Lessons From the Kennedy Family

When I first heard that Senator Ted Kennedy died, I felt like singing that old classic from the "Wizard of Oz" -- "Ding Dong the Wicked Witch is Dead." Fortunately, my better nature precluded this. But having said goodbye to Senator Kennedy, I think it is time to reflect on lessons he and his family have taught us. Not those sappy, milk-toast fawnings you get on TV but some real gems.

Gem 1: To avoid consequences be a liberal politician with a liberal constituency.
Of course, I am talking about Chapaquitic. Many have been frustrated that he got away with murder or something close to it. But liberals to not care about what sins their people commit as long as they say warm, fuzzy liberal stuff. The American people fortunately do not have the same attitude, which kept Ted Kennedy out of the White House. This week Van Jones, Obama's Tsar for green jobs resigned for public statements about Republicans that included obscenities, belonging to a group that thinks President Bush was complicit in 9/11, belonging to another group that called for violent overthrow of the government and oh, ya; he proclaimed he was a communist. Yet he got in to the administration because they did not care about any of that because he was saying warm, fuzzy liberal stuff. Not even the main-stream press said anything until the resignation because Liberals do not care! Just don't interrupt them with facts while they are chanting "Love and peace, my hair is full of grease..."

Gem 2: Don't force the elderly into back-ally health care clinics.
Senator Kennedy was old with a fatal disease. Yet he rejected President Obama's advice to take a pain pill and just die. Ultimately, the health care he consumed was for naught but it was his choice. Senator Kennedy bemoaned attempts to make killing unborn babies illegal. Women would be forced into back-ally clinics to have abortions anyway. If he was so sure that women would endure risky, illegal measures just to rid themselves of inconvenient children, imagine what the elderly will do to dodge the Obama death panels. The Kennedys know well what happens when you make an activity illegal. During Prohibition, Joseph Kennedy (Ted's father) made moonshine and worked with the Mafia to distribute it to a public desperate for booze. This made him rich and the family has lived off the proceeds ever since. He became ambassador to Britain and might have even become president if he hadn't supported some German politician named Hitler. At least his kids had the sense not to do that. Imagine what San Francisco, whose job it is to elect the wackiest socialists, would have to do to outdo a Nazi from Massachusetts.

Gem 3: Even after two generations of Kennedy liberalism poverty cannot be eradicated.
In 1964 the Kennedys applauded Johnson's War on Poverty. The goal was to eradicate poverty by 1980. Of course, we keep changing the definition of poverty, revising ever upward. America does poor like no other with TVs, cell phones, cars, refrigerators and, of course, cigarettes (just another way for your tax money to go up in smoke). Senator Kennedy championed the little guy but using methods that ultimately shafted the little guy instead. That is because he used the biggest guy on the block, the Federal Government. The government's fatal flaw is that it is all powerful. This makes is great for running the military and police but terrible for social programs. Because presidents in the past have used public jobs to reward cronies, laws have been passed to prevent the practice. The Clinton's were guilty of violating civil service laws when they fired the White House travel office and replaced them with friends from Arkansas. But how would you react if your boss changed every four years and he had virtually no power to fire you regardless of what you did. Some would work hard for reasons of integrity but over time your work place would become a magnate for people who wanted to collect a paycheck while playing computer solitaire all day or simply running a chess tournament (I did not make this up, I observed this in a government facility I once visited). So there you have it, the government "worker". If a charity were tasked with helping the poor and its workers did nothing at work, abused the charity's credit cards with impunity, stole or allowed others to steal from the charity, you would stop contributing. Try doing that with the Federal Government and you hit the fatal flaw, the power to take your money anyway. Charities that perform as abysmally as the government eventually die but the government lives on and continues sucking money from the little guy in the form of higher taxes and ever larger bureaucracies. This takes from charities that would actually help the poor and even worse, the government has the power to regulate is competition out of existence. Whether it's two generations or twenty of Kennedys coming after your money (funny they are not giving up their trust fund to the government), the War on Poverty will never be won this way. Although Obama's War on Prosperity is going quite nicely.

So Goodbye, Teddy. They say you were one of a kind and for our sakes, I hope so. Say, can we donate is body to science? If we could just discover what gene causes whaco liberalism, I might become a supporter of tax-funded abortions in certain cases.