General McCain's Speech to the Troops on the Eve of Battle

Stacy McCain has pointed to the example of the great General George S. Patton on the mindset needed to win the coming battle for America.  He has penned an inspiring post, Lessons of Failure and Hope of Success:  Reflections on the Eve of Battle.  Stacy writes:

Victory is the choice we make when we decide that no defeat can make us stop fighting. If you are defeated today, return to the battlefield tomorrow even more determined to prevail. And no matter how often you lose, you can never be defeated so long as you continue the fight.

We are now on the eve of a political battle that could determine whether America is to achieve its destiny or be doomed to deserved oblivion, having failed to live up to that ancient vision of the City on a Hill.

Indeed, after our terrible electoral defeat in November 2008, I wrote a post titled:  "Tomorrow we begin again."  It's only content was a Photoshop graphic of the Statue of Liberty lying in ruins on a lonely beach, similar to a scene in "Planet of the Apes."  On that terrible day, we could do naught but view the ruin and the wreckage and feel the depths of our defeat.  But even then we knew we weren't through.  We would return again to the fight.  As Churchill once advised, "Never give up.  Never, never, never give up."

Occasional defeats are the price of success.  Another great American, Teddy Roosevelt, made a speech at the Sorbonne University in Paris, France on April 23, 1910.  The most memorable quote from that speech will forever be an inspiration to those who strive for something better.  He said:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Stacy McCain can count himself among the "men in the arena," and never be one of the "cold and timid souls," and his efforts on our behalf are an inspiration in themselves.