Believe it or Not

I know it’s hard to believe but the parallels of history don’t lie and the today’s liberals are the Puritans of yesteryear. I’m obviously not the first to notice this (I had 4,250 hits searching for Puritan, liberal) but my discovery is more recent than some others … I think I’ve mentioned I’m trying to write a novel based on the French and Indian Wars starting with King William’s War (1690-97).

Anyway, I picked up a book at my favorite used bookstore entitled “Red, White and Black,” written by Gary Nash and published in 1974. Generally speaking, the book is about the groups that populated Colonial America, the reasons for their conflicts, and the resolutions of said conflicts.

My first thought when reading the part about the Puritans and their feelings as England moved from a feudal society to a more open, capitalist society, was “with some exception, these people are the epitome of today’s liberals.”

The fundamental power struggle of the liberal is individual vs. collective. The individual must be relieved of all power in favor of the collective. And that is precisely how the Puritans felt about the changes being made to English society in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

For example, in feudal England, everyone had a role to fulfill in society’s scheme of things … although ‘God’ doesn’t have much of a role in today’s liberal jargon, according to Nash (quoting from The Puritans on p. 71), “God sent you unto this world as a Workhouse not a Playhouse.” Which is another way of saying money and status were unimportant because all stations were equal in the eyes of God. Try telling THAT to people today.

Being harassed by James I, the Puritan leader, John Winthrop, was determined to create a Christian Utopia in the New World. [Utopia: (Greek ou no or not, and topos place), a term used to designate a visionary or an ideally perfect state of society.]

Winthrop’s problems started on the trip from England to New England when some of the least submissive Puritans had to be reminded that respect for authority was a fundamental part of this venture.

The problems were compounded after they landed and discovered a boundless land which made it extremely difficult to keep a restless people who insisted on moving away from the ‘center.’ In short, they didn’t buy into the notion that a central government should control their lives.

Despite decades of failure, liberals cling to the collectivist dream because it is far more than a theory of government. It is virtually a religion. It doesn’t take a genius to recognize the cost of socialism … the Russian Empire collapsed and most of the Eastern European countries are making the most of the capitalist system. Even China has opted (to a certain extent) to let the population dabble in capitalism.

North Korea still has a Stalinist regime, but then, they have nothing to do with the rest of the world anyway … that’s not really true … they may not be able feed their people, but they are capable of exporting the ingredients for a nuclear armory and propellant to make the missiles fly. Their partners-in-arms? Libya and Iran.

There are a couple of other things to bear in mind when thinking about the liberals among us … Liberals are pompous, uptight, and legalistic, i.e. “Define ‘is.’” Not only that, they cannot conceive of a solution to a problem which does not involve government.

Consider this, New England is a major source of liberal politicians: the Kennedy clan, Michael Dukakis, Paul Tsongas, Bill Bradley, and more recently, Howard Dean, John Kerry, and Joe Lieberman.

In addition, there is the New England penchant as the source of most American reform movements: education and equality for women, community health care, welfare.

I know, I know, “Hillary-care” didn’t arise in New England, but no one has ever said that Arkansas, Illinois or wherever she’s really from, don’t have their own share of nuts.

Here are a couple of thoughts for your perusal: "Manipulating human beings to realize any utopian dream, from Marxism to diversity, is always a nightmare on some level. Treating people as symbols, as colors, as trophies, is ultimately dehumanizing -- literally." Columnist Diana West.

"Multiculturalism and coercive tolerance of bizarre lifestyles describes a social experiment, not a civilization." Paul Gottfried .

Great article! The parallels go even further than mentioned by the author.

For example, adultery was anathema to the Puritans and was punished by public humiliation and exclusion of the offender. Today, chastity is anathema to the Liberals and is punished by public humiliation and exclusion of the offender.

Rigid compliance to the Puritan doctrine was required and vigorously enforced. Violators were ostracized and ridiculed. Today, rigid compliance to the Liberal doctrine was required (i.e. political correctness) and vigorously enforced. Violators are ostracized and ridiculed.

Moving forward in history we come to the temperance movement and its leader Carrie Nation. She is renown for entering bars and smashing containers of evil, consumable spirits with her axe. Fast forward to today and Liberal groups like the ELF who torch SUVs, homes, laboratories, and other structures they claim contain evil, environmentally bad contents or harm nature.

The parallels are endless and the conclusion is obvious. Today's Liberals are the inheritors of yesterday's social fanatics. Liberals are the Puritans of the 21st century.

This is intriguing.

The Pilgrims were meant to be a contractor of the Virginia Company of Plymouth. They rejected the contract and, prior to landing outside of the Company's chartered lands, formed a civil government by "compact."

The Mayflower Compact reads: "...doe by these presents solomnly and mutualy in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine our selves togeather into a civill body politick, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by vertue hereof to enacte, constitute, and frame such just and equall lawes, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meete and convenient for the generall good of the Colonie, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names...

In 1626, the Pilgrims also signed a written agreement among themselves to form a joint-stock corporation, corporately holding the combined assests, profits and debts of the colony. The corporate holdings were assigned to Isaack Allerton as agent to pledge them as bonds or security on annual payment of notes to the Council for New England to obtain goods and necessities for the new colony on credit to be repayed through commodities produced such as fur, dried fish and corn.

[This hometown civil government operated under a new charter granted by the king to 40 noblemen comprising the "Plymouth Council." Although the Council kept reins over gross disposition of the chartered lands, they delegated powers of civil government to the colonists through contract: ..."to establish such Lawes and ordynaunces as are for their better government, and the same by such Officer or Officers as they shall by most voices elect and choose to put in execution."]

Within the corporation, single free men had a single share and every father of a household had as many shares as there were people in his family. Ownership of the cattle was proportionatly divided -so at the time one cow was "owned" by six persons or shares. 20 acres of arriable land, with five acres abutting a watercourse, was alloted to each share. The remaining land was to be held communally and each, according to his share in cattle, could mow the grass.

We have three elements - the concept of a "compact," an economic form of socialism, and the notion of direct democracy (for men.)

Although the notions of socialism and direct democracy are akin to modern liberal thought, the notion of compact is not.

Reference: Blackstone's Commentaries, "View of the Constitution of the United States," Section 1 - Nature of U.S. Constitution; manner of its adoption as annotated by St. George Tucker, William Young Birch and Abraham Small, c1803, on the nature of a "compact":

"It is a compact; by which it is distinguished from a charter, or grant; which is either the act of a superior to an inferior; or is founded upon some consideration moving from one of the parties, to the other, and operates as an exchange, or sale: but here the contracting parties, whether considered as states, in their politic capacity and character; or as individuals, are all equal; nor is there any thing granted from one to another: but each stipulates to part with, and to receive the same thing, precisely, without any distinction or difference in favor of any of the parties....."

In other words, the majority of a democracy cannot gang up to divest an individual of his life, liberty or property. It is why the fifth amendment states that a property "takings" must be compensated. All must remain whole in their estate to maintain the compact's parity.

This was restated in the 1876 U.S. Supreme Court case of Munn v. State of Illinois, 94 U.S. 113:

"...When one becomes a member of society, he necessarily parts with some rights or privileges which, as an individual not affected by his relations to others, he might retain. 'A body politic,' as aptly defined in the preamble of the Constitution of Massachusetts, 'is a social compact by which the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people, that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good.' This does not confer power upon the whole people to control rights which are purely and exclusively private, Thorpe v. R. & B. Railroad Co., 27 Vt. 143; but it does authorize the establishment of laws requiring each citizen to so conduct himself, and so use his own property, as not unnecessarily to injure another. This is the very essence of government, and has found expression in the maxim sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas. From this source come the police powers, which, as was said by Mr. Chief Justice Taney in the License Cases, 5 How. 583, 'are nothing more or less than the powers of government inherent in every sovereignty, . . . that is to say, . . . the power to govern men and things.'

The subtulties of the compact were never appreciated by the Europeans in their form of democracy where the individual is presumed to have surrendered individualism to the good of the whole. It is not appreciated by today's American "Progressives," who, for instance, feel that property should be held as a privilege, subservient to the common good.

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