"The Wrong Side of History"

By Sam Burnham
@C_SamBurnham

Former President Barack Obama was fond of making statement declaring his political opponents to be "on the wrong side of history". Progressives have picked this phrase up and ran with it like a fumbled punt snap. It has become a battle flag for every proposal that dares to stand anywhere resembling athwart the advance of modern progressive rhetoric. If you oppose any propaganda of the Left, no matter how outlandish or ridiculous, you will be declared as being "on the wrong side of history."

But does history have sides? Do we look at the course of the last 1000 years and see a definite pattern where the progress of societies was predetermined? 

Going back to 1776 we see that the Founders signed on to the assertion "with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor." In 241 years we have progressed from this statement to delaring anyone who questions us as being "on the wrong side of history."

The Founders were announcing that they believed their cause to be right. They asserted that they were reliant on "The protective care of God or of nature as a spiritual power." (1) to guide them in the path they believed to be right. They also admitted they could be wrong and that if they were they could see their good names ruined, their homes burned, their fortunes evaporated, even stand upon the gallows as their political opponents declared their cause not only "on the wrong side of history" but also defeated and cast down before the signers were doomed to a traitor's death at the end of a rope. 

Now today for someone to pledge any understanding of or belief in Divine Providence is to find oneself strictly on "the wrong side of history." Such unscientific and obsolete superstition should disqualify adherents from any role in serious discussion or acceptance in modern society. Holding a claim to possessing "sacred honor" likely qualifies you for a 90% income tax rate but not much more. Relying on government for your earthly needs and an anthropomorphic "history" is completely acceptable, even encouraged. But reliance on Providence is out.

Now go back though history and look at the sides who was on "The Right Side of History? The Czarists or Bolsheviks? Mao Zedong or Chiang Kai-shek? Batista or Castro? The Tutsis or the Hutus? 

History doesn't have "sides". On this Earth there is right and wrong. There is good and evil. Like our Founders, we need to be willing to accept that we may believe that we are right, there are consequences if we are wrong, those consequences may be more than we can survive, and we have to decide if we are willing to accept those consequences before we proceed. 

1. Oxford English Dictionary