Opinion of Abraham Lincoln

[Rockefeller GOP]

Greatest President of all-time.

[Rockefeller GOP]

obvious HP for infringing on the private property rights and states rights of the South

use of force is only justifiable to enforce contracts and defend property. the South understood this and were justified in their actions, but lincoln violated this sacred principle of the free market with his war of aggression

also he was pen pals with Marx

/libertarian

The only people who ever say that last load of crap are our token board communists who believe that the original GOP was this true leftist movement.

[Rockefeller GOP]

FF

Pros: Passed EC, actions helped pass 13th amendment, ending divisive political fights of 1830s 40s and 50s over expansion. Slavery needed to be abolished, the war was inevitable. Took both moral and constitutional stand against slavery. (on a personal note, I sympathize with him for his terrible childhood)

Cons: Blatantly violated constitution, suspended habeas corpus, imprisoned political enemies without trial, economic issues (tariffs, national bank), unions troops destruction of private property.

Exactly.
"The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it."

Wouldn't you call the Civil War a case of rebellion?

[Rockefeller GOP]

One of the worst!

*Pukes that you call yourself a Republican and not a Democrat like the racist hicks who opposed Lincoln*

Anyway, care to explain why you feel that way??

[Rockefeller GOP]

One of the worst!

*Pukes that you call yourself a Republican and not a Democrat like the racist hicks who opposed Lincoln*

Anyway, care to explain why you feel that way??

Your party invited the racist hicks in when the Democrats grew tired of their bullsh**t

Aww, we have a simplistic historian on our hands!!

[Rockefeller GOP]

How can a "Rockefeller Republican" exist in 2014? I ask only with the greatest respect, of course.

By maintaining the views you've always had and continuing to register with the party that your family has always registered with.  While people usually characterize Rockefeller Republicans as part of the old Eastern Establishment of the GOP, and that often comes with a liberal connotation, the views that this wing had (and I definitely still have) on the issues of taxes, business and regulations are still significantly more conservative than Democrats of 2014.

[Rockefeller GOP]

One of the worst!

*Pukes that you call yourself a Republican and not a Democrat like the racist hicks who opposed Lincoln*

Anyway, care to explain why you feel that way??

Your party invited the racist hicks in when the Democrats grew tired of their bullsh**t

Aww, we have a simplistic historian on our hands!!

You don't say?

Your're in an interesting character, Rocky. Looking at posts I've seen of yours, it seems your reaction to the last 40 years of change in the republican party, rather than to, say, change parties to one that seems to more accord with what you seem to believe, as most of your type of Republican have done, has simply been to pretend they didn't happen at all

I don't "pretend" anything.  I very much object to the high school-level, fairy tale notion of civil rights that gives us the story of how Democrats one day found a soul and started being champions of minorities, and conversely the old Southern Democrats came in droves over to the GOP.  This ignores 1) that the South had been trending Republican decades before the CRA, 2) the South continued to send mainly Democrats to Congress for several decades after the CRA and 3) that GOP gains in the South were mainly concentrated in growing suburbs that were filled with recently relocated Northerners.  Did Republicans use racial code words from time to time to get votes?  Yes, of course, but not as often or as significantly as history tells.  And besides, Democrats had been doing that for decades with no one crying foul, giving lame excuses like "well there are really TWO Democratic Parties: Northern liberals and Southern "conservatives."  Nevermind that this is simplifying everything, it's also completely ignoring that most of these Southern racists embraced the same fiscal liberalism still called for by Democrats today.

Sorry for the rant, but I do not like the narrative that has developed over the Civil Rights Era that has painted this picture of a Democratic Party that one day became a great moral crusader and virtually *switched places* with the GOP of old, because that's just not what happened.

[Rockefeller GOP]

HP of course.

Care to say why?

[Rockefeller GOP]

It is telling that the Wikipedia article for Rockefeller Republican is in past tense.

Do you think that the Eastern Establishment laid the seeds of their own destruction through their WASPishness and elitism? I think that the GOP could regain a form of moderation, but the idea that a future moderate Republican party would resemble the Rockefellers of old seem naive.

Indeed.

There is a reason why old school Republicanism has been thoroughly discredited.  I'll just briefly say that it was not anything close to the idyllic view that many on this forum seem to hold on it.  "Pro Civil Rights"?  Maybe.  But other than that there was very little "good" about it outside of a few naive leftists who thought it was still 1856.

I say "Pro Civil Rights" because until about the middle of the 20th century the Yankee idea of "Civil Rights" was actually very hypocritical.  Don't believe me?  Then read up on employment and education discrimination in New England in the 19th-early 20th century, something even conservatives like Ann Coulter admits happened.  Of course guys like Rockefeller GOP belong more to the mid 20th century brand of moderate Republicanism (though a bit more fiscally moderate), but even he would admit that brand was more driven by triangulating around the New Deal than it was with actual ideology (though as I've outlined elsewhere, those types were generally seen as more pro-Civil Rights than many Democrats who had to tiptoe on the issue due to anti-black voters in certain areas).

But I do agree with the man's assertion that many of you really do need to read your history books.  Civil Rights as an issue was by no means as black and white (metaphorically and literally) or as clean cut as it is sometimes portrayed as.

Yeah, I made my username what it is for a reason.  Though I "tiptoe" around several issues and play the role of this forum's coined and pejorative expression of "Moderate Hero," there are definitely issues I feel strongly about, and one of those is pro-business economic policies.  It's quite a mocked and detested view by many, but I'm not afraid to say that I believe in the old "What's good for GM is good for America" philosophy, and that's largely what keeps me a Republican (that and ancestral registration).  I'm a proud and open "Rockefeller Republican," but that doesn't lead me to turn a blind eye to the many negative and deplorable legacies the faction carries ... I just wish some Democrats (not all) were as open and honest about some of the party's "black marks" in its history instead of twisting a historical narrative that effectively shifts blame for them.