It’s been a fun discussion but unfortunately y’all are talking past one another.
He is a moving target ;-)
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:
By contrast, Federalists in 1788 and Republicans today both:
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.