Why learn history when you can just make it up?

A reader of the Scripps Howard column sent a lengthy reply--too lengthy for me to care to excerpt in its entirety--cataloging a list of destructive policies imposed on the country by Democrats. Some of it is hilariously off-base. For instance, did you know that Democrats created...

Slavery. This practice was originated by the Democrats in the middle 1800's so that farmers in the deep South could pick their crops with cheap labor. Democrats are quick to counter that these were different times and so was the party. But a look at the economic facts behind the practice of slavery shows that it was based on the same theme they are pushing today. Democrats advocated slavery as the only way the South could compete with the wealthy railroad tycoons like the Rockefellers in the North. This tired Socialist Doctrine mimics the Democrats campaign cry today that it's the "rich" who are responsible for all our problems. Slavery also was the beginning of the Democrats phylosophy of keeping their party in power by making the poor reliant on their policies. By convincing the public that someone else was responsible for their failure the Democrats both made the poor dependant on their services and guaranteed a loyal following. It is ironic that this model is followed by every Socialist dictator in the world.

And...

1964 Civil Rights Law. Vowing that injustices such as slavery would never happen again the Senate set out to pass legislation that would cement this into law. The Civil Rights Law enjoyed unanimous support by the Republicans when sent to the Congress but hit a blockade put up by the Democrats. As previously mentioned the Southern Democrats were reluctant to drop their hatred of black citizens and in fact many were still members of the Ku Klux Klan (including Senator Robert Byrd). In the end this ground breaking civil rights legislation passed only because nearly every Republican Congressman voted in favor. That's two to zip when it comes to which party has proved its support for minorities!

That, of course, isn't true at all. In fact, most of the "facts" recounted, both above and in the letter, are ... absolutely false. (If you don't know why or how, crack open a book. Or Wikipedia.) But they help my reader weave a narrative of Republican heroism and Democratic perfidy, and I suspect that's all that really matters.

What's interesting to me is that this guy is apparently a newspaper reader--he caught the column in the Long Beach Press-Telegram--and reasonably literate. But the history he recounts sounds like a mishmash of half-remembered facts recounted at a retired guy's coffee klatsch, with no care given to ascertaining the truth. He thinks he knows the truth already.