conversion or death; however the first seeds of descent, during the first generation of Colonist, was spread by Roger Williams and his concept of a “wall of separation” between the magistrate and the religion. Thomas Jefferson would latter use that phrase to describe the distinction between the church and the state. “Go forth and teach all nations,” Jesus commands and that mandate is still fundamental to American fundamentalisms.
Today it is perpetrated by Mr. Bush and his chosen administration where the word freedom is equated with the concept of salvation. Holding to the tradition of Abraham Lincoln…“The last best hope of mankind.” The United States of America is justified by the virtue of its mission… the “manifest destiny” of a free people extending freedom. A key doctrine in what I am calling American fundamentalisms.
So that today whether it be a Liberal or a Conservative, in the matter of Iraq, the destruction of Iraq was an act of purification and the failure is not on Americas but rather on the Iraqis failure to yield on their “sectarian” agendas. These people won’t get together and form a cohesive government. America is a city on a hill, exceptional and virtuous. If we’ve gone to Iraq and it turned out to be a fiasco, it can’t be our fault because we were motivated by good intentions.
