SPEAK FOR YOURSELF:

My own more fair-and-balanced judgment is that being puritanical is an indispensable component of being American. It can be both good and bad, and it's mainly good when properly checked by our devotion to personal or individual liberty. If it weren't for our puritanical streak, we Americans would be too libertarian, too indifferent to the well-being of our fellow citizens and fellow creatures.

If it weren't for our libertarian streak, we'd be too intrusive and meddlesome; we wouldn't leave each other alone in peace and freedom at all. 

We don't want to be as sexually repressive as the Puritans, who wanted to punish adultery with death and even make kissing in public illegal.  

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