Konyok:
“Spain squandered its American windfall because Spain rejected the Renaissance and the subsequent enlightenment.”
———-

That is how it looks to us in 2001, but the Spaniards in the middle of the Counter-Revolution, in about 1600, had no concept that the future eventually would manifest a Rennaissance and an Englightenment.

Rather, the Spaniards perceived that they were resisting a bunch of self-appointed pseudo-intellectuals and easily manipulated peasants trying to overthrow the developed majesty of the Catholic Church’s Papacy, developed hierarchy, and traditional teachings.

The Spaniards perceived the typical Protestant about as we now perceive the typical Islamist — as an amazingly stupid, primitively-educated terrorist rabidly trying to wreck the World’s order.