Do you know what "G.O.P." stands for?
"Traitorous Sonsabitches"
= new reply since forum marked as read
only too much of the virus (see what I did there?) has spread to the rural areas of the north.
They have totally abandoned their roots, and that has been true for a long time. Lincoln is roiling in his grave. It first struck me after the 2004 general election, how the states which John Kerry won so closely mimicked the victories of Lincoln in 1860 (in the states which existed at the time.... and of course, in Ohio it seems to me that there has been ample evidence for doubt presented, but whatever).
I know that if I was true to my ideological beliefs, I would have supported the Republicans, had I been alive in 1860... like most northerners.
In modernity, it is the Democratic party that is now the party of Lincoln. Not only for civil rights and voting rights for African-Americans, but for infrastructure (called "internal improvements", back in those days-- money to improve ports and roads) it is the Democratic party which seeks to improve the infrastructure of our nation--- and the Republicans who do everything they can to stand in the way....
The early Republicans also fought for "free land" with the Homestead act, which could not be passed until after the civil war had commenced and the southern members had withdrawn from the US congress. That act provided free land in the frontier, for those who would occupy it and make improvements over a 5-year period. Of course, modern Republicans would be opposed to any such "giveaways" today...
It is the Democratic party which now seeks to improve the lives of the most common citizens (which was also true in our earliest history, only that then slaves and free blacks were not taken into account-- and we were wrong about that--- the sin was common at the time, but even more-so among the southern states, who now vote very strongly for the GQP, since the civil rights acts of 1964-5... Nowadays, thank God, the Democatic party is more united in our principles, north and south).
I am a self-taught student of the civil war... it is very disturbing to me, today, the things that are happening, and the attitudes shaping. I think that if such attitudes were more united within states, as they were at the time of the civil war, we might be at war aleady... Fortunately (or not?), the divisions now are more between urban and rural, than between any firm geographic differences...
Atticus, I always enjoy reading your perspectives... and consider you as something like "a founding father" on this site.
Also, your username invokes the old book and movie.. lol
