What is the religious right but a possibly logical extrapolation, over time, of the puritan ethic that planted it's pretty radical seed into the psyche of America to grow into and become the manifestation that we see perpetrated upon us today jn Washington. Of course the puritan ethic, whatever it was, has been bastardized and deleted, morphed and "refined" into this group of mod "patriots?" that can, amazingly, seem to deny the presence of the separations between church and state (and never the twain shall meet) that were set out so graphically by those early guys sometimes called the founding fathers. The religious right sure does worship those founders when their early rules/pronouncements from 1776 suit their purposes. (like guns!)

I stand by my feelings that it can be traced back to the attitudes that became the dogmas of people we call puritans.

Art