Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Remembering Ted Kennedy: De Mortis Nihil Nisi Bonum?
Amidst the keening, tear-shedding and predictably fawning obituaries now
smothering the nation because of the demise of Edward Kennedy, many are
echoing Chilon of Sparta’s admonition: “[O]f the dead [say] nothing but
good.”
Why?
There is virtually nothing good to say about Edward Kennedy.
He was a legacy admission to Harvard, and there a cheater and subborner of cheating.
He was a drunk, drugee, womanizer, adulterer, coward, fixer, and beneficiary of fixes—and an enabler of others like himself.
He was guilty of at least manslaughter in the drowning death of a young woman, although legal maneuvering by his lawyers and a complicit local judge allowed Kennedy to plead guilty to a watered-down lesser offense.
He was not learned, a muddled thinker, and had the chutzpa to believe he was qualified to be President of the United States.
He committed a federal crime (for which he was never charged), by making an overture to the Soviet Union’s Andropov aimed at undercutting President Reagan’s foreign and military policy.
He was also the embodiment of the Twentieth Century liberal, in that . . . .
He was politically vicious, and a hypocrite.
He was a prime mover in liberalized immigration policies, many of which plague our nation today, eliminating the “national-origin” quotas and opening the doors to huge third-world invasions.
He had a hand in Title IX (“disparate” educational funding based on gender), the Americans With Disabilities Act (another boon for trial lawyers), the No Child Left Behind Act (further intruding the federal government into state affairs), and the attempt to legalize countless illegal aliens (which, for the moment, has failed).
He pushed for government-dispensed medical care, eschewing truly free market solutions.
He worked constantly to enlarge the powers of the federal government and reduce those of the states, and to diminish the individual rights of American citizens.
He did all he could to reduce the constitutional role of the president, and to enhance congressional usurpation of the commander-in-chief’s war-fighting responsibilities.
He supported justices for the Supreme Court of the United States who would read into constitutional interpretation their, and his, notions of a “just” society, creating “rights” dictated by their liberal values without regard for text or precedent.
He insulted and condemned a good man who would have made a great Supreme Court justice, Robert Bork, with these words: “Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back alley abortions, blacks would sit in segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of million of citizens for whom the judiciary is often the only protector of the individual rights that are at the heart of our democracy.”
These scandalous, vituperative, unjustified words--hard-core liberal defamation-- are what should be remembered about Ted Kennedy.
They are his proper epitaph.
Why?
There is virtually nothing good to say about Edward Kennedy.
He was a legacy admission to Harvard, and there a cheater and subborner of cheating.
He was a drunk, drugee, womanizer, adulterer, coward, fixer, and beneficiary of fixes—and an enabler of others like himself.
He was guilty of at least manslaughter in the drowning death of a young woman, although legal maneuvering by his lawyers and a complicit local judge allowed Kennedy to plead guilty to a watered-down lesser offense.
He was not learned, a muddled thinker, and had the chutzpa to believe he was qualified to be President of the United States.
He committed a federal crime (for which he was never charged), by making an overture to the Soviet Union’s Andropov aimed at undercutting President Reagan’s foreign and military policy.
He was also the embodiment of the Twentieth Century liberal, in that . . . .
He was politically vicious, and a hypocrite.
He was a prime mover in liberalized immigration policies, many of which plague our nation today, eliminating the “national-origin” quotas and opening the doors to huge third-world invasions.
He had a hand in Title IX (“disparate” educational funding based on gender), the Americans With Disabilities Act (another boon for trial lawyers), the No Child Left Behind Act (further intruding the federal government into state affairs), and the attempt to legalize countless illegal aliens (which, for the moment, has failed).
He pushed for government-dispensed medical care, eschewing truly free market solutions.
He worked constantly to enlarge the powers of the federal government and reduce those of the states, and to diminish the individual rights of American citizens.
He did all he could to reduce the constitutional role of the president, and to enhance congressional usurpation of the commander-in-chief’s war-fighting responsibilities.
He supported justices for the Supreme Court of the United States who would read into constitutional interpretation their, and his, notions of a “just” society, creating “rights” dictated by their liberal values without regard for text or precedent.
He insulted and condemned a good man who would have made a great Supreme Court justice, Robert Bork, with these words: “Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back alley abortions, blacks would sit in segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of million of citizens for whom the judiciary is often the only protector of the individual rights that are at the heart of our democracy.”
These scandalous, vituperative, unjustified words--hard-core liberal defamation-- are what should be remembered about Ted Kennedy.
They are his proper epitaph.
2 comments:
Well said, and my thoughts exactly. I despised the man, and frankly think little better of his entire family with few exceptions..."den of vipers" is a term that comes to mind.
Thank you for sharing.
Re. Your Holzer on Ted
Sir,
Real and truly well said, every word an opening truth, and Truths that should be taught to future Leaders, or to those would think themselves to be.
The murderous actions in the death of the young woman, Mary Jo Kopechne, by him, and his friends, leaves me to claim that he and their actions were of a level totally indescribable.
I second Brian T.s words, and am honores to do so...
Post a Comment