[sykick]

You are correct. H.L. Mencken once defined puritanism as the haunting fear that someone somewhere is having fun. The essence of this definition does well to capture the psyche of America. We Americans tend to be very vindictive and have an almost pathological need for revenge and punishment. We simply do not like it when the “undeserving” get something they don’t deserve. You see this in our legal system, our foreign policy, and in our healthcare system.