I found myself weirdly affected yesterday by the death of Ted Kennedy. I am not really a sentimental person, and am too young to have a strong affinity for the Kennedy's in general (though I grew up a stone's throw from the birthplace of Pres. Kennedy). However, with the health care debate raging on in an abject clusterfuck of meaningless rhetoric, I was saddened at the loss of someone who not only cared, but would have spoke on the actual purpose of this health care bill. Providing health care for the poor. Simple as that folks. Ensuring that people who can not afford medical care get cared for anyway.
That, ultimately is what liberalism is supposed to be about, right? A society where no one is allowed to starve, freeze, or die of illness because they didn't have the good fortune to be, well, born a Kennedy? I understand conservatives who say that it's not that simple, that it's not easy, and that you can cause more problems then you solve through careless action, but can't we all agree that that should be the goal? I do worry that in our era of media and money politics the idea of a just society has been discarded in favor of bottom line utilitarianism, and so it saddens me that one of it's bearers has passed.
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