The Republican and Teabagger mantra of "taking back our country," presumably to the stone age, for me, has worn thin. My spouse recently went back to work and off unemployment, we have health insurance again, our investments are doing very well, and life is good. I didn't think I wanted to "go back" to anything until I read this from Thaddeus Russell:
"During the War of Independence a culture of pleasure and freedom blossomed in American cities. Non-marital sex, including adultery and relations between whites and blacks, was ubiquitous and rarely punished. Because divorce was unregulated, it was easily and frequently obtained, often by women. Brothels were legal and abundant and prostitutes were rarely prosecuted. Black slaves, Irish indentured servants, Native Americans, and free whites of all classes commingled extensively in saloons and in the streets. Pirates who settled in the port cities brought with them a way of life that embraced both general revelry and homosexuality. On nearly every block in every 18th-century American city, there was a public place where one could drink, sing, dance, have sex, argue politics, gamble, play games, or generally carouse with men, women, children, whites, blacks, Indians, the rich, the poor, and the middling. Rarely have Americans had more fun. And never have America's leaders been less pleased by it."
It sounds to me as though our forefathers were having a hell of a lot more fun than we are. You might want to give Mr. Russell's book a read and see what you are missing.
"But what the Founding Fathers called corruption, depravity, venality, and vice, many of us would call freedom ..."
Christian conservative "values" it would appear have taken away a great many of our freedoms, and the people espousing these values don't seem to be through, even today. Apparently this country is still not "puritan" enough.
How sad.
What ever happened to live and let live?
0 comments:
Post a Comment