The Puritans, who settled in Salem, Massachusetts in the 1600s, were a self-righteous group. Anyone who enjoyed recreational activities—the arts, the plays of Shakespeare, dancing, card playing, social events, and smoking—were considered damned.
To maintain a strong grip on their community, Puritan leaders poked their noses into the private affairs of their neighbors. Malicious gossip became a civic duty.
They showed a fanatical intolerance of other religions, particularly Catholicism. Quakers and Baptists were also maltreated and, of course, there were the executions for witchcraft.
The heirs to the early New England settlers, Commentary Magazine editor Noah Rothman argues persuasively in his new book, "The Rise of the New Puritans," are Progressives.
Believing, like the ancient Gnostics, that they have the secret knowledge to fix our flawed nation, Progressives are "puritanical compulsives who can be characterized as self-righteous, zealous, uncompromising, indignant, dogmatic, and judgmental."
Having rejected the New Left’s "live-and-let-live" philosophy, they have adopted the ideology of cultural Marxist Herbert Marcuse, that calls for repressive tolerance to end the nation’s culture of free inquiry.
And to impose their totalist moral code, Progressives are intruding into every aspect of our lives.
Take the field of fine art. Many museums have been labelled racist because they accept donations, grants, and artwork from "unsavory" sources: white racist captains of industry.
Some radicals have even called for "white dominant" museums to be closed.
One such place is the National Gallery of Art that has been described as the last plantation on the National Mall.
Many classic books (i.e., "To Kill a Mockingbird," "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," "Of Mice and Men"), have been removed from school libraries because they are perceived as inherently racist or exhibit "dated cultural attitudes."
Comedies are out because jokes may offend a viewer. In 2008, 25% of movies were comedies. In 2018, they were only 8% of releases.
Disney now puts disclaimers on animated classics such as "Dumbo," "Peter Pan," and "The Aristocats" because they allegedly depict "racial stereotypes."
White-owned "appropriative" restaurants are being driven out of business.
A white chef serving Chinese, Mexican, or Indian cuisine is now guilty in the eyes of puritanical culinary watchdogs of "robbery, imperialism, and even ethnonationalism."
Progressives who bow at the altar of veganism are calling for meat, eggs, and milk to be eliminated from diets. In their crusade for food justice, they hold that consuming meat and dairy products is sinful, and call on people to eat insects to save the planet.
New Puritans, Rothman notes, "care more about savoring righteousness then savory food. . . . "
Many professional sports, are also deemed offensive. Football has been labeled a "moral abomination that contributes to the degradation of a virtuous society," encourages "toxic masculinity," and is the training ground for "irrational jingoism."
Hobbies are on the chopping block. Baseball card collecting is racist because it reminds one of the days of racial segregation.
The white-dominated American knitting community is racist because they appropriate yarn from India.
Holidays are a waste because they encourage debauched merriment.
Thanksgiving Day is offensive because it is "embedded in soil soaked through with Pequot blood."
Progressives argue Thanksgiving should be renamed "National Land Theft Day" or "American Genocide Day" or should be a "national day of atonement accompanied by self-reflected collective fasting."
Christmas contributes to "systemic oppression" because it is associated within "the context of the dominant culture."
Nothing escapes these meddling zealots. Jogging is racist because it has been a pastime marketed primarily to white people.
Other healthy and enjoyable pastimes, including gardening and bird-watching, are frowned upon because they are driven by white patriarchy.
For the New Puritans, Rothman writes, ruining your diversion is the whole point. "Unnecessary recreations are a luxury you don’t deserve."
The Progressives loathe the basic unit of society, the nuclear family, because "as an institution … it is built on intersecting racism, sexism and homophobia."
Since parents cannot be trusted to raise their children properly, they call for the family to be abolished. Children, Progressives argue, should become part of the "collective" and be brought up by government-certified surrogates.
The modern Progressive moralist, Rothman concludes, prides himself "on his embrace of diversity in all things but thought."
Imbued with an unquestioning belief in their own infallibility, they are hellbent on imposing their warped values on all Americans.
And if conservatives do not quickly unify and initiate a counterculture offensive, they will find themselves declared by the censorious left "enemies of the state" and imprisoned for expressing contrary opinions.
George J. Marlin, a former executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, is the author of "The American Catholic Voter: Two Hundred Years of Political Impact," and "Christian Persecutions in the Middle East: A 21st Century Tragedy." Read George J. Marlin's Reports — More Here.
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