> I would say it's older than the colonies. There are strong elements
> of Protestantism in Scotland and Northern Ireland which are very
> similar to the kind of backwards American Protestantism you're talking
> about. I've been driven through parts of the North that remind me of
> rural western Pennsylvania with their anti-abortion, "Repent or Burn
> in Hell!" type billboards. And of course, Scotland and Northern
> Ireland is where the ancestors of a lot of those backwards American
> Protestants came from.
This book gets cited alot on this.
David Hackett Fischer, "Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America."
When I googled, "Hackett Scots-Irish, " not remembing the title offhand, the racist, anti-immigrant website VDARE is the first hit. http://www.vdare.com/sailer/fischer.htm
Regardless, seems a fair summary of Fischer. The book is a blunderbuss, 946 pgs.
-- Michael Pugliese