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People have honestly no idea about the early history of the US.
The pilgrims literally left England because they couldn't oppress people enough. They can to America to build their perfect religious society.
Many colonies in the South weren't 'fleeing' anything, they were fully funded by the crown with the goal of settling the land and sending resources and taxes back to Britain.
Here's another semi obscure tidbit.
Do you know what happened to the puritan religion? As in, the actual church that was famous for burning witches and forcing women to wear letters.
It morphed into the United Church of Christ and, I kid you not, the Unitarian Universalists. (Among other splinters)
the Unitarian Universalists
What? No! How? Those poor bastards, I thought they were unscathed. Well, at least their heart's in the right place these days.
honestly its the heavy emphasis on morality that caused the evolution and growth as well as the splintering. They actually thought about what was right and wrong and see where they had it wrong and allowed current knowledge to be used. Im by no means trying to praise a religion but this is why you get the evolution to unitarian universalist.
I actually went to a UU church in my 20s. I've always been an atheist and I've made no secret of it and I didn't then and not only was everyone cool with it, plenty of them were also atheists. Including the minister, who became a UU minister because his father was an abusive evangelical minister who taught him how to speak in a church and he rejected all of his father's ideas and became a progressive voice in the best way he knew how. The first time I went, they were celebrating Bob Marley's birthday. I was hooked right away. It was a great way to have a social group at the time and also a great way to find social justice causes to work on.
These days, I'm in my 40s and I'm living in a different place. The church is on the other side of town, I have no idea who the minister is, and I wouldn't be able to convince my wife and daughter to go anyway, so it isn't worth it.
But if you're young, an atheist, and are interested in social justice and also want a social life, you could do worse.
I'm an atheist as well and went to a UU church for a little bit in my mid 30s.
I enjoyed it. It was a nice third place. The people were all over the place with regard to their beliefs.
Really it was what I think church should be in the 21st century. Scripture is read but it was pretty much only positive messages and relevant to current events. The minister was wildly liberal and progressive. We sang. Scripture and songs were from all the major religions, not just Christianity or even Abrahamic. Really it was treated more of a "history of religion" than preaching. Religion itself has some positive messages and a very important place in history.
That is super interesting. I had no idea that there was decent, non-judgemental denominations like that. Especially ones that are so old. It's still, not for me, but its nice to know that, occasionally, 'Christian' churches can actually be cool like that.
Thanks for sharing!
Sure. They aren't really Christian anyway. They came out of Christianity, but they call themselves a creed rather than a religion. Basically, "don't be an asshole" and you're welcome.
You do know that the founding fathers and first pilgrims are different people?
You do know the Founding Fathers didn't flee here from England?
But they did flee from British Empire!
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were born in Virginia. Ben Franklin was born in Pennsylvania. 48 of the 56 signers of the declaration were born in America. Only two were born in England.
Please tell us how these men fled from the British empire.
They rebelled against the empire because they wanted lower taxes. The freedom from tyranny narrative was concocted to get buy in from the lower classes who had to actually die for the revolution to succeed.
The rehtoric never matched reality - "All men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights".. except all those slaves and Indians.
It wasn't really the taxes, that was their excuse to get the masses to agree to a rebellion.
The main reason was land. They wanted to expand west to continue growing cotton and tobacco. Kentucky and Tennessee were ripe for cultivation, however, the British empire had made a proclamation in the 1760s saying the colonies were not allowed to expand further into native territory.
The taxes were a tactic to get the poor people to die for them, so they could get rich off of stealing more land for these crops that destroyed the soil they already had
Citation needed. Please show me how you are able to determine the motivation of people who died about 2 centuries before you were born and by the records we have of them show that they argued about everything, hence are unlikely to have a shared conspiratorial vision.
I'm sorry you never heard of the Royal Proclamation of 1763. Google is your friend.
Citation needed. Please show me how you are able to determine the motivation of people who died about 2 centuries before you were born and by the records we have of them show that they argued about everything, hence are unlikely to have a shared conspiratorial vision.
Since you evidently need to be reminded what I asked you not what you wanted me to ask you.
Nerp.
Not worth my time. Sorry you hate reading.
And I am sorry you think you can just lay a massive claim with no evidence to support it.
Can you even name 5 of the signers without looking it up? No? So how did you mind read them?
Taxes by somebody else (taxation without representation) is a sort of non-freedom too.
Yes, it took some time to implement principles in federal constitution in all the states."No taxation without representation" is also a drastically misunderstood line.
What they were effectively asking for was self-governance, being removed from parliamentary control.
Given the technological limitations of the time, there was no way to effect a representative scheme in parliament with a constituency that was a 12-week round trip away. Furthermore, there were serious discussions of adding seats to parliament for the colonies, and the colonies refused to send anyone.
The Assembly of Massachusetts Bay was the first which ever took exception to the right of Parliament to impose Duties or Taxes on the Colonies, whilst they had no representatives in the House of Commons. This they did in a letter to their Agent in the summer of 1764 ... And in this letter they recommend to him a pamphlet, wrote by one of their members, in which there are proposals for admitting representatives from the Colonies to fit in the House of Commons ... an American representation is thrown out as an expedient which might obviate the objections to Taxes upon the Colonies, yet ... it was renounced ... by the Assembly of the Colony which first proposed it, as utterly impracticable.
And
Whilst [the radical colonists] exclaim against Parliament for taxing them when they are not represented, they candidly declare they will not have representatives [in Parliament] lest they should be taxed ... The truth ... is that they are determined to get rid of the jurisdiction of Parliament ... and they therefore refuse to send members to that assembly lest they should preclude themselves of [the] plea [that Parliament's] legislative acts ... are done without their consent; which, it must be confessed, holds equally good against all laws, as against taxes ... The colony advocates ... tell us, that by refusing to accept our offer of representatives they ... mean to avoid giving Parliament a pretence for taxing them
What they were effectively asking for was self-governance, being removed from parliamentary control.
Yes, how else it can be interpreted? This is what freedom is on state level - self governance.
how else can it be interpreted?
As a call for representation in Parliament, the body levying taxes.
The slogan wasn't "No taxation unless we are an independent political entity".
I don’t know. Since this slogan was always related to revolution against British, I always thought it was not about “gives us representation”, but about “stop taxing us, we want to be free of you”.
Why pay taxes if you could just kill them all ? I can understand if you were in england, kind hard to escape them or exterminate them. But in america, the few of them that would cross the ocean, can just be disposed of as they arrive, already exhausted from the trip. Why give them a single penny ?
You know, that definition of flee where you stay put and don't go anywhere. I like that definition of the word too. ;)