Why Can't We All Just Get Along

Here's Adam Brodsky of the New York Post thinking he is making a point. The times are bleak, he tells us, and we must listen to the better angels of our nature because unity is our only hope.

Horsecrap.

The times are indeed perilous, and our only hope is to fight like mad to keep our new president and his cohorts from wrecking the country even more. It's going to be an uphill battle, and today at least, things don't look so bright.

Brodsky does edge into a truth - sideways and blind squirrel like, when he says:

Republicans, in particular, will have to resist temptations for revenge, after Democrats savaged George Bush - and by extension, his party.

I agree with him here, but not for the reason he gives:

Because hope and support can be self-fulfilling - much as gloom, despair and disaster can be. And at the moment, so much is at stake.

We have to refrain from slanderous, bad-faith attacks on Obama, because those things only work for the left, not us.

The same guy who spouts spittle-flecked accusations about George Bush, and the Masons, Skull and Bones, or Enron, rolls his eyes if asked about William Ayres or Jeremiah Wright. Point out the creepy cult of personality vibe of Obama's little blue book, (I hope it's a hoax, but it doesn't seem to be) and the adoration shown to a guy who is, in the end, just a politician, and be met with the same look my cat gives me when I start explaining calculus.

Lies, therefore, will not work - we do not have ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR, CNN, the Washington Post, New York Times, Hollywood, and just about every public school, university, and probably pre-kindergarden to boost our message along on its way. We do not have the institutions necessary to make lies seem like the truth. All we have is the truth - it might work, if repeated enough, shouted enough, whispered and screamed enough.

So, Brodsky is right, again for the wrong reasons - to fall back on the tactics of the deranged left is to fall into despair - the belief that the house is better burned to the ground than run by someone other than us.

But as far as his belief in the efficacy of hopey change, a little anecdote is in order.

In October 1864, there was a battle at a place called Cedar Creek in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. At first, the Confederates drove the Union from the field, but then Phil Sheridan, the Union commander, led a counterattack to save the day. During the fight, Sheridan, who was one of the most inspiring of battlefield leaders, came across a young bluecoat bleeding on the ground. "What's wrong with you?" asked the general.

"I'm shot through and dying," replied the trooper.

"Nonsense, you ain't hurt a bit. Now get up and charge," was the reply.

With that, the young soldier rose to his feet and ran forward.

Only to collapse and die a few steps later.

The lesson here is fine speeches, and piles of glorious good feeling only get you so far. Someone who is bleeding out needs real help of the right kind, or all the good feeling in the world will accomplish nothing.