Google the phrase "the wrong side of history," and you'll see an avalanche of examples of recent political rhetoric. Opponents of Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal are allegedly on the wrong side of history—as are opponents of Obamacare, and of same-sex marriage. The phrase is powerful, conjuring up a sense of inevitability at the same time that it not-so-subtly implies that those on the "wrong side" will one day be viewed as the Bull Connors of our time.
As a general rule, I think the phrase—vaguely Marxist in its concept of history as uni-directional—is near-complete garbage. History has trends, to be sure, but history doesn't have a "side." Looking at the sweep of millennia, we see literacy wax and wane, the rule of law wax and wane, and religious faith wax and wane. Even the march of science and technology can be reversed. In the 200 or so years of Pax Romana, could anyone imagine the Dark Ages that would descend centuries later?
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