Born and raised in Massachusetts, I knew about the Kennedys and the Boston Red Sox before I knew what the Declaration of Independence was, let alone who signed it, or what truths were self evident. Learning of Senator Kennedy's death this morning, I was stunned. Obviously, we knew this was coming for a while, but the intellectual knowledge does not substitute for the emotional reality. I am not going to go into a laundry list of his accomplishments, or his stature in American history. Plenty of diaries and retrospectives have covered that territory. For me, the most striking statement of Senator Kennedy is the simplest - the "Liberal Lion" of the Senate.
All of the empty headed news people on the various channels repeated this salute, and then went on yammering about whatever. "Liberal Lion". It is quite a salute, but also a lamentable commentary on Liberalism generally. It's not that they referred to Senator Kennedy as such, but that the term made Liberalism seem so quaint, like an artifact of yore, or some silly belief of a bygone era. More after the jump
But why is this? How did the Liberalism that Kennedy allegedly stood for get stomped on and marginalized so? What is Kennedy Liberalism anyway? Searching around, the words of JFK himself serve a useful guide:
What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label "Liberal?" If by "Liberal" they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of "Liberal." But if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."
But first, I would like to say what I understand the word "Liberal" to mean and explain in the process why I consider myself to be a "Liberal," and what it means in the presidential election of 1960.
In short, having set forth my view -- I hope for all time -- two nights ago in Houston, on the proper relationship between church and state, I want to take the opportunity to set forth my views on the proper relationship between the state and the citizen. This is my political credo:
I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves.
I believe also in the United States of America, in the promise that it contains and has contained throughout our history of producing a society so abundant and creative and so free and responsible that it cannot only fulfill the aspirations of its citizens, but serve equally well as a beacon for all mankind. I do not believe in a superstate. I see no magic in tax dollars which are sent to Washington and then returned. I abhor the waste and incompetence of large-scale federal bureaucracies in this administration as well as in others. I do not favor state compulsion when voluntary individual effort can do the job and do it well. But I believe in a government which acts, which exercises its full powers and full responsibilities. Government is an art and a precious obligation; and when it has a job to do, I believe it should do it. And this requires not only great ends but that we propose concrete means of achieving them.
Our boisterous fellow citizens on the right trumpet Reagan's "City on a Hill", but where is our leadership claiming equal footing for Liberalism's moral imperative, creating a "beacon of mankind"? How is believing in a "government which acts, which exercises its full powers and full responsibilities" quaint? How is believing in the welfare of ALL our citizens an extreme belief? How is the distrust of a "superstate" anti-National Security nonsense?
Throughout the last thirty years, most of my life, and all of my politically aware life, I have seen nothing but demonizing of liberals, whether it be from the GOP, or from the DLC, which triangulated away from any true ideological missive at all. When I see Chuck Todd on Real Time talk about liberalism as pie in the sky, Jonathan Alter on Countdown doing the same with regards to the public option, reports of Rahm Emanuel scolding PROGRESSIVES about their criticisms of the health care plan and even the President's own emotional detachment in his arguments, my patience is just about at its limit.
Liberalism deserves a seat at the political table, a full voting seat. The vision that JFK articulated and Senator Kennedy lived deserves to have the same heft as the Reaganistas gone amok who rule our discourse today. A political platform that doesn't believe in unnecessary wars, uneccessary spying, violating international protocols, torture, letting its citizens fall through the cracks or letting rich people and companies buy all the toys for themselves - is not passe, quaint or extreme.
Or maybe I'm completely wrong.