Those Pesky Bourgeois

Looks like Teddy "the swimmer" Kennedy does not think the dem party is left enough. Now he is proposing things right out of the Communist Manifesto. Good move teddy, that will make the dem party even more inconsequential! - Sailor

Those Pesky Bourgeois
By Scott Hogenson
CNSNews.com Executive Editor
January 17, 2005

If Senator Edward Kennedy's recently delivered 'Democratic Blueprint for America's Future' is any indicator, the Republican Party should jump for joy.Kennedy's manifesto, served up in a speech to the National Press Club January 12, could just as rightly be called a 'Blueprint for Continued Republican Electoral Success,' judging by its contents, and GOP strategists should be licking their chops at the prospect of the Democratic Party at large adopting Kennedy's proposals.Before diving into the contents of Kennedy's proposals, permit me to briefly note the language, for it is the language that betrays the motivation. Kennedy's 4,900 word speech last week did not include a single utterance of the word 'liberal.' Instead, it relied on repeated use of the term 'progressive,' most often in terms of Kennedy's "progressive vision."'

Progressive' is the word liberals hope will fool Americans into thinking that liberal ideas are in their best interest when in reality, progressive policies are the stated bedrock of socialism and communism. That's not my assessment, mind you. It's the assessment of Karl Marx and Frederick Engles, authors of The Communist Manifesto. It's an issue about which I wrote in Sept. 2003 and worth a second read.

Regarding the contents of Kennedy's blueprint, it is indeed a progressive model of which Marx and Engles would probably approve, based on the free stuff the senator wants to give away. Specifically, Kennedy's progressive vision for the country includes free college and free health care.

In a speech resplendent with soaring pifflery, Kennedy told the National Press Club, "I propose that every child in America, upon reaching eighth grade, be offered a contract. Let students sign it, along with their parents and Uncle Sam. The contract will state that if you work hard, if you finish high school and are admitted to college, we will guarantee you the cost of earning a degree."

Kennedy goes on to propose that "we should make undergraduate tuition free for any young person willing to serve as a math or science teacher in a public school for at least four years."

It's interesting to note that Kennedy singles out a free college education for people studying math and science if they agree to teach school - an almost universally unionized profession - but not if they chose to work in engineering or research and development or any of a couple hundred other professions rarely associated with collective bargaining.

Also interesting is that the carrot-and-stick approach to math and science rather contradicts his earlier promise of free college for any kid who wants it, regardless of what they study. Given American liberalism's traditional absence of intellectual coherence, this isn't surprising, just something worth pointing out.

Then there's free health care for everyone, from cradle to grave. Actually, Kennedy did not use the term 'cradle to grave.' Kennedy's exact quote, in proposing an answer to the question of health care, was, "The answer is Medicare, whose 40th birthday we will celebrate in July. I propose that as a 40th birthday gift to the American people, we expand Medicare over the next decade to cover every citizen - from birth to the end of life."

This proposal shows that Kennedy and others in the Democratic Party are wising up regarding health care. The goal for years has been 'universal health care,' a nice way of saying 'socialized medicine.' By expanding the demographics of Medicare to everyone from birth to death, Kennedy has made a good effort at putting lipstick on the pig that socialized medicine is.

Some of Ted Kennedy's other progressive ideas include having government force employers to pay their entry level employees more money and forcing them to offer more sick leave - no fewer than seven paid sick days each year.

Inasmuch as the concept of progressive policies, as elucidated by Marx and Engles, is, "to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeois, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state," these two particular ideas certainly move that ball down field.

This is Ted Kennedy's blueprint for reinvigorating his moribund party, all of it designed to redistribute wealth and assets via the state, and further impede the free market. After all, we'd be so much better off if it weren't for those pesky bourgeois who were able to make something of themselves despite the absence of free college, free health care, government-mandated wage hikes and extra sick leave.

You can make book these ideals will be packaged in slick and soaring rhetoric framed by vicious attacks on opponents. A lot of folks will buy into this, but Americans by and large are too independent and determined to agree to this dole.

Free college for the kids and free health care for life is tempting indeed, but once people realize this free stuff will be bought and paid for with personal liberty,
these and similarly 'progressive' ideals will be rejected.

Scott Hogenson is executive editor of Cybercast News Service.
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