Edward Kennedy

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Do you have an opinion on the death of Senator Ted Kennedy? Do You think it's appropriate for a pro-abortion politician to receive communion and a Catholic funeral? -Ruben

Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy (22 February 1932 – 25 August 2009) was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party who was first elected in November 1962. He leaves behind a scandalous political career which was laced with lurid tales of drugs, sexual abuse and moral degeneracy.

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Two things immediately spring to mind when I think of Ted Kennedy. One is the name of Mary Jo Kopechne and the Chappaquiddick incident, which was never satisfactorily explained; the other is, despite his bipartisan legislative practices, for many years Kennedy was a polarising symbol of American liberalism.

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On the night of 18 July 1969, Kennedy was on Martha's Vineyard's Chappaquiddick Island at a party for a group of young women who had worked on his brother Robert's presidential campaign the year before. Kennedy left the party, driving a 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont 88 with one of the women, 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne and later accidentally drove off Dike Bridge into the Poucha Pond inlet, a tidal channel on Chappaquiddick Island. Kennedy escaped the overturned vehicle, swam to safety and left the scene. He did not call authorities until after Kopechne's body was discovered the following day. On July 25th, Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and was given a sentence of two months in jail, suspended. That night he gave a national broadcast in which he said: "I regard as indefensible the fact that I did not report the accident to the police immediately," but denied driving under the influence of alcohol and denied any immoral conduct between him and Kopechne.

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In January 1970, an inquest into Kopechne's death took place in Edgartown, Massachusetts. At the request of Kennedy's lawyers, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ordered the inquest be conducted in secret. The presiding judge, James A Boyle, concluded that some aspects of Kennedy's story of that night were not true, and that "negligent driving appears to have contributed to the death of Mary Jo Kopechne." A grand jury on Martha's Vineyard staged a two-day investigation in April 1970, but issued no indictment, after which Boyle made his inquest report public. Kennedy deemed its conclusions "not justified." The most likely explanation for his behaviour was that he was severely under the influence of drugs or alcohol and did not want his blood tested so soon after the incident, leaving the unfortunate young woman to drown. Kennedy denied the allegations, which dogged his failed 1980 presidential election challenge against incumbent Jimmy Carter.

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His personal life was as appalling as his political career. Time magazine once described Kennedy as “Palm Beach boozer, lout and tabloid grotesque” while Newsweek said Kennedy was “the living symbol of the family flaws.” Kennedy himself later acknowledged: “I went through a lot of difficult times over a period in my life where [drinking] may have been somewhat of a factor or force.” Twice he was involved in drunken incidents in Washington restaurants to which police were called, with one involving physical contact with a waitress.

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The unemployed, the disabled, ethnic minorities, homosexuals, women's causes, the IRA and some others who employed violent means to achieve their end — all found in him an eager advocate. But not unborn children: unexpectedly for a Roman Catholic, Kennedy approved federal payments for abortions. Kennedy often deviated from the Roman Catholic Church's doctrines, as he was divorced and latterly came out in support of stem cell research (although the Vatican vehemently opposes it). Kennedy was a member of the Roman Catholic Church; but at the same time he shared important values with secular humanists. Whether he should have received Communion when alive and be given a Roman Catholic funeral is something for others to debate. There is much the modern Church does which seems incompatible with its traditional pre-Vatican II position. Kennedy is also known as the “godfather” of America’s immigration policy since 1964, and is possibly the one individual most responsible for the current demographic displacement of European Americans from that continent. As chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration, Senator Kennedy had chief oversight responsibility for the Immigration and Naturalisation Service, which he allowed to degenerate into one of the most ineffective agencies in the Federal Government. He was the chief sponsor of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 which abolished the national-origin quotas that had been in place in the United States since the Immigration Act of 1924.

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My particular concern with the late Senator was his liberalism. The liberal's ideal is shown in his promotion of the "anti-hero" in literature, the theatre and the cinema, where the coward comes out on top. To the liberal mind, it simply is not right that there should ever be losers in anything. A world with no winners would, of course, belong to the losers and that sort of world is naturally one in which the liberal would be in his element. They reject Man as he is and always will be; and they substitute an abtraction. In the pallid world of pure intellection they project a picture of Man as they would have him be: a two-dimensional being, a mere shadow in the real world.

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Intrinsic in liberals and liberalism is a flabbiness of person and outlook. Liberals cannot bear what is true. Weak themselves, but with more than their share of conceit and vanity, they construct in their minds an alternative world where people of their kind, instead of being serfs, are kings. It is liberalism that is the eternal weakener of nations by atrophying their national spirit. It is liberalism that, by its influence, brings about a progressive degeneration of the mind, body and soul of a people that is vibrant and healthy. In modern liberalism are reproduced all the vices of the old liberalism, but with some additional features making an even more nationally destructive philosophy. The old liberal faith in "freedom" as an absolute good has been replaced by a valuation of freedom that is entirely selective. The disintegration of western society currently underway is in no short measure due to the disease of liberalism.

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Ted Kennedy was an archetypal liberal.

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