blake murphy wrote:
> On Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:29:55 -0500, Dave Smith wrote:
>
>> T wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> And need I remind you that the initial settlers of the U.S. were
>>> essentially religious fundamentalists.
>>>
>>> Puritans, Calvinists, et al. All people the Church of England couldn't
>>> tolerate.
>> Exactly. The Pilgrims were a sect of the Puritans. They didn't come
>> across the ocean to escape religious persecution. They cam to create a
>> religious colony. Meanwhile, back in England, the Puritans were gaining
>> strength and their anti Catholic zeal led to a civil war and regicide.
>> They sure weren't about religious freedom and tolerance.
>
> but that was some one hundred years before the constitution was written.

Closer to 150 year, but the mythology seems to be that they came to
escape persecution, which is not exactly accurate. Yet, for some
reason, the constitutional rhetoric about liberty, freedom and all men
being created equally didn't apply to black slaves. Go figger.