The Wit and Wisdom of Ted Kennedy (8 page)

—Speech, April 2, 1979

There will be discussion in Washington and around the world about whether the ethnic violence in Darfur is, in fact, genocide, but we cannot allow the debate over definitions to obstruct our ability to act as soon as possible. It is a matter of the highest moral responsibility for each of us individually, for Congress, for the United States, and for the global community to do all we can to stop the violence against innocents in Darfur. We must act, because thousands of people's lives will be lost if we don't.

—Call for U.S. action to help stop the
ethnic violence in Darfur, Sudan,
April 29, 2004

I don't think America can just drill itself out of its current energy situation. We don't need to destroy the environment to meet our energy needs. We need smart, comprehensive, common-sense approaches that balance the need to increase domestic energy supplies with the need to maximize energy efficiency.

—Statement on New Long-Term Energy Solutions,
March 22, 2001

We should stop the non-scientific, pseudo-scientific, and anti-scientific nonsense emanating from the right wing, and start demanding immediate action to reduce global warming and prevent catastrophic climate change that may be on our horizon now. We must not let the [Bush] Administration distort science and rewrite and manipulate scientific reports in other areas. We must not let it turn the Environmental Protection Agency into the Environmental Pollution Agency.

—Address to the National Press Club,
Washington, DC, January 12, 2005

In strengthening security at our borders, we must also safeguard the unobstructed entry of the more than 31 million persons who enter the U.S. legally each year as visitors, students, and temporary workers. Many of them cross our borders from Canada and Mexico to conduct daily business or visit close family members.

We also must live up to our history and heritage as a nation of immigrants. Continued immigration is part of our national well-being, our identity as a nation, and our strength in today's world. In defending America, we are also defending the fundamental constitutional principles that have made America strong in the past and will make us even stronger in the future.

Our action must strike a careful balance between protecting civil liberties and providing the means for law enforcement to identify, apprehend and detain potential terrorists. It makes no sense to enact reforms that severely limit immigration into the United States. “Fortress America,” even if it could be achieved, is an inadequate and ineffective response to the terrorist threat.

—Statement on the Introduction of the
Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry
Reform Act of 2001, November 30, 2001

DEMOCRACY AND
HUMAN RIGHTS

T
ED
K
ENNEDY WAS BOTH A BIG
“D” D
EMOCRAT AND A
small “d” democrat. That is to say, he was both a ferocious defender of his party and a deep believer in the virtues of a system in which the people choose their leaders. He was also an astute observer of the way democracies function and how they are sometimes ill-served by overly partisan politics or by majority rule at the expense of minority rights. He critiqued the workings of democracy, both at home and abroad, and was even more vocal when it came to his appraisal of countries like China, which lack democracy, or post-Soviet Russia, where democratic practices have too often been compromised or abridged.

The big risk to democracy at home, as the senator has pointed out, comes when politicians put themselves ahead of the public interest or are not honest with the voters. Democracy's lifeblood is an educated and informed electorate, able to keep track of politicians' deeds, able to call them to account when they say one thing but do another. In that way democracy is dependent upon both a free press and the freedom of its citizens to follow their own conscience when those in power would have them bend to the majority's will.

Democracy without human rights is the tyranny of the majority. That may be better than the tyranny of an individual dictator, but it's a difference of scale, not principle.

Ted Kennedy was never one to shrink from criticizing an undemocratic action wherever he saw it, whether in foreign governments, in his own government, or yes, even occasionally in his own party, the Democrats with a capital D.

Integrity is the lifeblood of democracy. Deceit is a poison in its veins.

—Speech at the Brookings Institution,
April 5, 2004

The American people care deeply about human rights around the world. But they also believe that human rights begin at home.

—Speech, June 9, 1977

The more our feelings diverge, the more deeply felt they are, the greater is our obligation to grant the sincerity and essential decency of our fellow citizens on the other side.

—Speech at Liberty University,
October 3, 1983

[America is] not a continent, not an arsenal, not wealth and factories—but a democratic republic. Call it democracy or freedom, call it human liberty or individual opportunity, equality or justice, but underneath they are all the same—the belief in the right and capacity of every individual to govern himself and to share in governing the necessary institutions of social order.

—Speech, May 14, 1978

Community service is not a new idea in America. It is the essence of democracy. Throughout our history, we have dealt most effectively with the issues facing our country when we have come together to help one another.

—Statement at the Senate Judiciary Committee
hearing for the Martin Luther King Holiday and
Service Act, April 13, 1994

Citizenship is far more than just voting every two years or four years. The strength and genius of our democracy depends on the caring and involvement of our people, and we cannot truly secure our freedom without appealing to the character of our citizens. If we fail, we open the way for abuses of power in the hands of the few, for neglect of poverty and bigotry, and for arrogant foreign policies that shatter our alliances and make enemies of our friends.

—Address to the National Press Club,
Washington, DC, January 12, 2005

Public education is one of the finest achievements of American democracy.

—Press conference on the Bush
education budget, March 20, 2001

Hate crimes are a national disgrace—an attack on everything this country stands for. They send a poisonous message that some Americans are second class citizens who deserve to be victimized solely because of their race, their ethnic background, their religion, their sexual orientation, their gender or their disability. These senseless crimes have a destructive and devastating impact not only on individual victims, but entire communities. If America is to live up to its founding ideals of liberty and justice for all, combating hate crimes must be a national priority.

—Statement on Hate Crimes Prevention
Legislation, March 27, 2001

One of the basic assumptions of our political system is that large centers of unaccountable power are inconsistent with democratic government and the values of a free society. If there is a single theme that ties together the best in both liberal and conservative political traditions, it is this hostility to unchecked power. If the awesome power of giant corporations is no longer adequately checked by the discipline of the market, it is not just our pocketbook that is in jeopardy, it is our liberty.

—Speech, May 3, 1977

Public financing of elections is the wisest possible investment that American taxpayers can make in the future of their country.

—Speech, May 5, 1977

Too often in recent years we have allowed debates on major issues to be polarized beyond the point of no return. We cannot afford to let bad debate drive out the good.

—Speech, November 2, 1975

Our large cities are totally impersonal: They crank human beings through their daily activities. Our large universities are totally impersonal: They stamp out people with fixed credentials. Our large industries are totally impersonal: They employ people in repetitive tasks empty of a sense of value. Our large units of government are totally impersonal: They exist for their own sake rather than for the people they serve. And all these institutions seem unresponsive to the individual complaint or desire. There is a general sense of helplessness, a feeling of uselessness.

—Acceptance speech for nomination as a
candidate for re-election to the U.S. Senate
at the Massachusetts Democratic Convention,
Amherst, June 12, 1970

Earlier this week, scientists announced the completion of a task that once seemed unimaginable—deciphering the entire DNA sequence of the human genetic code. This amazing accomplishment is likely to affect the 21st century as profoundly as the invention of the computer or the splitting of the atom affected the 20th century. The 21st century may well be the century of the life sciences, and nothing makes that point more clearly than this momentous discovery.

These new discoveries bring with them remarkable new opportunities for improving health care. But they also carry the danger that genetic information will be used, not to improve the lives of Americans, but as a basis for discrimination. Genetic discrimination may sound like something new and hard to understand, but it's not. Discrimination on the basis of a person's genetic traits is as unacceptable as discrimination on the basis of gender, skin color, or any other unalterable condition of a person's birth. Genetic discrimination is wrong, whether it takes place on a job application or in the office of an insurance underwriter.

—Statement on Genetic Discrimination,
June 29, 2000

Policy formation without public participation is like faith and hope without charity.

—Speech, June 3, 1975

America's national pie is big enough for us all to share.

—Comments on farming policies, May 26, 1976

I hope for an America where the power of faith will always burn brightly, but where no modern inquisition of any kind will ever light the fires of fear, coercion, or angry division.

I hope for an America where we can all contend freely and vigorously, but where we will treasure and guard those standards of civility which alone make this nation safe for both democracy and diversity.

—Speech at Liberty University, October 3, 1983

Vital U.S. interests would clearly be served by implementing a lasting peace in Bosnia. All of us are familiar with the massacres and the atrocities that have characterized this brutal war. … Ending the carnage and restoring peace and stability to this part of Europe will prevent the kind of wider war that would inevitably involve the United States—and under far greater risk. Twice in this century Americans have died in battle in massive wars in Europe. … The peace, security, and freedom of Europe are still a vital interest of the United States today.

—Statement at Senate Armed Services
hearing on Bosnia, November 18, 1995

Apartheid concerns everyone directly because it involves the whole future pattern of human relations. Apartheid is in conflict with the accepted principle of equality in rights of all human beings, and therefore it represents a challenge to the conscience of all mankind.

—Address, Senate Finance Committee,
June 21, 1971

Will America support peoples of Africa who seek only the “unalienable rights” we sought and won ourselves two centuries ago? Or will we continue to follow policies that isolate us from these peoples—policies that place us on the side of minority governments that deny basic human rights, and that invite the involvement of other outside powers?

—Speech, March 23, 1976

ECONOMIC JUSTICE AND THE
AMERICAN WORKER

T
ED
K
ENNEDY WAS BORN INTO A RICH FAMILY; HE NEVER
wanted for any material thing at any time in his life. Yet the whole of his adult career was a quest for economic justice. In every political fight over wages, tax equity, allocation of national resources, regulation of business and industry, he came down on the side of working families and the disadvantaged.