Driftglass on Brooks column:

Brooks: "the best abolitionists restrained their natural hatred of slaveholders because they thought the reform of manners and the abolition of slavery were part of the same cause — to restore the dignity of every human being."

DG: ....But to actually end slavery, President Lincoln had to burn the Confederacy to the ground, didn't he? And yet even after their cause was lost and their cities and armies destroyed, the leaders of the Confederacy were still playing every angle to keep their obscene institution up and running.
And the minute the North took its boot off the South's throat, they were right back to their old depravities, which they kept intact for another century.  Their fanaticism was not "electron-thin".  It was and is bone-deep, and passed down from generation to generation like a family heirloom.....

....What does Mr. Brooks recommend as a curative for this national scourge of half-drunk Republicans yelling at David Brooks at baseball games? 

Love, of course.  Saccharine, limitless oceans of love which, according to Mr. Brooks, those of us on the receiving end of 30 years of lies, sadism and insanity from the Republican party should dole out to those madmen and sadists and bigots and imbeciles who are terrorizing us and inflicting lasting damage on our country.....