No one hates the Puritans more than self-described liberals and leftists. They claim to hate the value that Puritans placed on enforced social conformity in thought, appearance, and action. A group of elders sat at the top of society deciding what was best and then enforcing their judgments on everyone. Some got humiliated in the stocks. Some received beatings or imprisonment. Some were mercifully banished. Others were killed. Those receiving punishment could not conform or adhere to the restrictive ideals that Puritanism placed on society in the name of God.
Take away the guiding principle of the Puritans' interpretation of the Holy Bible and what you are left with is a Utopian ideal that in practice comes very close to what the leftists seek to impose. Puritans ruled several areas for brief amounts of time. They controlled much of New England from its founding until the 1680s when control was wrenched away by James II. For a brief period in the 1650s they ruled Maryland after an armed coup. Between the 1640s and early 1660s Puritans held Great Britain itself in the grip of a revolutionary government dominated by the dictatorial Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell. Britain enjoyed their Puritan dictatorship so much that on Cromwell's death they invited to the throne the son of the king they executed.
Puritans demand a conformity of thought to their ideals. The Left believes that Tea Parties and the Republicans are "seditious," in other words guilty of criminal speech against the government. Puritans want to impose a conformity of habit. The Left is out in front of the movement to tax certain kinds of fat, use government controls to reduce sodium content, and tax smoking out of affordability. Puritans established compulsory education to ensure that children learned their ideals of Christianity and learned a healthy hatred of "damned" sects such as Anglicans and Catholics. The Left has voiced its desire repeatedly to use the school system to promote its peculiar and fringe ideals on economics, society, and culture while attacking respect for the flag, the Founding Fathers, and the free enterprise system.
The difference between the Puritans of New England and the Left is that Puritans always had control and had to preach conformity and authoritarianism. The Left just obtained control and is finding it difficult to go from preaching non conformity and questioning authority to a state where no one is to question and criticize Dear Leader. It has left many on that side of the political spectrum confused and disoriented. Some have just outright rejected him themselves, despite the threat of banishment from the Democratic cash trough.
When thinking about the Puritan dictatorship of Britain, one sees historical hope. The criminal rule of King Charles I followed by the revolutionary brutality of Cromwell convinced Britain as a whole to reject the notion of a powerful central authority. They dismantled their army in peacetime and stuck to the idea that government must be small and unable to impose its will upon the people. Maybe Obama/Cromwell has been a wakeup call to our country that we must fundamentally change our thinking as Britain did. Government must return to being an "obedient servant" instead of a parental provider figure. We must cut our taxes and drastically cut back on what we expect the government to do. That could include privatizing the contruction of roads and bridges, eliminating several Cabinet level departments, and other ideas. The time is soon coming when we must scale back or collapse. Puritan rule caused this positive movment in the 1600s. Will leftist extremism in power do the same now?
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