This goes beyond the 2nd Amendment. Texas is attracting companies because it’s offering economic freedom. And it goes beyond that, too: This is about a fundamental dispute about whether our government exists to serve us and get out of the way of our exercise of our own free initiative, or whether government exists to instruct us and limit us as if we were schoolchildren in their care, permitted only to do the things the agreed to by a consensus of ill-educated moral scolds.
New England in a lot of ways never really got over puritanism. I think the puritan roots of New England largely explains why this kind of left-philosophy has gained such a strong foothold. The morality is different, but the inclination is the same.
It goes back to the original settlers who idea of liberty was called “ordered liberty” in liberty had be limited by the government.
The settlers of Texas mostly Scotch-Irish believed in “natural liberty” that liberty was not constrained by the state.
A good chunk of Germans as well.
” liberty was not constrained by the state.”
No, only by the Calvinist churches, acting through the state. That too still survives in Texas.
I was under the impression that Puritanism referred primarily to their theological strain, not necessarily that they were a bunch of prudes and/or theocrats.
@Jay,
Prudes no, theocrats yes.
Being part of the Puritan community involved voluntary entrance into a system of social control, where individual churches (in theory) had autonomy so long as they adhered to the Congregational doctrine.
Problems arose because Puritans never enjoyed 100% consensus on key theological issues (the precise mechanics of salvation as described by Calvin and the rigors/requirements of church membership among others). The experiment ultimately collapsed because the Church-State entity began dealing with every crisis as a threat to their authority.
The American left retains the legacy of Puritan philosophy where the Cult of the State has replaced a model Christian community as the “City on a Hill.” The religious ideals have been discarded, but the notion remains that with the right people in charge, the actions and thoughts of the populace can be encouraged/engineered into a utopia.
Fair enough. But I would say that a search for utopia predated the Puritans by a few millenia. ;)
Jay,
Agreed. :-)