# Have conservatives historically most often been on the wrong side of history? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 7, 2012, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-conservatives-historically-most-often-been-on-the-wrong-side-of-history/627507 "2012-07-07T06:37:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-conservatives-historically-most-often-been-on-the-wrong-side-of-history/627507/41 "2012-07-07T15:56:36Z")
> [@Polerius](#): > > 1. What examples are there of progressive movements that were rejected by society? Social engineering doesn’t seem to work. Attempts to shame people out of racism and tribalism, or to abolish religion in authoritarian regimes, or to get people to adopt more expensive energy when it is cleaner to do so, or to revert back to farm life (like they did in Cambodia) all failed. Then again, maybe I’m wrong. There is a reason people who live in lands conquered by Muslims and Christians hundreds of years ago are mostly muslims and christians now. So social engineering with religion can work. ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-conservatives-historically-most-often-been-on-the-wrong-side-of-history/627507/42 "2012-07-07T16:04:09Z")
> [@Polerius](#): > > **Abolishment of slavery** , women’s right to vote, women’s rights in general, **minority rights** , interracial marriages, etc, were all things that, if you were a social conservative of the day, you would not have liked to see happen. > > My questions are: > > 1. Have social conservatives historically been on the wrong side of history much more often than social progressives? > [@greenslime1951](#): > > Conservatives have traditionally embraced the fact that they are on the wrong side of history. They consider social reforms to have been the cause of the collapse of a God-fearin’ country where the women and black folk knew their place. It was the Democrat party that insisted that slavery was a State’s right which eveuntually lead to the birth of the Republican party with Lincoln as it’s Presidential candidate. It was the Democrat party that supported the KKK. LBJ broke with his Democrat party to push for the Civil Rights bill. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-conservatives-historically-most-often-been-on-the-wrong-side-of-history/627507/43 "2012-07-07T16:07:29Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > It was the Democrat party that insisted that slavery was a State’s right which eveuntually lead to the birth of the Republican party with Lincoln as it’s Presidential candidate. It was the Democrat party that supported the KKK. LBJ broke with his Democrat party to push for the Civil Rights bill. Do you see and comprehend the words in the OP? Do you see and comprehend the words you have written? Can you spot the difference? ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-conservatives-historically-most-often-been-on-the-wrong-side-of-history/627507/44 "2012-07-07T17:11:01Z")
> [@Polerius](#): > > I don’t know how things lined up ideologically in those days, but isn’t “Prohibition of alcohol” akin to “Prohibition of drugs” in our time, which is mostly favored by social conservatives? > > How come social conservatives of today are against the dangers of mind-altering substances but the social conservatives of those days were for mind-altering substances? (Of course I can see that alcohol is not in the same league as some drugs, but still) > > Or, to put it another way, how come progressives of today are for legalizing the ‘milder drugs’ like marijuana, but progressives of those days were for making alcohol illegal? That is an interesting question IMO too. But perhaps it makes more sense if one compares Prohibition to say the various restrictions placed on smoking or Mayor Bloomber’s attempt to prevent oversize soft drinks. Speaking of Edmund Burke, the Jacobins definitely were on the wrong side of history, while the more moderate Girondins were on the right side. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-conservatives-historically-most-often-been-on-the-wrong-side-of-history/627507/45 "2012-07-07T17:25:54Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > It was the Democrat party that insisted that slavery was a State’s right which eveuntually lead to the birth of the Republican party with Lincoln as it’s Presidential candidate. It was the Democrat party that supported the KKK. LBJ broke with his Democrat party to push for the Civil Rights bill. Why IS it that people like **doorhinge** constantly want to revert party positions back 60 years or so? I wonder… ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-conservatives-historically-most-often-been-on-the-wrong-side-of-history/627507/46 "2012-07-07T17:47:57Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > To continue… > > If a revolutionary movement succeeds, those who supported it will be held up as heroes while those who opposed it will be scoffed at or reviled. On the other hand, if a revolutionary movement fails, it will be forgotten. Almost nobody will remember, let alone lionize, the people who stopped that movement. I don’t know about that at all. The French Revolution, while having lasting long term changes cannot be said to have succeeded by the goals of the people who started the revolution. The revolution ended in despotism and a return to absolute monarchy, and the despot that effectively ended the revolution is well known. So both the failed radicals are known, often lionized for some things they did, and the despot who ended the revolution is known and lionized for some things he did. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-conservatives-historically-most-often-been-on-the-wrong-side-of-history/627507/47 "2012-07-07T19:13:11Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Edmund Burke was considered a great conservative. He was an Englishman in favor of American Independence. History proved him correct on that matter. He did not have a great opinion of the common man and thought very highly of rule by elites. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-conservatives-historically-most-often-been-on-the-wrong-side-of-history/627507/48 "2012-07-07T19:54:39Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > It was the Democrat party that insisted that slavery was a State’s right which eveuntually lead to the birth of the Republican party with Lincoln as it’s Presidential candidate. It was the Democrat party that supported the KKK. LBJ broke with his Democrat party to push for the Civil Rights bill. Democrat and republican are not the same as liberal and conservative. Conservative democrats in the south were a big part of the democratic coalition from 1865-1965. But those conservatives left and became republicans after the civil rights movement. The south is now deeply republican. But evenso, conservative isn’t necessarily tied to party label. LBJ broke with southern politicians. He had the support of the vast majority of republicans and democrats in the north and west. He had almost none of either party in the south. There is no evidence LBJ broke with the democratic party for the civil rights bill. He broke with southern politicians of both parties, but all non-southern politicians voted overwhelmingly for it. > **[Civil Rights Act of 1964 | Vote totals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#Vote_totals)** > > Totals are in Yea–Nay format: > 1.Original House version: 290–130 (69–31%) | > 2.Cloture in the Senate: 71–29 | > 3.Senate version: 73–27 | > 4.Senate version, as voted on by the House: 289–126 (70–30%) Original House version: > 1.Democratic Party: 152–96 (61–39%) | > 2.Republican Party: 138–34 (80–20%) > [@](#): > > By party and region > Note: “Southern”, as used in this section, refers to members of Congress from the eleven states that made up the Confederate States of America in the American Civil War. “Northern” refers to members from the other 39 states, regardless of the geographic location of those states. > > The original House version: > Southern Democrats: 7–87 (7–93%) > Southern Republicans: 0–10 (0–100%) > Northern Democrats: 145–9 (94–6%) > Northern Republicans: 138–24 (85–15%) > > The Senate version: > Southern Democrats: 1–20 (5–95%) > Southern Republicans: 0–1 (0–100%) > Northern Democrats: 45–1 (98–2%) > Northern Republicans: 27–5 (84–16%) ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-conservatives-historically-most-often-been-on-the-wrong-side-of-history/627507/49 "2012-07-07T20:19:28Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > It was the Democrat party that insisted that slavery was a State’s right which eveuntually lead to the birth of the Republican party with Lincoln as it’s Presidential candidate. It was the Democrat party that supported the KKK. LBJ broke with his Democrat party to push for the Civil Rights bill. I would like to respectfully make the following corrections to the above: It was the Democratic party which insisted that slavery was a state’s right which eventually led to the birth of the Republic party with Lincoln as its presidential candidate. It was the Democratic party that supported the KKK. LBJ broke with his Democratic party to push for the Civil Rights bill. Other corrections have already been made by others. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-conservatives-historically-most-often-been-on-the-wrong-side-of-history/627507/50 "2012-07-07T20:25:33Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > I don’t know about that at all. The French Revolution, while having lasting long term changes cannot be said to have succeeded by the goals of the people who started the revolution. The revolution ended in despotism and a return to absolute monarchy, and the despot that effectively ended the revolution is well known. So both the failed radicals are known, often lionized for some things they did, and the despot who ended the revolution is known and lionized for some things he did. Where to begin… First, it’s not as if the conservatives and monarchists of France somehow won the day via strong arguments. The French monarchy was restored through the combined military might of numerous foreign nations. Second, the French monarchy was only restored for a little while. The Bourbons didn’t stay in power long, and neither did “citizen king” Louis-Philippe. Ultimately, France became the secular republic that the original revolutionaries had wanted all along. ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-conservatives-historically-most-often-been-on-the-wrong-side-of-history/627507/51 "2012-07-07T20:50:49Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > Do you see and comprehend the words in the OP? Do you see and comprehend the words you have written? Can you spot the difference? Hahahaha. I was responding to parts of **Polerius** and **greenslime1951** posts. If you’ll be kind enough to send me a list of posts I can and can not respond to and include recommendations of how I may respond, I promise to give your lists all of the consideration it’s due. ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-conservatives-historically-most-often-been-on-the-wrong-side-of-history/627507/52 "2012-07-07T21:04:52Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > I would like to respectfully make the following corrections to the above: > > It was the Democratic party which insisted that slavery was a state’s right which eventually led to the birth of the Republic party with Lincoln as its presidential candidate. It was the Democratic party that supported the KKK. LBJ broke with his Democratic party to push for the Civil Rights bill. > > Other corrections have already been made by others. Thank you for your effort on my behalf. Where would I find the Republic party. I do seem to remember a Republic Pictures and a Republic Studios but not the Republic party. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-conservatives-historically-most-often-been-on-the-wrong-side-of-history/627507/53 "2012-07-07T21:12:56Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > Thank you for your effort on my behalf. > > Where would I find the Republic party. I do seem to remember a Republic Pictures and a Republic Studios but not the Republic party. The same place you’d find the Democrat party. Nowhere. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-conservatives-historically-most-often-been-on-the-wrong-side-of-history/627507/54 "2012-07-07T21:24:16Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > Hahahaha. I was responding to parts of **Polerius** and **greenslime1951** posts. > > If you’ll be kind enough to send me a list of posts I can and can not respond to and include recommendations of how I may respond, I promise to give your lists all of the consideration it’s due. Neither of the posts you quoted specified the Republicans or the Democrats. Others have more comprehensively and thoughtfully corrected you. Since you continue to fail to get the point, I suggest the following list of posters you should reply to: ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-conservatives-historically-most-often-been-on-the-wrong-side-of-history/627507/55 "2012-07-07T21:30:54Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > Neither of the posts you quoted specified the Republicans or the Democrats. Others have more comprehensively and thoughtfully corrected you. Since you continue to fail to get the point, I suggest the following list of posters you should reply to: As promised, I have given your list all of the consideration it’s due and found that it’s not due any consideration at all. Better luck next time. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-conservatives-historically-most-often-been-on-the-wrong-side-of-history/627507/56 "2012-07-07T21:31:23Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > No; as a rule conservatives fight only for evil causes, and generally work to make societies worse; not stay the same. Conservatives fight to preserve and promote greed and cruelty, injustice and bigotry; to keep the powerful in power and enhance their power, while grinding down everyone else. If they ever do good it’s by accident. They aren’t the “brakes”; they are quicksand, trying to drag all of humanity down into a pit of vileness. That’s retarded. Sorry, but it is. Not jumping on the bandwagon every time, and thinking that a lot of the things that are good now are worth preserving hardly makes a conservative person wont to “promote greed and cruelty” or to “fight only for evil causes.” **Alessan** has it right. Society needs a Devil’s advocate, as it were- a group to say “Wait a minute… what are we giving up here? Why is this better than what we have?” Of course, the political parties on both sides have warped and perverted what the parties and even the ideological terms stand for over the years; much of what the Republicans stand for was actually called “liberalism” once upon a time centuries ago. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-conservatives-historically-most-often-been-on-the-wrong-side-of-history/627507/57 "2012-07-07T21:39:53Z")
> [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#): > > Neither was China (not recognizing it) a conservative position. Nixon just realized that ONLY a hardline right-winger like him with impeccable non-appeaser cred could ever dare to acknowledge the legitimacy of a gigantic Communist country without being accused of being a Commie himself, so no Democratic president could do that for decades. IOW, recognizing China was a grave insult to the conservative position and Nixon was being anything BUT conservative in doing that. > > But, nice try. Nixon was anything but a hardline right-winger; and I guess the Dem presidents before him were too cowardly to do it themselves. Now the liberal position carried through by FDR and Truman was to acquiesce to the USSR and allow the Soviets to occupy and control all the countries that they ‘liberated’ in WWII..leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands and the forced removal through ethnic cleansing of millions more. Ohh..and the liberals forced the Japanese into concentration camps. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-conservatives-historically-most-often-been-on-the-wrong-side-of-history/627507/58 "2012-07-07T21:45:38Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > :rolleyes: If we are going to go that far back and to that extreme, then concentration camps, the Nazi genocide, eugenics, the Inquisition, and so on get credited to the conservative side. > > Fanatics tend to be ruthless and brutal regardless of their politics. While gulags, mass murder, forced starvation and land theft, and the Cambodian, Stalinist and Maoist genocides go on the liberal side. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-conservatives-historically-most-often-been-on-the-wrong-side-of-history/627507/59 "2012-07-07T21:49:16Z")
BTW…it was the religious conservatives who were the driving force behind the abolition of slavery. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-conservatives-historically-most-often-been-on-the-wrong-side-of-history/627507/60 "2012-07-07T21:53:00Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Where to begin… > > First, it’s not as if the conservatives and monarchists of France somehow won the day via strong arguments. The French monarchy was restored through the combined military might of numerous foreign nations. > > Second, the French monarchy was only restored for a little while. The Bourbons didn’t stay in power long, and neither did “citizen king” Louis-Philippe. Ultimately, France became the secular republic that the original revolutionaries had wanted all along. I still don’t see how any of this supports your original claim You claimed this: > [@](#): > > If a revolutionary movement succeeds, those who supported it will be held up as heroes while those who opposed it will be scoffed at or reviled. On the other hand, if a revolutionary movement fails, it will be forgotten. Almost nobody will remember, let alone lionize, the people who stopped that movement. The French Revolution either succeeded or failed, I say it failed. It’s hard to me to even countenance an opposing argument on that point. Unless you truly believe the Revolution begun in 1789 wanted said Revolution to end with a military dictatorship in which one man ruled France with an iron first, I don’t know how you could argue otherwise. Further, I’m less concerned with the Bourbon restoration as I am with what actually ended the revolution: Napoleon’s military dictatorship. Additionally your point about how the Bourbon restoration didn’t happen because of conservatives making a “superior argument” is pointless. You were talking about revolutions, revolutions are not decided by people who make superior arguments but by people who win the revolution (by whatever means it is won.) Winning can happen on the battlefield or in the minds of public opinion, sometimes both. So the French Revolution failed. By your thesis, its members will be scoffed at and reviled. Are they? Some are, sure, but some are also considered French national heroes and great thinkers. By your thesis, the forces that ended the revolution will not be remembered. Are you arguing **Napoleon Bonaparte** is not remembered? Probably one of the top 5 most famous people in Western history? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-conservatives-historically-most-often-been-on-the-wrong-side-of-history/627507.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-conservatives-historically-most-often-been-on-the-wrong-side-of-history/627507.md?page=4)