Colonial regression.........

Here is the riposte from Haymaker Texas to ' Sex, religion and politics' .

Your impassioned comments about what is wrong with America certainly hit home. And your conclusion that US politics is nuts is right on the mark. Sadly, US politics, like the US media, is but a reflection of the American people. One day, we shall grow up and mature. In the mean time, we are compelled to live with out foibles.

One might bear in mind, however, that the American psyche developed largely from Anglo-Saxon sources. Why then, are we so different from our ancestral predecessors? The answer, I argue, has to do with colonial retrogression. There are several examples of emigrating Brits and Europeans who sailed abroad, established colonies and became entrenched in the culture, language, society and religion of their forefathers back home. Consider the French Canadians who speak French that is more akin to the 17 century than it is to contemporary France. Or the professional Scots in New Zealand who, like their brothers elsewhere outside of Scotland, are bound and determine to be more Scottish than homeland Scots. Another example is the Boers in South Africa who retained 17th century Protestant ethics and values that are currently difficult to find in The Netherlands.

The Australians have a congenital disrespect for authority and employ profanity as if it were a virtue. Is that surprising considering their criminal origins? And how about America and our strict Protestant ethics fostered, among others, by the Pilgrims, Quakers, Methodists and Presbyterians, not to mention the CofE. We, like other colonials, tended to freeze the mold and adhered to beliefs and behaviors that our forefathers outgrew and then moved on.

Whether colonial retrogression is a good explanation or not, it does not alter our prevailing existential situation which you so eloquently described. While I may not agree entirely with your perspective, there is enough truth in your comments to make your point and then some. As for biblical references to birth control and abortion, you should go back to bible school. Remember the caution about not spilling one's seed on the ground? That mandate applies equally to Christians, Jews and Muslims and is retained in all their holy books. As for abortion, how about the mandate that goes something like thou shalt not kill.

To be sure these biblical references have been tortured along the way and better suit organized religion's need for control than man's need for salvation. Nor did the authors of organized religion know much about biology and anatomy. While men may be guilty of spreading their seed all over this good earth, the same does not apply to women following similar practices. First of all women have no seeds and secondly they do not drop an egg when indulging in non-reproductive sexual sport. One might conclude that women are given a pass on this mandate.

My years in the UK and Europe and the many more years abroad have acted to remove me from the religious stupor in which large numbers of Americans thrive. This stupor is particularly contagious among rural folk and disgustingly so in the South. Texas includes the latter as we are largely influenced by southern mores and values even though Western Texas is considered more Southwestern than Southern. Most of our gun toting, hot blooded cowboys observed Sunday prayers after a night of drinking, gambling and a trip over to Rosy's. 

As far as finding socialism and its even more diabolic cousin, communism are concerned, we are victims of political propaganda. The powers that prevailed at various times in our more recent history, in this case the rich, used their political minions to promote capitalism and denigrate socialism. In addition, many American, and indeed British and Continental, observers viewed socialism as the equal distribution of poverty and as inconsistent with man's competitive nature. Give a man a fish and he will die of hunger but give a man a fishing lesson and he will survive sort of thing. Nor did we find the standards of living that prevailed in socialist countries high enough to meet our aspirations.

Then came immigrants prior to WWII and with them Italian and Jewish Communists. Neither were accepted and both abandoned their political convictions in rapid order. Nevertheless, the perceived threat they posed by the time Stalin came to power and during China's transition to Communism leant fodder to the human and political transgressions characterized by Senator Joe McCarthy and what we call the McCarthy era. What a nightmare that was, but Joe and his supporters were unashamedly used by the super rich, including a handfull of Texas oilmen. to brutally combat Communism while promoting the glories of Christianity.

We still need a lot of maturing, but for the time being, we find it convenient to tolerate the Evangelicals and cheerleaders for Christianity in spite of their blissful ignorance, intolerance and of course, their hypocrisy. Americans are suckers for a good preacher and will follow them without checking their religious or personal credentials. As I say, we have some growing up to do.