[tpaine]

"-- On one side of the divide were the agrarian republicans like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.

On the other side of the divide were the puritanical republicans. These men believed all citizens to be innate sinners, irresistibly driven to dastardly deeds unless rigidly restrained by the State.

The puritanical impulse is a deep one. We all have it. The puritan knows that his own motives are good, but he does not trust yours. --"

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The prohibitionist mentality, nailed.

[pissant]

Seems too simplistic. There is every shade of opinion between puritanism and libertarianism. And if you look at Jefferson's and Madison's presidencies, you will see they fell into that grey area between.

[shempy]

The puritanical authoritarian wing of the Republican party is one of the reasons I don't consider myself a Republican. The wacky peaceniks and open borders wing of the libertarian party keeps me away from that label.

I consider myself an Anti-Democrat. I have a simple rule; I vote for the least evil bastard opposing the democrats, provided he has a chance to win.

[ClearCase_guy]

Don't like the terminology.

I look at our popular culture, the homosexual agenda, the crisis in schools, the rate of illegitmate births, and I have a hard time thinking that our morals are too strict and that Puritans are hurting the country.

I look at the growth of government, the endless redtape, the faceless bureaucrats, the environmental regualtions, and the tort situation, and I think: Yeah, micro-management by the Nanny State is a real problem.

But blaming this on a Puritan Republic doesn't make me think that the Democrats are the problem. And I know they are.

[DesScorp]

This analysis is absolute crap.

[x]

That is an interesting point of view, but I don't think it holds up. When the "puritans" saw national power within their grasp they sought to use it to impose their views on others. When they realized that they couldn't have it, they more or less decided to take care of their own affairs at home themselves.

Similarly when "agrarians" saw power as something that others could wield over them, they sought to break up centralized power. But when they thought that they could exercise that power themselves they were a lot less decentralist. There aren't two kinds of human nature, only one.

There's a polarity in US politics between New England and the South: they usually end up in opposing parties and are often on different sides of the issues. But it's not as though Vermont or New Hampshire is any less agrarian or more puritan in some absolute sense than Virginia or the Carolinas. A lot of the animosity is sheer cussedness.

The other problem with such analyses is that they presume that the "puritans" or "centralists" always won and that things would have been better off if they'd lost. To complete the analysis, you'd have to look at countries where the "agrarians" or "decentralizers" won. You may find as many problems there as in the places where the "centralizers" prevailed.