Opinion of Abraham Lincoln

[Citizen Hats]

HP of course.

Care to say why?

His nae should be indicator enough.

Why? Surely it's unfair of us to simply assume that southerners have been failed by their educational system?

[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.

[Citizen Hats]

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.

I'm going to take that in reference to earlier comments between us

I have some issues with your characterization of what I've typed.  I didn't get into the history of the Democratic Party. If anything, I acknowledged the presence of racist southerners as a constituency of the party in the bad old days. Quite frankly, the premodern Democratic Party's position on racial issues was obscene, and I'll make no attempt to pretend that the party which emphasized a states right' to oppress certain classes of citizens and regularly supported filibusters to frustrate anti-lynching legislation.   

That being said, if we start at the point wherein you react angrily to the notion that the Republican Party opened it's arms to the type of voters who fled the Democratic Party as soon as it's leaders started talking seriously about civil rights and equality, 'twisting the historical narrative' loses all relevance. 

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

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??

The party of sensible minded Yankees has switched as has the party of reactionary Neo Confederates. The Republican party is no longer the party of Lincoln, Eisenhower and Ford. It is now the party of Jefferson Davis, Rush Limbaugh, Louie Gohmert and Ted Cruz.