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Quote of the Day: The Right Side of History
I get tired of Democrats claiming to be on the “right side of history” when both their past and their present are so utterly sordid and destructive. So, if you are a Democrat, let me tell you about MY side of history and YOUR side of history.
My side of history is Cato the Elder, John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Irving Babbitt and William F. Buckley. Your side of history is Thomas Hobbes, Karl Marx, Josef Stalin, Mao’s Little Red Book and Noam Chomsky.
My side of history is George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump. Your side of history is Tories who fled to Canada, Jefferson Davis, Woodrow Wilson, Bull Connor, George Wallace and Nancy Pelosi.
My side of history is freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and spirited debate. Your side of history is ThoughtCrime, Speech Codes, religious persecution and Cancel Culture.
My side of history is Brown v. Board of Ed., Loving v. VA, Gitlow v. NY, and Heller v. DC. Your side of history is Dred Scott, Korematsu and Roe v. Wade.
My side of history is Jackie Robinson. Your side of history is Colin Kaepernick.
My side of history is head held high, standing straight, hand over heart. Your side of history is sullen glances at the ground, kneeling.
My side of history is the family as the foundation of society. Your side of history is mutilating confused children.
My side of history is the rockets’ red glare. Your side of history is imagine no religion.
My side of history is firefighters going up the stairs into the Twin Towers. Your side of history is 28-year-old men playing Call of Duty in their mothers’ basements.
My side of history is smoked brisket. Your side of history is a no-foam, no-sugar, soy latte.
My side of history is Lincoln freeing the slaves and General Patton liberating Buchenwald. Your side of history is Fort Sumter, the Gulag and Pol Pot’s killing fields.
My side of history is Mel Brooks. Your side of history is Amy Schumer.
My side of history is all men and women are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. Your side of history is critical theory and only some lives matter.
My side of history is 20-year-olds storming Omaha Beach. Your side of history is 20-year-olds in their safe spaces with adult coloring books.
My side of history is American men and women disabled by an IED. Your side of history is American men and women disabled by anxiety.
My side of history is the Kentucky Rifle, the Springfield 1861, the M1911, the M1 Garand, the M14 and the AR15. Your side of history is whimpering submission.
My side of history is Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers, Apollo 11 and Jonas Salk. Your side of history is “global warming,” 100+ genders and porous cloth masks stopping viruses.
My side is of history is laughing babies. Your side of history is selling aborted baby parts on the open market.
My side of history is the Sistine Chapel and Monet’s water lilies. Your side of history is an inverted crucifix in a bottle of urine.
My side of history is construction. Your side of history is deconstruction.
My side of history is civilization. Your side of history is nihilism.
And, MOST OF ALL:
My side of history is liberty. Your side of history is tyranny. – Cynical Publius
Cynical Publius is a Twitter user who posted this on Twitter a few days back. I find I agree with most of it, and decided to share it. I’d say he sums up the real and Right side of history.
Published in Group Writing
A-freaking-men.
When conservatives appeal to history, we are referring to the wisdom of past experience.
When leftists appeal to history, they’re referring to a future in which they assume everyone will agree with them.
Leftists try to erase history, and that leads to the endless repeating of the worst of history.
Agree or submit.
Yes
Yup. That’s why my commentary was so short. The only thing I needed to add was context.
I had to go look. Cynical Publius tweeted the original (now available here) a few years ago, when he was shadowbanned. He mentioned here that it only got 100 views, but his retweet has brought it up to 350K.
419K now. Plus a follow.
Thanks, @seawriter!
Truth.
*****
This post is part of the Quote of the Day group writing project at Ricochet. Please join us and signup here for May.
Still debating whether I should show this to my liberal daughters.
I tried to raise them differently but failed spectacularly.
You don’t ever want to speak to them again? Show them this. Otherwise, probably not.
Well, just to start with the first one.
If you think that the traditionalist, conservative Cato the Elder was on the same side as the revolutionaries Locke and Jefferson, then I don’t think you understand much about their views.
To add another one. If you think that our history is that “all men and women are created equal,” then you don’t appear to have even read the Declaration. It did not mention women. If you think that it was meant to include women, then you ignore the fact that women were not allowed to vote at the Founding, nor to do many other things.
It is interesting to see radical libertarian-style Leftists claim that they are the defenders of tradition. They are not. They are on the side of the Jacobins.
Cato was in favor of a republic.
Locke and Jefferson were in favor of a republic.
Don’t overthink it.
Neither were kids. Still created equal.
If you think it wasn’t meant to include women, you may be missing out on the whole gender-neutral use of the masculine. Or on the reasons they believed in human equality.
I am not sure if Jerry believes women should have the vote at this point.
Actually they were. In New Jersey at the time one vote was permitted per household. If the household were headed by a woman she could cast the vote. (That was changed during the Federal Era when the Democrats took over in New Jersey, and altered the law to permit only men to vote. But hey, let’s not let history get in the way of a good grump.)
Can you point me to the source for this? At least point me in the right direction.
I believe it was in The Founding Fathers Reconsidered, by R. B. Bernstein · 2009, Oxford University Press, USA
Thank you.
I was wrong. The book was Vindicating the Founders: Race, Sex, Class, and Justice in the Origins of America, by Thomas G. West, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. (I’m getting old.)
I think the “right side of history” argument by the left (a favorite of theirs) is moronic. History does not have sides or take sides. History is whatever happened in the past for good or ill.
The “right side of history” nonsense is about arrogance.
“You will see I was right. Well, not you-you, you’ll be dead. But other people will and they will think I am soooo smart!”
I am checking out both. Life long learning 😌