When you condemn "Puritan theology" what are you condemning? Protestantism? Radical rather than classical Protestantism? Creationism? The rejection of the church calendar and traditions? Puritanism got its name from its desire to "purify" the Church of England from non-Biblical accretions (not from any sexual hang-ups as is generally assumed). If calendars, feasts, and rituals are so important, there will always be those who will prefer the Biblical (ie, Jewish) ones and insist that if these have been abolished (G-d forbid!) that no new ones derived largely from paganism have ever been authorized. If you regard Biblical sentimentalism or "Bibliolatry" as the basic Puritan heresy then you are indeed a Cavalier and there is no need in continuing our dialogue.
I note that you list the American Revolution among New England's radical movements (though Virginia was also a large contributor to the movement). It is unusual to find an American conservative who will criticize the American Revolution as the relativistic element of rightism demands that the local national origin/myth/heroes/governmental traditions be sanctified (with the Revolution and Constution being the American equivalents of "throne and altar" elsewhere). I myself question the American Revolution, as did apparently the Federalists. It was the Federalists of the North who afterwards backtracked and wanted a government very much like that of Great Britain from which they had rebelled. Perhaps they realized that they had been manipulated by sinister elements? It was Jefferson and the Southern aristocrats who wanted a radical break with the past in the form of a small coastal agrarian Republic (as even Pat Buchanan has pointed out). The most prominent of the Federalists was not a New Englander but Alexander Hamilton of New York. After the war he defended many accused tories as a lawyer and he is accused of trying to impose a British-style monarchy on the new Union. Is this not conservatism? He is the one who wanted to continue with pretty much what they had always known.
I find it strange that you would indict the Essex Junto and Hartford Convention. I thought pro-Confederates liked to invoke them to prove that the South is not the only place that believed in the right to secede. For me, it merely proves that ideology is often merely self-interest rationalized, which explains why "our" secession is good while "theirs" is bad.
Do you really believe that John Adams, John Quincy Adams (Sam Adams was a Jeffersonian), Henry Cabot Lodge (1850-1924), and Calvin Coolidge were radicals? Really??? And that the radical Jeffersonian and Jacksonian Democrats were "conservatives?" And do you really believe that the in the culture war between William McKinley and his old moneyed Northeast supporters and Bryan (my hero at Dayton) that the former were the radicals and the latter the conservatives?
There were three attempts to impose an income tax on the country. The first was during the Civil War (which was temporary) and the second was during the 1880's/90's (which was passed but ruled unconstitutional). The third attempt was spearheaded by Southern and Western populists against the same Northeastern financial establishment that today's Right accuses of being "secretly behind Communism."
Whatever you may say, Southern Unionism was as real as Northern Copperheadism. All four branches of my family were Southern Unionists. East Tennessee is Republican to this day and often called the "Union" part of the State (and there were Union/Republican outposts even in the Middle and West). Unless you are suggesting that my entire family history is a myth (hard to maintain when you consider that we have never had any Democrats among us) then however much you may explain away West Virginia, you cannot deny Southern Unionism. And btw, the notoriously "liberal" New York City was a hotbed of Copperheads.
It is distressing to me that while you chose to respond in great detail to some parts of my previous posts you have chosen to completely ignore others (my questions about John Brown's fundamentalist Calvinism, Coolidge, H. L. Mencken, etc.). And I am sorry that you think Southern planter support of the Jacobin Revolution in France at a time when the cooler heads of the Northeast prevailed (and conducted America's first "red scare") is so unimportant that you feel you can dismiss it with a sniff. History cannot be changed, and the support of Jacobinism by the "aristocratic Southern democrats" is an historical fact that cannot be made to go away by dismissing it.
You actually don't like Primitive Baptists, do you? I can imagine what you must think of Bob Jones University and its affinity for Protestant Unionism in Ulster. (Yeah, I know, Jones isn't "Primitive" . . . but it's sure a lot closer to Cromwell than it is to the Stewarts! Are they perhaps "yankees who don't know it???")
I'm actually a protestant myself who believes in a form of creationism, though not the scientifically silly assertion that the world was created only 5,000 years ago or whatever it is that some protestants subscribe to. When I condemn puritan theology I condemn its theological elitism, its gravitation towards the heretical idea that a kingdom of God may be established by man on this earth, and its insistence upon putting itself up as a model of purity for the lesser beings of the world to look up upon (the "city on the hill" notion). I actually have little problem with mainstream evangelical beliefs so long as their believers permit others to differ from those beliefs and do not assert self-righteous claims over others (e.g. some of the more extreme evangelicals subscribe to beliefs that Catholics are not Christian and/or that Jews are not the true people of Israel - both are offensive forms of bigotry). Extreme Puritan self-righteousness is theologically problematic as well because it takes the sacred scriptures and corrupts them through singular interpretation. This tendency is something I prefer to call "Hotline to Jesus" syndrome - its adherents come to act as if they have a hotline to Jesus, that they alone know and control the true meaning of scripture and thus all that relates from it (meaning, truth, salvation). They come to believe that they, in possession of this knowledge, can do no other service than the Lord's when in fact they are as susceptible to the corruption and evil of original sin and its successors as anybody else. In its modern forms this tendency has been secularized, especially by the unitarians, into a worldly philosophy of leftist elitism ("we know what's best for you since we're so smart so you better let us run the government and you better listen to what we tell you to do even if we don't do it ourselves.")
Puritanism got its name from its desire to "purify" the Church of England from non-Biblical accretions
The great problem with that is their attempted purge of practically anything and everything of previously existing institutionalized Christianity in the process. People who burn down centuries-old churches, smash stained glass windows, desecrate tombs, and dismantle Christianity's holy sites across Britain are doing much more than "purification." Wanton destruction combined with the coercive enforcement of ones elitist theological will upon those who do not consent to it are more apt descriptions.
I note that you list the American Revolution among New England's radical movements (though Virginia was also a large contributor to the movement).
I never denied Virginia's role, nor do I anywhere condemn the American revolution. As you may have noticed, I did not say anywhere that all of those revolutionary activities were necessarily bad - only that they were common in their revolutionary aspect. New England joined up with the American Revolution and in it other revolutionaries who were pursuing other ideas and who came from different backgrounds yet who all had a common enemy.
I find it strange that you would indict the Essex Junto and Hartford Convention.
Once again, note that I did not condemn all revolutionary acts. I chose my words carefully (note my use of phrase that revolutions are "sometimes for the better") for a reason, for my purpose was only to show that Puritanism has a recurrent tendency towards revolutionary agitation.
Do you really believe that John Adams, John Quincy Adams (Sam Adams was a Jeffersonian), Henry Cabot Lodge (1850-1924), and Calvin Coolidge were radicals?
Adams I personally led a revolution, and that makes him a revolutionary. I don't believe I used the term "radical" nor did I ever say a thing one way or the other on Adams II, Lodge, or Coolide.
Whatever you may say, Southern Unionism was as real as Northern Copperheadism. All four branches of my family were Southern Unionists.
And so they may have been. That does not change the fact though that southern unionism has been severely overstated (and with malice at that) in many modern history books. West Virginia "unionism" was in fact an in isolated portion of that present state's northwestern extremity - the counties to the south voted for secession and got dragged along against their will.
Unless you are suggesting that my entire family history is a myth
Did I ever suggest it was a myth? No. In fact I explicitly admitted and repeatedly stated that eastern Tennessee was a genuine unionist hotbed in the CSA. Those other regions you claimed were not in the degree they are often presented though. And btw, the notoriously "liberal" New York City was a hotbed of Copperheads.
They were copperheads because the NYC population at the time consisted of a huge Irish immigrant community. Those Irish immigrants were being drafted and used as cannon fodder by the yankee government whereas the city's wealthy classes and the old guard puritan families could buy their ways out of the draft. So they had every reason in the world to oppose the yankee war effort.
It is distressing to me that while you chose to respond in great detail to some parts of my previous posts you have chosen to completely ignore others
Why should I take the time to respond to comments you made about Coolidge when Coolidge is not and never has been a matter of debate, dispute, or contention for me, much less a topic of this particular discussion? Nor have I ever expressed any views on this thread about Mencken etc, though you do seem to exhibit an abnormal distaste for him. You might as well start posting frivolous comments about Neil Armstrong and lamenting the fact that I will not respond to them either. State something material to this discussion and pertinent to my argument and I will respond. Drift off into your personal ticks and I will leave you there to pout over them alone.