It was a remarkable moment Monday night at the Republican National Convention, surely creating some amount of confusion among longtime Republicans, when Sean O’Brien, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, delivered a stemwinder of a speech in prime time. He called former President Donald Trump a “tough S.O.B.”

Even the teamsters are showing up.

  • @Zombiepirate
    9•2 months ago

    But you say you are conservative—eminently conservative—while we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy on the point in controversy which was adopted by “our fathers who framed the Government under which we live”; while you with one accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy, and insist upon substituting something new. True, you disagree among yourselves as to what that substitute shall be. You are divided on new propositions and plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting and denouncing the old policy of the fathers. Some of you are for reviving the foreign slave trade; some for a Congressional Slave-Code for the Territories; some for Congress forbidding the Territories to prohibit Slavery within their limits; some for maintaining Slavery in the Territories through the judiciary; some for the “gur-reat pur-rinciple” that “if one man would enslave another, no third man should object”, fantastically called “Popular Sovereignty”; but never a man among you is in favor of federal prohibition of slavery in federal territories, according to the practice of “our fathers who framed the Government under which we live”. Not one of all your various plans can show a precedent or an advocate in the century within which our Government originated. Consider, then, whether your claim of conservatism for yourselves, and your charge of destructiveness against us, are based on the most clear and stable foundations.

    Human action can be modified to some extent, but human nature cannot be changed. There is a judgment and a feeling against slavery in this nation, which cast at least a million and a half of votes. You cannot destroy that judgment and feeling—that sentiment—by breaking up the political organization which rallies around it. You can scarcely scatter and disperse an army which has been formed into order in the face of your heaviest fire; but if you could, how much would you gain by forcing the sentiment which created it out of the peaceful channel of the ballot-box, into some other channel?

    Lincoln at Cooper Union

    Read a goddamn book

    • NeuromancerOPM
      -10•2 months ago

      Did you ever read that? Nowhere does he say he hates Conservatives. He’s talking about slavery.

      Lincoln is a well known conservative

      • @Zombiepirate
        7•2 months ago

        Read the first fucking sentence, genius. He’s referring to slavers who call themselves conservatives.

        Real Westworld moment here.

          • @Zombiepirate
            6•2 months ago

            Because you know I’m right.

            Lincoln hated conservatives and slavers- one and the same in his time. I gave you a primary source.

            Lincoln is only a “well known conservative” to people who listen to grifters and liars.

            You’ve incapable of refuting the facts laid before you, so you run away like you always do while claiming that you’re correct.

            Conservatism is built on a pile of bullshit.

            • NeuromancerOPM
              -7•2 months ago

              I just documented historians who disagree with you and explain why you didn’t understand what you read. Lincoln disliked democrats as they were the slavers. I refuted the facts but you refuse to read the information provided. Now have a good evening

              • @Zombiepirate
                5•2 months ago

                Well I just gave you Lincoln’s own speech and you choose to listen to propagandists instead.

                Could you not understand it?

                You refuted nothing- you drive-by fired a Wikipedia article at me that you didn’t even read because you’re lazy and haven’t been told how to respond to this because the fake historians you listen to don’t want to mention it.

                How very postmodern of you to insist on your own reality.

                • @[email protected]
                  6•2 months ago

                  I’m really confused by people like this who follow their “Red Team” so blindly, they don’t even care to understand the origins of their own party, or what the terms “Conservative” and “Liberal” actually mean.

                  But fuck learning history, right? Who needs it?

                  • @Zombiepirate
                    4•2 months ago

                    They don’t care about facts, it’s always about controlling the conversation; they’ll sacrifice everything to that end, including their own judgement, edification, and dignity.

                    Reactionary politics is always about maintaining power for the privileged.

                    They believe there is no higher good than to fulfill the role bestowed upon you by your betters: it’s why they all lick the boots of cops who put those uppity minorities in their place. It’s why the “never Trumpers” started out reviling Donald Trump until he won and proved to them that he deserves to rule. It’s why the KKK terrorized black folks who rose above their station. It’s why they fought for school segregation. It’s why they opposed women’s liberation, abortion, and now birth control. It’s why they want to transfer wealth to the already obscenely rich. It’s why they ruined innocent people’s careers during the Red Scares. It’s why they oppose unions and strikes. It’s why they want to end public schooling. It’s why they kept locking up black men in chain gangs after slavery was (mostly) outlawed. It’s why they object to prison reform. It’s why they are opposed to welfare programs.

                    Everything about the reactionary right makes sense when viewed from this perspective.

                    Lincoln noted the same lack of substance behind conservative arguments in that quote above; reactionaries have always been this way.