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To: LS; Bluewater2015
No. None of these countries had a truly “Protestant” religion from their origin (Anglicanism is not really a protesting religion-—it is Catholicism accomodating Henry’s divorce.)
I’m not a Protestant. So for me, the whole “Protestant” thing doesn’t really matter, anyhow.
Actually, it’s huge and is only equalled by common law. The reason is latitudinarianism, bottom-up governing, which is one of the main reasons Canada did not have the same reactions to British policies. It completely infused the decentralized federalist structure.
IMHO

The Theme Is Freedom:

Religion, Politics, and the American Tradition
by M. Stanton Evans.
is an excellent dissertation on American conservatism. The distinctive feature of the book, in my takeaway, is how it asserts that Catholic doctrine is loaded with support for liberty. The difficulty, Evans {RIP :( ] asserted, is not in finding such sources but deciding which ones not to use.

I’m not Catholic, and I went to public government school. Reading Theme made me sense that there was some serious omitting going on, even back in the 1950s, in the teaching of US history. AntiCatholic, in this case . . .

I had a Civics course back then, in which the teacher gave a homework assignment which had the punchline that the teacher critiqued my response by asserting that “we like to use ‘society’ as a synonym for government.” I was utterly unconvinced, and it turns out that Thomas Paine put paid to that “argument” in 1776:

SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.

Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil;

As I was standing up in that class, I would have loved to have been able to recite that - the opening paragraph + of Common Sense.

IMHO conservatives should aggressively use the term “society” in its proper meaning; it fills a real need. For example I cringe when people say, “the market decided” this or that. No, society decided that, thru the mechanism of the market.


7 posted on 08/03/2015 12:34:33 PM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion ('Liberalism' is a conspiracy against the public by wire-service journalism.)
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion
Did you read my comments in the NRO article? They only excerpted a few of them. If you want a blow-by-blow attack on the AP standards, see my detailed comments here;

https://www.nas.org/articles/2015_apush_misses_the_reasons_america_is_exceptional

8 posted on 08/03/2015 1:38:46 PM PDT by LS ("Castles Made of Sand, Fall in the Sea . . . Eventually" (Hendrix))
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