Maggie's Farm

Praising the Puritans, at First Things (h/t, AVI). Lawler begins:

There’s little less fashionable today than praising the Puritans, especially for their egalitarian political idealism, their promotion of genuinely humane and liberating learning, and their capacity for enjoyment and human happiness. Praising the Puritans is especially difficult for us because even most of our Protestants have abandoned them. When a European calls us Puritanical we don’t say, “yes, thanks a lot, you’re right.” Instead, we either deny it, saying we’re way beyond those days. Or we admit it, saying that, “yes, we should be less capitalistic, less repressed, and more free thinking, just like you.” But the truth is that the Puritans remain the chief source of the American difference—our ability to live freely and prosperously without unduly slighting the longings of our souls. It’s the Puritans’ idealism that made and even makes Americans civilized.

Read the whole thing. I do not know how, or whether, immigrants to the US can, or have been able to, or even want to, learn the code. I sure hope they can.

Picture is Jonathan Edwards, a member of the Maggie's Farm pantheon. You would not know from the prissy portrait, but he loved to have fun.