The Fanatics Who Founded America.

by Englishman 30 Replies latest jw friends

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  Gill

  Hi Lawrence I did not mean you to take offence over my cringing at people praying openly at meals, it was meant as a description of the difference between the UK and the US/Canada. The fact that JWs must pray before meals is still 'strange' to an English gal. When I see it going on in the US it only reminds me of rabid JW ness and I can't help but cringe because the normal every day UK person would NEVER even consider praying, or bowing his head before a big Mac. It just don't happen. Hence, my experience of is is to equate it with all christian fundamentalism, which equates making a big fuss about everything they do, to show what wonderful christians they are.

  I'm sorry if it offends but...it just ain't English, if you know what I mean.
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  lawrence

  Gill-

  No offense. I have lived in Georgia, Florida, and Virginia and have worked in large parts of the South, so I know what you mean, and that's why I said "in silence." Though, when they pray openly and loud, I like to add an "Amen." It's better than other terms "of endearment..." Yes, when I have been in England I have been looked at strangely when I bowed my head before meals, beer, and bitters. Now I understand why, then again maybe it was the Richard Nixon mask and the Salvadore Dali threads.
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  katiekitten

  good post eman. Michael Moore has something to say about this too. He says the founders of America were running away from things they didnt like, and theyve been running away ever since. (notice I dont have a very refined version of what he said - im not a details person. You'd have to watch the film 'Bowling for Columbine' to get the full story)
• 

  upside/down

  My family didn't get here from Sicily til the 1950's...

  And, I'm NOTHING like my grand-father.

  u/d(of the paisano class)
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  Eyebrow2

  michael moore...he is so annoying. When is he going to do a documentary on how Leonardo divinci was a child molester?

  the puritans and such...you may not have liked them, but they left because they wanted freedom....so they left and went somewhere else to fit in. Good for them.

  I think calling them fanatics is misleading. You have to take everything in the context of the day.
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  Simon

  I think this is blatant Anti-Americanism - saying that Americans are the descendends of fanatics. I guess the implication is that America is now a nation of fanatics.
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  stopthepain

  Eyebrow--good point,who weren't religous fanatics back then,except for pirates maybe.
• 

  BrendaCloutier

  I am proudly decended from Quakers; my earliest american immigrant ancestor was Thomas Pierson and wife Mary Janney who sailed with Wm Penn's first fleet to Pennsylvania in 1682. The last Quaker in my lineage was my Great Grandmother, who then took to JW'ism, stole me from my unwed birthmother and gave me to my parents, JW's, to raise. (It wasn't necessarily a bad thing)

  Penn was deeded the land in the New World by the ruling party to get those extreme liberal Quakers out of their hair. Women had equal footing with men in and out of church. Most of the abolisionists were Quaker. And Susan B. Anthony, commemorated on one of our dollar coins was a Quaker.

  Susan's first involvement in the world of reform was in the temperance movement. This was one of the first expressions of original feminism in the United States and it dealt with the abuses of women and children who suffered from alcoholic husbands. In 1849, Susan gave her first public speech for the Daughters of Temperance and then helped found the Woman's State Temperance Society of New York, one of the first organizations of its time. In 1851 she went to Syracuse to attend a series of antislavery meetings. During this time Susan met Elizabeth Cady Stanton, became fast friends and joined Stanton and Amelia Bloomer in campaigns for women's rights. In 1854, she devoted herself to the antislavery movement serving from 1856 to the outbreak of the civil war,1861. Here, she served as an agent for the American Anti-slavery Society. After, she collaborated with Stanton and published the New York liberal weekly, "The Revolution" (1868-70) which called for equal pay for women.
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  Qcmbr

  Just reading in a stunned sort of way how cheaply you regard what was done for you. America has a constitution at its core that is the greatest this world has yet seen IMO. The 'Founding Fathers' and all the individuals who built your great nation deserve more than to have themselves chewed over and spit up by their children. I'm sorry you don't seem to value more highly what you have and those who made it possible.
  
  There will always be those who hate freedom and liberty and will seek to enslave the US 'tis a shame to start singing their tune. If you don't want to stand up for them I will.
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  Simon

  Many Australians are the descendents of convicts but it doesn't make them criminals. How long does a generations behaviour affect their lineage do you think? I personally think that there is often little link after just 2 or 3 generations unless there are very strong rituals that have been enorced.