic center (with plenty of Protestant heritage still in view)... then it became more of an Italian Catholic city... lots of Polish and other settlers... Well, long story short, the original 1638 New Haven was an ultra-Puritan (and puritanical) dive...you can read more at Wikipedia... but my main point is that the puritanical Dissenters did not arrive seeking religious freedom. Rather, they were such an intolerant, violent bunch of Calvinist murderers that they had fled from England after losing the Civil War in teh 1600s... that's a complex story in itself, but the main figure seems to have been Oliver Cromwell... who not only sowed mayhem in England but crossed over to Ireland and massacred countless people...Skipping a lot of bloody history, ultimately the Parliamentarians won the civil war. Cromwell's bunch had assassinated King Charles I in (??1648 I think)...by the early 1670s it was over... King Charles II was Restored (the last Catholic monarch in England)... until the Glorious Revolution of 1688 when the Parliamentarians brought in William and Mary from Netherlands to replace Charles with a new dynasty of more moderate (Anglican) Protestants... I'm reciting all this from memory...
The Dissenters fled for their lives (not seeking freedom but looking for the next place to start a bloodbath with their dark, insane ideas because I think Jean Calvin was clearly demented.
First they fled to Netherlands, always the most tolerant place... and they were thrown out so they had no place else to go but the Colonies... and that's where they sailed to... not seeking freedom in any real sense but bringing tyranny and horror... massacring Native nations with the help of imported Scottish killers...
Speaking of Scottish, there seems to be a spectrum of Calvinist like religion that extends from the Highlands (where indeed the English did a lot of massacring) down into England... so that you have the High Church (very Catholic looking on the surface) and the Low Church (Anglican but resembles Puritan..no statues, no fancy windows, nada...)
And in New Haven, the three main avenues radiating out from what is now Broadway near the Yale campus are Whalley, Goffe, and Dixwell... so named in the 1600s to honor three of the sixty or so Regicides... killers of Charles I. There is a lot of this regicide history buried around the place...
King Charles II I believe tried to salvage the northeastern colonies by creating a special province called New England, with a governor directly responsible to him (Charles). That's how New England came to be...
The English monarchs since 1688 have been German rather than English. When Queen Victoria died in 1902(? or so), she could not pass along the crown to her heirs, being German; but Edward VII was the son of her husband Prince Albert... long story short, under Salic succession laws, Edward could become king as the son of Albert ... in WW One, the Royals had to change their family name from Saxe-Coburg to Windsor (after one of their castles) for fear of being tossed out. In fact, Kaiser Wilhelm II was Queen Victoria's oldest and most favorite grandson. Interesting stuff...
Ultimately, for all their faults (many of them slave owners including Washington and Jefferson) the Founders of 1776 managed to instill the best ideas of the Enlightenment (including ancient Roman democracy of the Republic 508 to c31 BCE, another fact hardly known in today's world) in creating a republic that has lasted from 1776 to 2025... and may be gone forever with the arrival of the Slime Pit Trump and his zoo... I hope we can recover & restore out nation asap...So I'm not sure what triggered this long history story but I lived in New Haven, came of age there, and had to learn the whole history... They still had Blue Laws dating to Puritan times when I was there: you cannot lead a lion or a tiger on a leash in public; men and women may not stand or sit within 18 inches of each other in public; no liquor sold on Sundays (which is why many of the winos die from drinking cooking fuel like Sterno on Sundays)...and other crazy stuff. The South still has a lot of that dark religion celebrated in that famous painting of a man and woman with dour faces... he holds a pitchfork and wears a gray hat...actually a humorous dig at Puritanism in the USA.
Wow, that was a lot of history, John. Thank you for taking the time to respond. Connecticut definitely had some blue laws. We used to go to Rhode Island on Sunday to drink and dance. Anyway, let’s hope enough people are outraged by current events to stop the cruel madness we are now witnessing.
My dog has separation anxiety. When we first got him, he would race from window to window as we were leaving. A previous owner had left him alone and he pushed out a window air conditioner and escaped so it took a dog trapper to recover him. I recognized what was happening and after a few weeks, I talked to the vet about it and learned that it's fairly common -- especially rescue dogs who have lost one family along the way. He prescribed clomipramime which, like Prozac, is a Selective Seratonin Reuptake Inhibitor (SSRI) which has made a world of difference. He's on about half the original dosage and while he exhibits few symptoms when we leave, he is insanely happy when we return.
As for me, as a preacher's kid in the United Methodist Church all the pastors got their assignments for the next year at the annual conference. In the old days, as described in One Foot in Heaven, they often brought road maps to conference to find out where they would be going. We didn't have it that bad although we moved when I was 3 month old, 6 years old, 8 years old, 10 years old and that was to a position on the Board of Missions which was a bit more secure.
Thanks for reading, Don A. I’m glad your doggie responded to the meds. I honestly commented on my phone chat this morning that I think all that moving gave me my super power. I can fit in anywhere. But I expect my dear Mum would have preferred to stay put somewhere (and she finally did so that we could finish high school in one place).
Katharine, these are great reminders of what our Founding Fathers learned from hundreds of years of religious warfare in Europe. The best way to prevent religious conflict in the new country is for the government not to favor one religion over others. Some MAGA folks welcome rule over America by Protestant fundamentalists, and to hell with everybody else if they don't comply.
Omg, Katharine, my daughter is a Katharine. Your Sabbatical from politics of the day was alarming. I thought of getting you help by calling the EMTs, but you could not continue in that for more than just a moment. It is that upsetting; this through which we tread. We already have my peers writing of their lovers and reading history books of times past. One can reach out to our leaders.
Countries that do not allow felons should stick to their guns and ban our felon-in-chief. Please. Ban the asshole. His manners are disrespectful. Your women will not be safe. Your disabled will be mocked.
The Trump Administration has worn out its welcome quite fast. Vance’s skiing trip was impacted by protests. The Ukrainian President Zalenskyy stood up to the verbal abuse assault from two assholes. I have seen enough of the White House gas lighting. The smoke and mirrors from Musk is bad enough. The lack of civil manner when hosting a head of state was despicable conduct. Felons generally do better. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/lauding-ukrainian-statemanship?r=3m1bsr=3m1bs
Hi, Katharine... interesting article. I think one of the biggest myths... all nations seem to have them... is that the early white settlers from England came seeking religious freedom. By the way, I have a long international history like you do... I arrived in New Haven, Connecticut at age 10 in 1960 at a time when the city had lost much of its English heritage and had become a major Irish Catholic center (with plenty of Protestant heritage still in view)... then it became more of an Italian Catholic city... lots of Polish and other settlers... Well, long story short, the original 1638 New Haven was an ultra-Puritan (and puritanical) dive...you can read more at Wikipedia... but my main point is that the puritanical Dissenters did not arrive seeking religious freedom. Rather, they were such an intolerant, violent bunch of Calvinist murderers that they had fled from England after losing the Civil War in teh 1600s... that's a complex story in itself, but the main figure seems to have been Oliver Cromwell... who not only sowed mayhem in England but crossed over to Ireland and massacred countless people...Skipping a lot of bloody history, ultimately the Parliamentarians won the civil war. Cromwell's bunch had assassinated King Charles I in (??1648 I think)...by the early 1670s it was over... King Charles II was Restored (the last Catholic monarch in England)... until the Glorious Revolution of 1688 when the Parliamentarians brought in William and Mary from Netherlands to replace Charles with a new dynasty of more moderate (Anglican) Protestants... I'm reciting all this from memory...
The Dissenters fled for their lives (not seeking freedom but looking for the next place to start a bloodbath with their dark, insane ideas because I think Jean Calvin was clearly demented.
First they fled to Netherlands, always the most tolerant place... and they were thrown out so they had no place else to go but the Colonies... and that's where they sailed to... not seeking freedom in any real sense but bringing tyranny and horror... massacring Native nations with the help of imported Scottish killers...
Speaking of Scottish, there seems to be a spectrum of Calvinist like religion that extends from the Highlands (where indeed the English did a lot of massacring) down into England... so that you have the High Church (very Catholic looking on the surface) and the Low Church (Anglican but resembles Puritan..no statues, no fancy windows, nada...)
And in New Haven, the three main avenues radiating out from what is now Broadway near the Yale campus are Whalley, Goffe, and Dixwell... so named in the 1600s to honor three of the sixty or so Regicides... killers of Charles I. There is a lot of this regicide history buried around the place...
King Charles II I believe tried to salvage the northeastern colonies by creating a special province called New England, with a governor directly responsible to him (Charles). That's how New England came to be...
The English monarchs since 1688 have been German rather than English. When Queen Victoria died in 1902(? or so), she could not pass along the crown to her heirs, being German; but Edward VII was the son of her husband Prince Albert... long story short, under Salic succession laws, Edward could become king as the son of Albert ... in WW One, the Royals had to change their family name from Saxe-Coburg to Windsor (after one of their castles) for fear of being tossed out. In fact, Kaiser Wilhelm II was Queen Victoria's oldest and most favorite grandson. Interesting stuff...
Ultimately, for all their faults (many of them slave owners including Washington and Jefferson) the Founders of 1776 managed to instill the best ideas of the Enlightenment (including ancient Roman democracy of the Republic 508 to c31 BCE, another fact hardly known in today's world) in creating a republic that has lasted from 1776 to 2025... and may be gone forever with the arrival of the Slime Pit Trump and his zoo... I hope we can recover & restore out nation asap...So I'm not sure what triggered this long history story but I lived in New Haven, came of age there, and had to learn the whole history... They still had Blue Laws dating to Puritan times when I was there: you cannot lead a lion or a tiger on a leash in public; men and women may not stand or sit within 18 inches of each other in public; no liquor sold on Sundays (which is why many of the winos die from drinking cooking fuel like Sterno on Sundays)...and other crazy stuff. The South still has a lot of that dark religion celebrated in that famous painting of a man and woman with dour faces... he holds a pitchfork and wears a gray hat...actually a humorous dig at Puritanism in the USA.
John T. Cullen JTC Sheep Heil!
johntcullen.substack.com <---- please read!
https://www.johntcullen.com
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MARA Make America Real Again
Wow, that was a lot of history, John. Thank you for taking the time to respond. Connecticut definitely had some blue laws. We used to go to Rhode Island on Sunday to drink and dance. Anyway, let’s hope enough people are outraged by current events to stop the cruel madness we are now witnessing.
My dog has separation anxiety. When we first got him, he would race from window to window as we were leaving. A previous owner had left him alone and he pushed out a window air conditioner and escaped so it took a dog trapper to recover him. I recognized what was happening and after a few weeks, I talked to the vet about it and learned that it's fairly common -- especially rescue dogs who have lost one family along the way. He prescribed clomipramime which, like Prozac, is a Selective Seratonin Reuptake Inhibitor (SSRI) which has made a world of difference. He's on about half the original dosage and while he exhibits few symptoms when we leave, he is insanely happy when we return.
As for me, as a preacher's kid in the United Methodist Church all the pastors got their assignments for the next year at the annual conference. In the old days, as described in One Foot in Heaven, they often brought road maps to conference to find out where they would be going. We didn't have it that bad although we moved when I was 3 month old, 6 years old, 8 years old, 10 years old and that was to a position on the Board of Missions which was a bit more secure.
Thanks for reading, Don A. I’m glad your doggie responded to the meds. I honestly commented on my phone chat this morning that I think all that moving gave me my super power. I can fit in anywhere. But I expect my dear Mum would have preferred to stay put somewhere (and she finally did so that we could finish high school in one place).
Katharine, these are great reminders of what our Founding Fathers learned from hundreds of years of religious warfare in Europe. The best way to prevent religious conflict in the new country is for the government not to favor one religion over others. Some MAGA folks welcome rule over America by Protestant fundamentalists, and to hell with everybody else if they don't comply.
Thank you for reading my ramblings, Jim. I’m always glad when my readers get what I’m thinking.
Omg, Katharine, my daughter is a Katharine. Your Sabbatical from politics of the day was alarming. I thought of getting you help by calling the EMTs, but you could not continue in that for more than just a moment. It is that upsetting; this through which we tread. We already have my peers writing of their lovers and reading history books of times past. One can reach out to our leaders.
FELON can be reached at:
FELON@ELON.com
FELON@FELON.com
ELON can be reached at:
ELON@ELON.com
ELON@FELON.com
Countries that do not allow felons should stick to their guns and ban our felon-in-chief. Please. Ban the asshole. His manners are disrespectful. Your women will not be safe. Your disabled will be mocked.
The Trump Administration has worn out its welcome quite fast. Vance’s skiing trip was impacted by protests. The Ukrainian President Zalenskyy stood up to the verbal abuse assault from two assholes. I have seen enough of the White House gas lighting. The smoke and mirrors from Musk is bad enough. The lack of civil manner when hosting a head of state was despicable conduct. Felons generally do better. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/lauding-ukrainian-statemanship?r=3m1bsr=3m1bs
Thanks for reading, Carl. No intervention needed—so far!