Puritans - Fundamentalists in GOP (Great Charleston Gazette editorial)

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

YEARS ago, the Republican Party mostly stood for fiscal frugality and practical management. At that time, U.S. fundamentalists remained somewhat aloof to politics. Chiefly blue-collar folks, they tended to vote Democratic when they voted.

But a transformation occurred in America. Big-money evangelists mobilized born-again people into a conservative political movement driven by hostility to abortion, gays, racy TV shows, evolution, sex education and the like, plus a desire for government displays of religion. Slowly, this element gained increasing control of the GOP.

Some old-line Republicans were disturbed by the change in their party. The late Barry Goldwater sneered publicly at GOP evangelists Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. Former Sen. Warren Rudman, R-N.H., wrote a bitter book saying:

“If someone had told me in the 1960s that one day I would serve in a Republican Party that opposed abortion rights — which the Supreme Court had endorsed — advocated prayer in the schools and talked about government-inspired ‘family values,’ I would have thought he was crazy. To me, the essence of conservativism is just the opposite: Government should not intrude in anything as personal as the decision to have a child, it should not be championing prayer or religion, and family values should come from families and religious institutions, not from politically inspired, Washington-based moralists. Yet I could see the Republican Party gradually being taken over by ... self-commissioned Christian soldiers whose social agenda I found repugnant.”

more at:
http://www.wvgazette.com/section/Editorials/200610083

[Erika]

1. The puritans ran the Salem witch hunt

Yeah, they're about the same now.

[susanna]

3. 'nuff said. n/t

[Psephos]

2. Heh, Puritanism is an American tradition

It always involves a belief that most people are debased or doomed, and that only a few elites (the Elect) deserve salvation, or even understand how it may be achieved.

Peace.

[madmusic]

4. Neocons will use anyone, any cause, any lie.

And "not lose a minute's sleep."