Is America hot-headed?

I don't see how being hotheads is exclusive of the other bad traits Old Dog ascribes to the Americans, can't they be all that and hotheads too?

There is an excellent three book series called The Americans by Daniel Borstin which goes from the colonies to the civil war.  He analyzes how we became they way we were.  One telling example was steamship engines.  There were two different kinds.  One was economical with fuel and safe to run, but not quite as speedy as the other one which used loads of fuel and had a tendency to blow up frequently.  Can you tell me which engines powered the ships that rode through the rivers of Europe and of America?  Well of course we didn't worry about fuel, just dock at the bank and chop down some more trees from that land that expanded ever westwards for the taking, whereas in Europe that land was owned by some guy with, well, whatever version of Old Betsy was popular then.

Oh and then there is religion.  I've been reading a lot about the Puritans lately, an unappealing lot, hard-working, and literate, and pious, but rather rigid in their thoughts and quite intolerant of those who thought otherwise, decidedly unliberal.

I don't necessarily mean liberal in the sense of lefty, back in the day the tag liberal was applied to both lefties and righties, basically everybody who was in favor of getting rid of the king.  I normally hate those essays that begin with Mr Webster defines patriotism as:  But in this case I think Mr Google provides an excellent definition:open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values. 

I think it's the tendency to question things that is the primary thrust of the liberal, unspoken is the corollary that they are never a hundred percent sure of anything because everything is open to question.  It's always a weakness to be pretty sure of something when your opponent has no doubts whatsoever.  I think that strong whiff of Puritanism that washed over America in its formative days has made us unliberal which only increases our hotheadedness.


I don't remember Old Dog asking me about  Beaglestonian before, but I am happy to answer.  Ruby Dew, who is aware of the Beaglesonian Institute but not a regular reader once erroneously referred to The Institute as The Beaglestonian, and I liked the ring.  It sounds a little more solid with that hard t, and that stone sound in it.  When referring to The Institute I always say Beaglesonian, but I like to think of Beaglestonia as sort of a nickname, like have you heard what those Beaglestonians are up to?