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| Ted Kennedy: The Last Liberal |
| 2009-08-27 |
| Orrin Judd, The New Ledger ...when we look at his public record we can learn wider lessons about modern liberalism. What that record teaches us is that there are pronounced inconsistencies to liberalism such that it can barely be considered a political philosophy, inconsistencies so drastic that we can see why it failed to stand the test of time. Had Mr. Kennedy done nothing else in his career, he would justly be remembered as a great American for his work on the Immigration Act and the Voting Rights Act when he first got to the Senate in 1965. These two bills helped to undo the ugliest sort of institutionalized racism that had persisted in America for forty years in the one case and a hundred in the other. In cases like this, he really was a classic kind of liberal, seeking to lift the boot of government off of the neck of discrete groups of Americans who were being treated unfairly because of what they were, not being judged on the basis of who they were. Here he appealed to the very best in the American people, with the demand that we recognize that all men are created equal and are thereby endowed with equal rights. However, the Senator and liberalism soon went beyond this basic and quintessentially American idealism and--in the form of programs like affirmative action, Title IX funding, hate crimes legislation, pay equity, and the like--insisted on pretty much the exact opposite, that people be treated differently solely on the basis of what they were. Where the original civil rights laws were able to win society wide support because they said that you should not be forbidden to vote or denied access to a public restroom just because you were black, the liberals now claimed that you were entitled to a job or admission to college or whatever if you were black and your competition was white. Standing the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. on his head, Americans were to be judged on the color of the skin or on their gender. Unsurprisingly, this round of the "civil rights" fight proved to be far more divisive, to the point that it is unresolved today but the trend appears to be towards phasing out the special pleadings Kennedy and company depended on. And the fight would have already been decided against liberalism if public opinion prevailed, rather than court rulings. Nor was the movement from anti-discrimination to "positive discrimination" the most contradictory stance of Ted Kennedy and liberalism.... Go read it all. In case you don't have time to click through, a comment in the penultimate paragraph is important: The passing of the great man--and I mean that without irony--affords liberals a unique chance to liberate themselves from Ted Kennedy. They can redefine themselves and their politics in a more modern fashion, without all of the retrograde Second Way baggage that Mr. Kennedy carried. They can get back to first principles, opposing discrimination even of the affirmative kind and opposing Islamicism even though it means fighting in foreign countries and embracing free trade even if we have to accept that Uruguay may not have the same workplace protection as we do yet and defending human life with the same steadfastness they do baby seals. This is the real MoveOn moment for American liberals, the opportunity to move on from a politician and a politics that served them well but no longer makes much internal sense. |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #1 All I can think of is "Good Riddance", |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2009-08-27 20:47 |