Kaptain Karl said:
What a truck load of ... fertilizer!
"Founded by illegal immigrants?" Good grief!
- KK
What else would you call them, the Pilgrims and those who immediately followed them? What do we call Haitians, Cubans etc. etc. who are trying to leave their countries to reach these shores any way they can for what they think will be a better life? The others brought to these shores in the early days of this country came in chains as forced labor, from African and the British Isles. The truth ain't pretty and that's why most people don't like it. But it's still the truth.
I refer you to the book "Redneck Manifesto" if you doubt me.
For the record, however, many Amerindians of the time, the Huron especially thought of the Pilgrims and other European immigrants what we think of "boat people" today.
You may not like the perspective or the connotations but the reality was what it was.
There's far too much romanticism about history and the history of this country in particular. Call it what it was.
The ancient Romans still preserved the hut that Romulus supposedly lived in even when Rome dominated Europe and the mediterranean. No illusions or Romanticism their. They knew what they came from and didn't try to sugar-coat it.
What history books do you read?
Immigrant life in those days was what it was- ugly, dangerous, desperate and harsh- just like it sometimes is today, whether in American or among Eastern Europeans trying to reach the West.
There was nothing romantic or grand about life in 1600 England, for the Pilgrims or the authorities who jailed, tortured and eventually kicked them out of the country. The Pilgrims were outlawed in two countries, my friend. But their extremist brand of Christianity wasn't why they were booted out of England. Treason, or as they called it "sedition" was the nail in the Pilgrims' coffin.
For more on the Pilgrims, the full, un-sugar-coated story, I refer you to Simon Worrall's "Pilgrims: The True Story of the Englishmen Who Founded America."
I believe in calling a spade a spade. I don't sugarcoat it, then or now. I call it what it is. Jefferson, Washington and the other Founding Fathers certainly did. They kept a healthy distance between themselves, the government they created and the first English immigrants, as much as they could of course, which if compared to our distance today was next to nothing.
But as is often the case, something that starts one way can easily turn into something entirely different. The Pilgrims would in no way recognize the shores they landed on today or the people who are their theoretical descendants.
I think this is the most tangential, off-topic thread I've ever seen. LOL.
Cavaleer