Revolutionary War
Nothing historical is more distorted than the understanding that Americans have concerning their own origins and the causes of the very war that achieved their Independence and Freedom. Historians and our copycat clergy have it that the Revolutionary War was somehow about politics. Nothing could be farther from the truth. It was not at all about politics. It was about religion as all wars are in one way or another.
The oppression the colonists suffered under was an Anglican, Church of England, and indeed Catholic oppression, as the Catholic Church was effectively allied with the Anglican Church of England in most matters. It was no coincidence that Charles the First was beheaded by Cromwell, not because of politics, but because of his close alliance with the Roman Catholic Church on all matters. This alliance between the Catholics and the Anglicans against the Reformation Protestant "Puritans" was, and is, a constant of British politics then and even now.
The Colonists were fully aware of all this at the most basic level of hearth and home, and it occupied the typical dinner table discussion of ordinary people. It was not out of some meanness of spirit, or even bigotry in the narrow sense, that our founders effectively outlawed both the Catholic Church and the Anglican Church finally at one fell swoop as a result of the war.
Independence to the average American meant freedom from an Anglican-Catholic king of England and his Parliamentary allies. It was a system in which the Church of England was "established." That is the real reason for the "establishment clause" in the Constitution, and the also reason Catholics were not allowed to vote or hold offices for a long time afterward. This is all water under the bridge now, and Catholics are now firm allies of religious freedom, and a mainstay of Conservative forces in the country, and hopefully things will stay that way.
But, let us understand that, in general, what we are taught in this country from all directions is mostly garbage and lies, and begin the slow process of checking out things for ourselves.
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