[rockrr]

It’s been a fun discussion but unfortunately y’all are talking past one another.

[achilles2000]

He is a moving target ;-)

[BroJoeK]

rockrr: "It’s been a fun discussion but unfortunately y’all are talking past one another."

I've not figured out what point our FRiend achilles2000 is hoping to make, but he seems surprisingly il-informed, so much of my response has been simply to correct that.

A key point I'm hoping to make is that where Republicans trace our roots back to the pro-Constitution Federalists, Democrats trace theirs back to anti-Constitution anti-Federalists, who became Jeffersonian Democrat-Republicans and eventually Jacksonian Democrats -- today's "liberal-progressive" Democrats.

Of course, pro-Confederates like achilles2000 wish us to believe that their own anti-Federalists (i.e., Patrick Henry) were the first true Conservatives.
They point to the fact that anti-Federalists of 1788 were anti-Big Government, which makes them just like today's Conservatives, right?

No, the key facts about anti-Federalists, the facts which makes them the first true Democrats (in today's sense of the word) are:

1. They hated the Constitution, just like today's Democrats, for different reasons but with the same result: they wanted to ignore or change it to suit their purposes.

2. They were dedicated to using big-government's coercive powers to enforce special privileges for their own voters -- back then it was to benefit the "slave-power", today it's the descendants of slaves and other "oppressed" minorities.
   But the essential nature of Democrats' appeal is: vote for us and we will give you more stuff.

By contrast, Federalists in 1788 and Republicans today both:

1. Love & promote the Constitution as intended: a limited Federal government, performing only those functions (i.e., national defense) essential and spelled out in the Constitution.

2. Elimination of unjust special privileges (i.e., international slave trade) where & when possible.

Of course, achilles2000 might say: that makes today's Republicans "establishment" and pro-Confederates "tea-party".
To that I'd say: Lord help us, because that's exactly what Democrats want the world to believe -- that the new Republican "right wing" is just the old pro-Confederate slave-power.
Well, it's not -- the old Slave-Power of yester-year are demonstrably today's Big Government progressive Democrats.

I think that's a very, very important point to make and to defend with everything we've got.