Unity shmunity!

January 11th, 2008 at 10:37am Pat Cunningham

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The one thing about Barack Obama’s political rhetoric that gives me pause is his emphasis on “unity.”

In other quarters as well, there’s altogether too much talk this season about promoting political “unity” in America, about bringing an end to the bitter partisanship that supposedly hamstrings the political process and prevents the government from ably serving the people.

This notion has even given rise to a movement called Unity08 (Web site HERE), the leaders of which might naively try to field an independent presidential ticket comprised of candidates from both political parties.

And then there’s the recent idiotic statement by prospective presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City, about how he wants “to get partisanship out of politics.” That’s like wanting to get the punching out of boxing.

Yet another manifestation of this search for nirvana in the middle of the political spectrum was evidenced this week at a CONFERENCE OF SO-CALLED MODERATES from both parties at the University of Oklahoma.

What’s going on here? Is there a virus going around that renders otherwise intelligent people ignorant of the realities of politics in a democratic republic?

Except in the general sense that we Americans all should honor the most fundamental principles of fair play and free speech, unity is neither desirable nor achievable in our society.

Promoters of unity often simply want to quash debate.  It’s in the name of admirable unity, for instance,  that Americans are told they should all support their government’s military misadventure in Iraq.  Such also was the case during the Vietnam War, when the mantra was that antiwar dissent was disloyal and un-American.

If nothing else, the unity push is reminiscent of a glaring misapprehension among our nation’s Founding Fathers, many of whom thought they had created a system that would thrive and prosper without the emergence of anything so ugly as political parties.

The irony, as historian Joseph J. Ellis notes in his latest book, “American Creation,” is that the greatest legacy of the Founding Fathers was the creation (even if unintentional) of the world’s first two-party system.

Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison and the others seemed to think that political factionalism would sully and weaken their wonderful republic.  Rather, it has strengthened it.

Unity is a dangerous notion.  The only way I would be tempted to embrace it is if the unity is all in support of the positions I hold on the issues of the day — and even then I eventually would recognize it as inimical to basic American principles.

Entry Filed under: Barack Obama