The recent amount of sycophantic soundbites praising Ted Kennedy as a hero, champion of the people, defender of the realm and the king of bravery is kind of sickening. I understand the man has brain cancer – a condition that strikes a chord of fear in many people. I understand that the condition is most likely inoperable and fatal. I understand that this is traumatic and heart wrenching for the man’s family. Life is tough.
Everyone is suddenly whipping out speeches extolling the man’s great virtuosity and pretending he is the greatest patriot since George Washington. This is a man who has been working for longer than I have been alive to take away choices and freedoms that I hold very dear. I cannot even begin to imagine the amount of idiotic and costly legislation that the man has sponsored.
His biography shows him to be one of the helmsman of the decline of intellectualism and free thinking in the United States. He is a staunch supporter of the idea that Uncle Sugar should care for us all from cradle to grave, dumbing us down and making us catatonic and ignorant along the way. He is an advocate of theft and mediocrity, preaching the mantra that high achievers should have a portion of their wealth taken by force and redistributed according to his visions. Ted Kennedy believes that government managed socialism will actually make the quality of life in this country better in the long term. And on that issue, we are fundamentally at odds. Government programs almost always make things worse.
I am not celebrating Ted Kennedy’s misfortune. Neither will I sit quietly while others laud him as our great national champion. Ted Kennedy is not a hero. He is not a saint. He is a man who may have done some good things for some people some of the time but it was always at the expense of the American taxpayer. The media and his fellow politicians are doing us all a disservice by pretending otherwise just because he is afflicted with a fatal condition.
A malignant brain tumor is a terrible thing. But Ted Kennedy is not my god and I will not pretend that the man has been championing the American people and steering this country on a course that I agree with. That’s simply not the case. For his political enemies to pretend otherwise is disingenuous and a disservice to all those of us who disagree strongly with Mr. Kennedy’s political views and the agenda he strongarms in Congress. I wish him and his family well as far as health goes, but I don’t want to hear all this utter nonsense every time I turn on the TV or the radio. Ted Kennedy is not my friend or a man I respect. If Ted Kennedy is the lion of Congress just because he developed a brain tumor then I am the Pope. Quit singing hosannas to the man. What the hell is wrong with your gray matter?
At best, I can say that I strongly disagreed with Ted Kennedy on almost every issue. Now that he is effectively retired, I wish him well in his battle against the tumor.