Infidelity’s lingering social taboo, along with fear of discovery by spouse or family, provided the necessary motivation to pay. This has historical roots.
It's assumed by many that they're racists (which would account for the heated demonization of Barack Obama). But maybe the opposition to Obama is just political gamesmanship.
The Sixties counterculture, its beliefs and practices, its odyssey into the Seventies, and its many legacies as it became integrated into mainstream culture help explain the United States today.
Southern slaveowners Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson injected the word “freedom” into politics. But they didn't mean freedom for everybody. We live with that legacy.
Like John Adams, they were for the most part confident that the new United States was on the cusp of a brilliant future. But they did not believe that Americans, as a people, were exempt from the flaws and faults of other nations and peoples.
At a time when many are questioning what America stands for in a world consumed by sectarian strife, it is well to remember where freedom of conscience was first practiced.
