I suppose you are a Southern sympathizer then.
Can someone explain to me just how the Protectorate was so different from the Monarchy? Sure, many of the Roundheads believed they were fighting against absolutist rule, but once the Puritans took power the tone changed. Look at Scotland. The Bishops’ War was the real beginning of the War of the Three Kingdoms. Scots, other than the Catholic highlanders, initially supported the war against Charles because they thought they were fighting against the Crown imposing a particular dogma upon them. It soon became apparent that the new boss was worse than the old boss in that respect. Charles believed firmly in his divine right to be king, but Cromwell believed even more firmly in his divine right to impose his religious dogma upon everybody else.
In all this talk of Irishness and Catholicism, a point needs to be made. Catholics in early modern England were the other. Quite the equivalent of how the average right-wing reactionary views Muslims today. Catholics are strange, they’re not like us, they try to blow shit up (the Gunpowder Plot was still fresh in the collective memory). Charles Stewart was not a Catholic. He did not support the Catholic Church. Pretty much nobody in England supported Rome. Charles was generally anti-Catholic, he just wasn’t anti-Catholic enough. To satisfy the the hard-line Puritans, you pretty much had to be frothing at the mouth burn 'em all anti-Catholic. Charles married a Catholic, and, out of character for a royal marriage, he genuinely loved and was devoted to his queen, which didn’t help his ‘soft on Catholicism’ image. By the end of the war, it had become as much a conflict between (relative) religious tolerance and Puritan theocracy.
But back to the original point, how was Cromwell any different from the absolutist monarchies of old, aside from being a more effective military strategist and a bit more ruthless? The Puritans as a group may not have been a 17th century Taliban, Qin, but Cromwell’s reign, well, was pretty much the reign of a 17th century Taliban. He was an absolutist monarch in all but name. He left the kingdom to his son, and if future Cromwells had have been as ruthless and strategic as Oliver was, it’d be the United Protectorate today instead of the United Kingdom.
Also, he banned Christmas celebrations. If you support, the Roundheads, you are pretty much casting a vote for the Grinch. Chew on that.
He allowed the Jews to return to England and allowed private practice of other religions-you can’t really say he was more intolerant than Charles I.
They also came to Maryland, the only colony with religious freedom, and proceeded to torch Catholic churches and temporarily take over the government so that they could build their theocracy.
Oh, so as long as it’s only ONE religion he’s intolerant of, it’s okay? :dubious:
A religion that, within living memory, had been a hotbed of traitors eager to sell England out to Spain. It wasn’t just a religious pogrom, it was very much a political hate as well.
Ditto the whole Irish thing - since the time of Elizabeth, the Irish had been aiding the Spanish and actively fighting with them. If one were of a mind to (I’m definitely not, but many English of the time were) one could think the Irish got what was coming to them for continually rebelling against their legitimate (by God!) rulers for the past 150 years.
It’s naive to think it was all only about religion. Really, it was the age-old England vs The Continent fight, carried out by proxies both local and overseas. A fight that continues to this very day, only mostly in Brussels and less messily.
I think I’m going to see them tonight. 
Southern slaveholders helped found the United States of America. Their sons & grandsons seceded for fear that their right to hold slaves might be hindered. I’m very glad the United States government fought to keep the country united. And freed the slaves as a byproduct. The situation in Ireland was different.
Of course, you probably regard the rebels who founded the USA as traitors.
Yes. I’m always with the people fighting for independence and self-determination in their own land. All situations are different, but that much is the same, and it is deeper than politics.
Well, for White men, anyway.:rolleyes:
No. For all peoples everywhere.
In the case of the American Civil War or War Between the States, the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chippewa, Chickasaw and Seminole also fought for self-determination as allies of the Confederacy.
But the same principles apply in all cases. I recently suggested here that Americans ought to naturally sympathize, as I do, with the Kenyan Mau Mau uprising, for example.
I presume you are in favor of giving the United States back to its indigenous population, then. I mean, if you can find enough that weren’t massacred.
To be fair, he never bothered my Irish family at all. So it is your catholicism that’s the issue. And if you choose to pledge allegience to the enemies of England, it is a little ballsy to complain when England tries to do something about it. 
If you ever visited Drogheda (I’m playing a gig there tomorrow night) you’d wanna sack it to. At least you can see a head in a jar there.
What about the Taliban? What if the Germans under American occupation after World War II had launched a neo-Nazi revolt? What if the Japanese had launched a neo-Tojoist revolt?
I’m pretty sure this is one of the first times the term “neo-Tojoist” has been used.