Caroline Kennedy

[note the expression of the woman on the right]

United States Constitution, Article I, clause 8

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

United States Constitution, Article I, clause 2

The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

Declaration of Independence

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,...

United States Constitution, Amendment XIV, Section 1.

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Racial inequality was, and some say still is, deeply embedded in American life. We as a nation have worked long and hard to make the principle of racial equality expressed in the 14th Amendment a reality.

When General Shalikashvili was nominated as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff it came out that his father had been a Nazi. I and other Jews clenched our teeth, took a deep breath, and said, "That was his father, not him." We made the principle that there shall be no corruption of blood - the sins of the father being visited on the son - a reality.

Caroline Kennedy, whose qualification for office appears to be solely that she is a Kennedy, is being seriously considered for the US Senate. No running for, and serving on, the city council, then county supervisor, then state assembly or state senate, then lieutenant governor, then the House of Representatives. No, her first office if she is appointed - not elected, appointed - would be the US Senate.

Unlike Sarah Palin, the Governor of Alaska, she has never run for, nor been elected to, anything at all. Unlike the largely ceremonial Vice-Presidency which Palin ran for, the US Senate, together with the House, is an actual branch of government. It has the power to declare war, make treaties, make laws, levy taxes, to confirm judges and high-ranking federal appointments, to try the President in cases of impeachment.

During the campaign the press was eating extra roughage the more effectively to dump on Sarah Palin as unqualified. That same press is now slobbering all over themselves to congratulate the people of New York for their good fortune in having Caroline Kennedy deign to accept their Senate seat.

The constitution forbids aristocracy, just as it forbids racial inequality. It is time to begin the campaign to make the ideal of rule by the people, and not by an aristocracy, a reality as well.