T.J. and the Liberties, Part 1
Today I intend to approach my topic a bit backwards from my usual method. That method is to search through the genealogies of the Reagans and O'Connors until I encounter a relative whose info contains a reference to a historical event, then research that event and write about it. Occasionally I run into an interesting story about the person that illuminates the times he/she lived in and relate that story. But today, in light of discussions that have been ongoing for a couple of decades and have intensified in more recent years, I wanted to hark back to the reason the Barebones Parliament failed -- a striking difference in approaches to religion in public life. That same issue resulted in the colonization of the land we live in by English settlers -- note that this did not seem to be a problem for the other major nations who made their mark on the American landscape: the Spanish, French, and to some extent the Dutch. Sure religious dissidents existed in those nations, but they weren...