"Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."Funny how the Republican obsession with returning to the past doesn't include returning to the Republican's past.
President Abraham Lincoln, first annual message to Congress, December 3, 1861
Edit: Oh, look. here's a former Boehner staffer explaining where they do want to go back to:
Former Boehner Staffer Suggests Rick Perry Would Be Happier With the Confederate Constitution
Lincoln was a liberal - he let the slaves free. Apparently GOP thinks the slaves didn't have it so bad and we should return to that.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the parties switched roles somewhere along the course of time. The Dems were horrible to voter rights in the south.
The parties did switch roles, and we know exactly when: LBJ even said, "We've lost the South for a generation." He was wrong, of course; they've lost it for half a century now.
ReplyDeleteFirst LBJ embraced civil rights, and then Reagan embraced religious pandering. The South went from Democratic to Republican (not that you would have wanted to be a Southern Democrat of that era!).
Basically, that whole section of the country still hasn't gotten over the era of slavery and the poison it injected into every sphere of public life, from religion to politics to commonsense notions of decency.