Anti-Slavery Politics in the Legend of "Goody" Hallett, "Witch of Wellfleet!"

The legend of “Maria” Hallet appears to have first begun in 1934 with a reprise in 1937 from Josef Berger, who wrote the 1930's classic Cape Cod Pilot.  On pages 193-197, he regales the story of the "simple Eastham farm girl" of Cape Cod - and supposed wife of legendary pirate Samuel Bellamy - whose fate was linked with the wreck of Bellamy's Whydah. 

Her name was said to be "Goody" Hallett. This has since been a legend concerning the Golden Age pirate from Devon, England, who captured the most prizes of any Caribbean pirate before the legendary Bartholomew Roberts six years after him. 

But where did this legend come from? It certainly was not as old as Charles Johnson's A General History of the Pyrates.. coming up on 300 years! Halletts had been well-known and respected mariners in Massachusetts for more than a century – never even associated with maritime disaster until Elizabeth Reynard’s 1934 publication, The Narrow Land: Folk Chronicles of Old Cape Cod (1934). This legend has persisted to the present day. Indeed, in 1977, the Boston Herald published - on Halloween day, of course - the add below:

Boston Herald, 30 Oct 1777

This is almost certainly legend. It should be said that "Goody" or Mary or Maria Hallett has never been identified. No court records of her jailing or arrest have ever been found. Certainly, no bloody contract with Satan has ever appeared in print. And, no Cape Cod Hallett girl has ever been associated with "scuttling ships" off the Massachusetts coast.

Indeed, why make such pejorative slurs against a 15-year-old girl named "Goody" or Mary Hallett, the alleged “Witch of Wellfleet?” I thought only narcissistic, misogynistic, and pedantic jerks like Donald J. Trump were prone to abuse young women, either in bathrooms, or - like the 16-year-old Swedish climate-change activist girl - on his Twitter account - even as his statuesque Slavic model wife yells at Democrat witnesses to stop mentioning her young son, Barron Trump in hearings! Did such tribal politics also come into play with young Miss Hallett? 

Did she even exist for that matter?

Prior to 1935, the only similar reference – at least in Massuchesetts newspapers – was a shipping record for the vessel “Water Witch, of Wellfleet” in 1846. Furthermore, many vessels have carried "Witch" in their name. There have been as many as 2,899 newspaper references for both “witch” and “Cape Cod” together between 1716 and 1935, so the fairly recent Witch Trials of Salem in 1692 and the frequent devastating nor'easters probably left a lasting mark upon local Cape Cod maritime history. 

There was also Elizabeth Reynard’s other story about one Capt. Sylvanus of Cape Cod who blamed his oversleeping and allowing his sails to be ripped away in a storm upon the “Truro Hag” or witch – a woman in Truro who had sold him some milk – having drugged him by poisoning the milk! Truro is only a few miles north of both Wellfleet and Eastham), by the way. 

Another legend may have been influenced in 1851 by the wreck of Water Witch of Salem on those same shores. In fact, maritime disasters were so common in Massachusetts that 19^th century newspapers carried a “Disasters” column in their shipping section! 

Culturally, associating witches or other such ominous supernatural phenomenon with disasters has been quite common in maritime folklore and disasters on Cape Cod were indeed frequent. Marine insurance company rates of the 19^th century reflected Cape Cod’s shores as literally crawling with such “witches”  causing disasters to occur against their profit margins!

Still, why make the “witch” reference to a 15-year-old “Goody” Hallett girl (note that the term “Goody” made a timely cultural reference to the 1692 Witch Trials)? Was this simply a cultural recollection from 1692 - an attempt to demean the Hallett family as such a disaster? 

There may have been a coincident political reason to demean the Halletts of Cape Cod as possessing of some... “evil!” And, in this case, there was plenty of evidence... hanging in a Massachusetts train depot shortly before the Civil War!

A well-known Anti-Masonic (later Whig) politician Chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1848-1852 and US District Attorney for Massachusetts between 1853-57, appointed by President Franklin Pierce - and native of Cape Cod – named Benjamin Franklin Hallett suffered political derision as a “soldier of fortune,” a betrayer of “every party and faction,” and a “flaming, intolerant, persecuting, temperance (anti-alcohol) man, and called loudly upon all the friends of temperance” before his death in 1862. Long-time researcher of Hallet, Roberto Poli, tells that:

Hallet was a staunch abolitionist, and a militant protector of minorities such as the native Mashpee Indians of Cape Cod, whom he defended in court in 1833 against 'whites' stealing their property in their own land... The various slanderous epithets with which he was labeled come from an episode that drew great attention, both from the public and the press - the trial of Anthony Burns, a fugitive slave escaped from the estate of Charles F. Suttle in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1854, and arrested in Boston. The trial became one of the most controversial episodes involving slavery in the years leading to the Civil War. As an abolitionist, Hallett openly despised everything the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 stood for; as a man of law, he was forced to use “reasonable force or restraint as may be necessary under the circumstances of the case” (Fugitive Slave Law, 1850; Section 6) to return fugitives to the claimants. Predictably, northern Democrats, fiercely opposed to slavery, heavily criticized him. He was described as a political machine, and was accused of turning his back to the cause. (added 2-1-2020)

Aside from his nominal abolitionism, Hallett was seen in Massachusetts as often sided politically with Southern Whigs (ancestors of slavery proponents known as Southern Democrats) in the nationalist and anti-immigrant Know-Nothing party. He incurred northern wrath for this distinctly un-Massachusettian political position. 

Stauffer Miller, author of Cape Cod and the Civil War, mentioned that during one slave trial in Boston, an unknown Cape Cod party felt that Boston (but Cape Cod-born) politician Benjamin F. Hallett “was too allied with Southern interests and suspended his effigy at the West Barnstable Depot. A note pinned to the effigy, dressed in a black coat, fancy pants and black hat, read, ‘Benj. F. Hallett, Attorney General for Southern Kidnappers. Cape Cod disowns the traitor to liberty.’ Attached to the coattail was a copy of the Barnstabie Patriot, with this message: ‘We would have hung the editor of this paper along with him but for want of time.’ Hallett never saw the effigy, as it had been removed when his train stopped at West Barnstable.” 

Even for a "hardcore abolitionist," B. F. Hallet suffered terribly from this political misunderstanding, re: perceived sympathy for slavery, conservative slavers, or Southern Democrats, as Roberto Poli writes:

It's not difficult to see why Hallett would be completely character-assassinated simply for being forced to apply the law [- return a slave to his owner]. The Burns [Anthony Burns, a fugitive slave escaped from the estate of Charles F. Suttle in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1854, and arrested in Boston] case was at the very early stages of his position as US DA, and once riots began on the streets of Boston (thousands of people gathered in front of the courthouse, shouting, spitting at and insulting the guards), Hallett's fate was sealed. He received specific directives via telegraph from the White House to increase the number of guards protecting the courthouse and Burns himself as he left the building, which was of course interpreted as an affront to liberty and dignity. At the end of the trial, thousands of people marched in protest on the streets; business owners hang black drapes outside their shops. Hallett was insulted publicly, and even assaulted in front of his home.

It may be that Massachusettians – particularly in Cape Cod - were notably relieved by his death in 1862 as he left a foul memory of their political opposition to - and hatred of - the South's peculiar institution of slavery. For their descendants today, Benjamin Hallett remained a disgusting reminder of tribal politics that precipitated the Civil War. This probably remained with his former constituents for decades, especially when white-supremacist resurgence flared once again in the early 20th century. 

The resulting political recollections possibly gave rise to the legend of Goody or Maria Hallet, the “Witch of Wellfleet” – a posthumous way of damning Benjamin Hallett and his family forever and chastising them for ever giving birth to such a contemptible slavery-loving politician! 

A Hallett girl, like Eve with an apple, a truly evil “Witch of Wellfleet” may then have slithered upon the pages of Elizabeth Reynard’s Chronicles of Old Cape Cod in 1934.

References:

Elizabeth Reynard, The Narrow Land: Folk Chronicles of Old Cape Cod (1934), reprint (Boston: Houghton-Mifflen, 1968); Cape Ann Light and Gloucester Telegraph (Gloucester, MA), Jul 25, 1846, 4; National Aegis (Worcester, MA), Sep 30, 1840, 2; Nantucket Inquirer (Nantucket, MA), Aug 29, 1840, 3; Boston Shipping List, May 24, 1851, 1; Stauffer Miller, Cape Cod and the Civil War: The Raised Right Arm (Mount Pleasant, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2010); Email interviews with Roberto Poli.

Racism - the Door is Now WIDE Open

"My own Southern mother recently called me a 'full-fledged Democrat,' but the flying spit and venom made it feel like 'Damn Yankee!'.. a phrase I have heard come from her lips on many an occasion! Earlier, she called me a 'died-in-the-wool Democrat' which has a specifically Confederate meaning.. Rebel wool uniforms were grey because they couldn't afford the blue die that the Union could, thus... a died wool uniform was worn by a Yankee."

Key point for Trump's Confederate fans: Democrat = Yankee

This is what Trump has brought to full fruition! This is also what Civil War did to us the first time... not surprisingly over the same damned White Supremacist issues!

My mother and her family are from an area of North Carolina which I have researched for many years.. the Lower Cape Fear - an area that retained more of a South Carolina flavor than the rest of the state.

As I grew up, I had witnessed many clues to the white-supremacy of this region and have often felt the hatred and resentment of the old war had never died.

Understand that the Old South had never truly relinquished any significant amount of sovereign supremacy to the Union - the United States of America after 1865. You may have heard, as I have many times, that "The South Will Rise Again!" This is the cultural stubbornness that I witnessed on those many trips from my home in Fayetteville (a large city) to the rural Lower Cape Fear (LCF) to see my grandmother - we all have seen it in the plethora of Confederate statues at courthouses across the United States! Understand that this is virtual worship of a defeated traitorous nation.. on our current government soil! It would be merely uncomfortable anywhere else, but outrageous on government property!

Why did we allow this? I'll never quite understand that... 

Illustrating Southern intransigence, there comes another personal tale. I once lived about two years with my cousin in the LCF, and my cousin had an aunt on the paternal side - descended from the aristocratic Hollingsworths in the Duplin-Pender County area. She was visiting with us one day when a guy I worked with in Wilmington (a large city in the LCF) had stopped by to tell me something. This fellow - I'll call him "John" - had always seemed like anyone else, regardless of his color (he was of African American descent). He, too, was from the Pender County area where we then lived.

As soon as John walked through the front door and saw the aristocratic iconic Southern woman - like Scarlett O'Hara - in all her glorified Southern majesty -minus the mint julep - in the center of the room, he immediately began to behave differently. They had obviously known each other.

Remember, I worked with John for months and he behaved like everyone else, so his mutation into... this something truly archaic was unbelievable!

I looked at him like he was a different person... had John lost his mind??! He was genuflecting strongly, his voice had altered to something resembling that of a child, or at least something quite subservient, and he was repeating the phrase "Yes, Miss Pearl, why it's good to see you Miss Pearl." The oddest part.. he sounded like a 19th century slave on the plantation!!! My cousin (from Fort Lauderdale, Florida) and I were both shocked that his demeanor would have changed so drastically.

After John left, the aristocratic Pender County socialite woman announced to us all - in a surprisingly tender way - that John had "always been such a nice young nigger boy!"

My citified mind went: Wham!!! John was 60 years old!!! The LCF was a virtual time capsule! But, it wasn't just in the LCF...

This was the paternal sense of white supremacy that has always pervaded the South - ever since Carolina was founded in 1671 by crude slaving Barbadians. Southerners of that ideology absolutely cannot see any other way to be! For them, whites are designated by God himself to rule over Blacks, Hispanics, Indians, and anyone else of color - until the end of time - which they would gladly welcome over "Negro Rule!"

 

My mother and her family have marinated in this hateful ideology all their lives. And, the election of Barack Obama to two terms as president of the United States simply confirmed to them how USA has defied God and his divine order! It is no surprise that these vengeful white supremacists elected Donald Trump - a man more like their biblical version of the "Anti-Christ" or "Deceiver," or "Man of Sin" in Revelations. Compare this "White Jesus" or Satan with the Socialist Jesus of Matthew 14, who fed the hungry, housed the homeless, and healed the sick... all non-grate, for no pay whatsoever!

After caging brown children for fear's sake, Trump just identified as "un-American" (read: "anti-Trump") four Congresswomen (two of whom are of Islamic origin) - as if they were enemies!! He was quite un-presidential and un-American when he pointed these women out to his violent followers. He, the South's "Anti-Christ" has just - after a whole 2.5 years of semantic shell-game - finally revealed the racist violent truth of his presidency - and their Confederacy!

Trump and his followers also see that their minority of racist voters will always stay in the minority and that American democracy - or rule by majority - will always disfavor them, so they need democracy to end! To equally-violent-minded "Lost Cause" adherents of the Old South, it was high time for another Civil War or perhaps the End of the World! So, bring on the Anti-Christ Donald Trump, no matter he chooses to collude with!

------

A reflection on my grandfather's life experience with racism at the turn of the 20th century is quite instructive: https://bcbrooks.blogspot.com/2019/05/my-grandpa-progressive-liberal-minister.html
#Racism #WhiteSupremacy

Am I Just Picking on the Confederacy?

Originally published in 2011 - in the Obama Era.

You tell me.. was I wrong?

Equal Rights

From  http://www.templeofdemocracy.com/breaking.htm :

The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) launched roughly fifty years later after the 19^th amendment was no so fortunate and was never ratified. Phyllis Schafly, leader of the opposition had a celebration of its defeat June 30, 1982 and Norma Russell for the Southern Partisan interviewed her the morning after. A question about the concentration of her support in the South is revealing, implicitly bringing up the issue of States’ Rights. Three reasons were given, one was that some of the southern state legislatures were not in session the year the ratification process started, giving her time to build up opposition in those states, and another reason was that southern states’ laws were held to privilege women, and the third states’ rights. 

PARTISAN: How do you account for the concentration of opposition to the ERA in the South?

SCHAFLY: There are several reasons for opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment in the South. …

The second reason for the opposition to ERA in the South is that Southerners recognized early the tremendous shift of power to the Federal Government that was involved in Section 11 of ERA. They did not want to give the Federal Government any more power. Now I think the rest of the states in the country feel that way too, but the Southern states recognized the danger sooner.

Well might Schafly appreciate the South, otherwise the ERA would have passed easily. Of the former states of the Confederacy and Oklahoma, 10 states rejected the ERA, a nearly Solid South of 84% opposition. Of the other 38 states, 33 ratified the ERA, a percentage of 87% in favor. However, for ratification ERA would need a total of 38 states. This meant that outside the South 36 states would be needed, a percentage of 94.7%. Unlike the 19^th amendment, the ERA didn’t get nearly 100% support outside the South, so it died.

 The 19^th amendment and women’s rights are just one example elaborated here. You could look at a map of states with Sodomy laws or right to work laws and see confederacies. 

 Does this map look similar to any other?

States in Blue ratified the ERA amendment... States in Red did not.

Unconstitutional Religious Tests for Office

 Rachel Maddow shows map about 2 minutes into this video about Cecil Bothwell in Asheville, NC

Article Six of the United States Constitution states "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."  Seven southern states still ignore this...

Does this map look familiar too?

How about this one?

Red is the Southern Baptist Convention...  Most fundamentalist wackos branch off the Baptist denomination... including Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, KS with Pastor Fred Waldron Phelps, Sr.

 
Sexual Orientation Rights

No Protection in the South... surprising, huh? Not really...

Westboro Scrapbook:

Pastor Phelps leading his gay-bashers at the pulpit.  He has been so inspiring to many conservative leaders!  What's weird is, that his state of Kansas supposedly affords some rights to gays and lesbians.

Uh...

Another Uh...

There is no wondering why Markos Moulitsas Zúniga calls these guys (today's right-wingers) the American Taliban... Westboro Baptist Church says it themselves... "God is" THEIR "terrorist!"  

Death Penalty

Bible Belt Death

Source: http://www.sullivan-county.com/nf0/dispatch/death.htm 

Like almost everything else in Appalachian culture, the Bible plays a part in how many people think. Most people may not know it, but the Protestant version of the Christian religion is split over more things than just how to read the Bible. They can be split into two broad groups: 


(1) The death of Jesus on the Cross is a symbol of love by God who was willing to sacrifice His Son to show that love. His sacrifice was a symbol of love and forgiveness, and those were also the words of Jesus and what he stood for. These folks may/may not agree on issues such as abortion or homosexuality but are more "liberal" (I don't mean socialist) on many issues. Many of the best parts of our society , including civil rights, comes from this Christian tradition. These folks usually have a positive outlook on life. 


OR 


(2) Humans are by nature evil, wicked, born into sin and must be controlled at all times. They see God as an angry judge, ready to hand down swift punishment for the smallest infraction of His Laws. This is best symbolized by the Flood in Genesis or Sodom and Gomorra. Some of these folks may go as far as advocate the death penalty for abortion and homosexuality. Their version of God is utterly devoid of reason, love, or compassion in many cases. They simply follow "faith only" and ignore anything Jesus said as they prefer the Apostle Paul (Romans), Revelations, and the harshest sections of the Old Testament (BCBNOTE: you know... like the Taliban with the Quran). There is often an element of racism, social, and religious intolerance. Most view life as a struggle and have a negative outlook. 


... what disturbs me is most death row inmates are poor, non-white, or both. 

--------------------------------------------

Still ethnic cleansing are we?  Like we did in 1898 Wilmington?  It seems to be going well for the "Good ol' Boys" ...

Am I just being unfair?  

Actually, 35% of New Jersey conservatives believe that Barack Obama MIGHT be the... and get this... the ANTI-CHRIST!!

So, maybe it's more than just the former Confederate States today.  I'll bet they had some contribution, though!  Frank Schaffer (in the video above) calls them insane...he asks...
"How do we save Christianity from Christians?"

It seems like I'm not really being unfair to suppose that the harshest laws in our country come out of the Baptist-denominated South.  Looking just in the yellow pages of a rural town in Florida, I found 1 Catholic Church, 1 Episcopalian church, 2 Methodist, various others at 1 church each, and... 69 Baptist churches!  The South is overwhelmingly Baptist.  I was raised Baptist myself, so it's not like I'm swinging a bat at the guy next door.  Some of these churches, like my own growing up, I'd like to think, were relatively comfortable with everyone else.  Many of them, however, are extremists.  Sub-denominations like Pentecostal, Apostolic, and the like represent groups that more or less do not wish to grow into the future... in fact, they stay in the past and chant gibberish and fall on the floor when their preacher touches them.  Whereas, northern religious groups like the Amish clearly desire to stay in the past, they simply plow their fields, ride their buggies in town, and also keep to themselves.  Southern fundamentalists, on the other hand, believe not only that they should ignore reason and civilization, but also that they should proselytize and force everyone to believe the way they do.  In other words, they're intolerant and belligerent with "God's love" (Reference Westboro: how's that done again?).  And, they actively try to make this happen... to "win over souls."

Agreed, most of us regard the extreme ones as "wackos" and ignore them, but many of these groups (politically-minded bunch) opted for moderation to be more accepted by the general public and, for the most part, since the Civil War, they have.  The "Good ol' Boy" code developed out of this socio-political atmosphere.  The Ku Klux Klan, too.  The moderate, acceptable types went to Washington as our Congressmen.  They carried their ideology with them and infected the rest of the country.  Since the development of television, they have hit the air waves.  They "snuck" into the mainstream and, today, they are powerful enough that they don't need to be low-key anymore.  Their political affiliations grew to the point that they now influence presidents and Congress directly.  Ask George W. Bush about that "faith-based" thing...  Then there's the secretive, modern-day "Family" which puts on the National Prayer Breakfast, attended by American presidents since Eisenhour, and highly influential!  Did I mention that they allegedly helped promote Ugandan "kill-the-gays" legislation and maintain the infamous "C-street" residence in Washington where three members were recently caught in compromising sexual encounters (different cases... in a single year)?  George Rekers was one of the most recent anti-gay preachers who went on a trip with a personal masseuse that he hired from "rentboy.com"... to give him erotic massages!


This is not traditional Christian behavior.  It is "Christians on Cocaine" behavior... Kentucky-fried Trinity with a side-dish of $$$ and power... and a huge amount of hypocrisy!  This is why Jefferson said to keep a "wall of separation" between religion and government... because religion go in any political direction imaginable in any of a number of "visions" and can easily turn fundamentalist (like the Taliban or Falwell or the Family) and become dangerous... like they are today, as a matter of fact!  You've been paying attention, right?

A friend of mine proposed that the Union may have been better off without the South and should have avoided the Civil War and let them secede.  He says that the North would probably have suffered the loss of the lucrative exports from the South, but he also reminded me that the South depended on really just one product... cotton.  He suggests that this made the South's economy unstable anyhow.  Projecting the future, he believed that the South would have suffered numerous slave revolts, who decided to free themselves, and the South would have been slowly taken over by other nations, third-world countries, etc.  It might end up as a collection of petty dictatorships.  

That would suck, huh?  But, how would the North get along?  Might they have been better off?  They may actually have been higher in world literacy ratings, education, civil rights, fewer blacks and non-whites in jail or facing the death penalty (racism existed north of the Mason-Dixon, too, but not quite as fervently as in the south).  The Civil War hardened southerners who turned their religion into a political weapon and they continued the war... Reconstruction was a joke, ended by a back-room political compromise (probably the first Falwell-type deal), and racist Congressmen, like Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III of Alabama, would make policy for us all.  Consequently, only 40% of Americans today believe in evolution, a proven biological phenomenon (yes, proven!), 35% of New Jersey residents believe that Barack Obama "might" be the Anti-Christ, the United States is 34th on a list of 35 countries that judged science vs superstition (we overwhelmingly opted for superstition).  Turkey is 35.

When does the Fundamentalist government of the new America decide to kill gay Americans like Uganda?  Or re-institute slavery to give those "poor, out of work African Americans jobs"?  Sound insane?  I assure you that I've heard this talk before. 

This is crazy.  But, this is what many of us believe.  So, am I being unfair to the Confederacy?  The Union took them back, allowed them back into Congress to affect national policy... not unlike a virus!  Fundamentalists use an EXCLUSION PRINCIPLE that goes against all truly American ideals... and it gets political.

Take Jerry Falwell, for example.  A Huffington Post article by Mike Papatonio tells how Falwell's corrupt fundamentalist legacy still affects politics at Liberty University.  The 2009 article starts off:

Two weeks ago, leadership at Liberty University in Virginia told young Democrats that they were no longer entitled to recognition as a sanctioned organization on campus. Only young Republicans are welcome there.

You can see in the picture at left who Jerry really worshiped.  Multiply Falwell by the number of crazy fundamentalist leaders out there and think about what effect this may have had on the politics of our nation.  When you read the article, Falwell seems highly corrupt and downright sleazy.   Ever wonder how pseudo-news shows like FOX got started or where they get their validation from?  

Evangelicals and the GOP is absolutely right!  They are one and the same.

Does anybody else see the patterns here?  Am I still being unfair to my ancestors?  It doesn't take long to find all of these clues.  But, most of us don't want to know.  Well, I do.  I don't want to carry on a tradition of idiocy and violence in the benevolent cloak of ministry.  

Keith Olberman, Jeff Sharlet, Chris Rodda, John Amato, etc have all written books about the fundamentalist influence on America.  One evangelical-turned-sane, Frank Schaeffer, explosively opposes these guys now, in his book, Crazy For God, seen in this photo: 

Please think about it!  I'd like to see the United States get better ranking in world literacy or in our ability to use and accept reason.  The only way that will happen is to de-influence evangelicals.  Let's finish the Civil War once and for all... it's over, guys!  Seriously, it's done!  Get on with life, now... open your eyes.  Christians like Frank Schaeffer want you to know this, too.  Let's change the maps of our nation to read as ONE America, with the wonderful diversity that a true "melting pot" of cultures can bring to it.  Don't watch crap like FOX (or FAUX-NEWS, lol).  Use sense and reason and don't give into superficiality.  American laziness is adored by the GOP and guys like Falwell and mouthpieces like FOX.  

Communism or the Taliban or Al Qaeda was never the real threat.  Read history, folks!  The real threat has always been here...  here, where fundamentalists spout off biblical scripture that suggest the assassination of our own president and offered up on Cafepress.com!  Zazzle.com recognized the free-speech rights, but said, responsibly, that this message was not acceptable and removed the products from their website.  Communism was actually pretty cool by comparison!  Keep the Taliban away, though... there's enough of them here already!  The rest of the world is frightened by our religious fundamentalism, like we are of Al Qaeda... only we have more money and nukes!  Think about it... nuclear weapons in the hands of illiterate nutjobs... I said, NUCLEAR WEAPONS... think Iran's a problem?  When will we decide that God needs us to use them?   

One more point... thanks to the bad press given lately to fundamental Baptists, the whole idea of denomination is disappearing from the religious right.  Make no mistake, though.  Fundamentalists are no less fundamental just because they say they are non-denominational.  It just makes it harder to tell who the nutjobs are.  You can recognize these churches by the military-compound look to their gigantic, multi-million-dollar grounds, some with guard gates!  You have to consider where the money came from to build these places... what corporations do they owe their souls to?  The nicest and friendliest church that I've ever been to was a simple, one-room church in a small town with unassuming patient people (like they were before 1860... minus slavery).  They are out there... you have to look.  Even in the old Confederacy!  Otherwise, ask Frank Schaeffer...

I'm not really being unfair...