An ode to freedom and the defeat of collectivism

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Dr. Kenneth Luedtke died last Saturday, Dec. 20, at the age of 84. Ken was my friend and co-conspirator in the Great Conservative Conspiracy. He served two stints as chairman of the Dane County Republican Party, the first in the 1960s when Republicans like Bob Uehling represented the west side of Madison in the State Assembly. Ken founded the Luedtke-Storm-Mackey chiropractic clinics. Leading the state chiropractors association, he got chiropractic covered by health insurance.

I was proud to nominate Ken Luedtke for his second stint as county party chairman in 1999; he served until 2003. We worked on many a campaign together; he was indefatigable with an optimism that rivaled Reagan’s. As Second District Republican Chairman Kim Babler told me, “Ken was famous for having meetings early in the morning until late evenings and expecting results. Ken was irreplaceable.” 

The funeral service is scheduled for next Sunday, Jan. 4. (Obituary here.)

Ken fought for the idea that every one of us is responsible for our own success and happiness, no matter the hand one is dealt, even if some of us just have to work harder than others. That freedom made the most compassionate society the world has ever known.

There was nothing romantic about communism for the late Vaclav Havel. The opiate of the easily fooled was a soul-crushing force that imprisoned the playwright-turned-statesmen and his Czech countrymen — no matter which side of the bars they found themselves on.

At the foundation of Marxism was the idea that individual, subjective consciousness was derivative of one’s objective, socio-economic position. … For Havel, individual responsibility existed before, and transcended, socio-economic conditions. … [Therefore] he never believed that Communism could be reformed. — Marci Shore in the 12-28-14 New York Times reviewing Havel: A Life, by Michael Zantovsky

Like the old Bourbon kings, the uber-left Nation remembers everything but learns nothing. It remains an unapologetic supporter of New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, just as it did, in the day, shill for Uncle Joe.

The magazine wallowed in the familiar mob rhetoric that inspired the ambush-style, racial whacking of two police officers, one Latino, the other Asian. “In the United States, the mildest attempt to shift policy debate away from security to inequality (class and race) leads to a cop insurrection.”

A cop insurrection? Blame the police first. So NYC’s mayor should learn from … Ecuador and its socialist strongman? Maybe he should learn from Rudy Giuliani, who cut crime and made New York safe for everyone.

Separately, in a parenthetical aside, a writer for The Nation admitted some of its mortal sins:

… The same could reasonably be said of The Nation since its founding 150 years ago (see, for starters, its turn against Reconstruction, even to the point of regretting the extension of suffrage to African-Americans; or, before 1918, its anti-labor stances; or, later, its blinkered view of Stalin’s villainy).

(Continued)

“Blinkered” is the politic way of saying willful ignorance, useful idiot, enabler, etc. Now, if they could just acknowledge the brutal repression of the Brothers Castro, the perfidy of Alger Hiss, the culpability of Julius Rosenberg, the murderousness of communist Angela Davis, the treason of Jane Fonda, the racial hucksterism of Al Sharpton, the failure of the socialist state, etc. Well, it wouldn’t be The Nation if it did.

If you doubt the communists aren’t fanning the flames of Hands Up, Can’t Breathe, join the Revolutionary Communist Party USA. No, it’s not coincidence. It’s birds of a feather.

Mike Barnicle of The Daily Beast asks, “Will those who protested Eric Garner’s death rush to the side of Rafael Ramos’ two sons, or Wenjian Liu’s widow, married only two months?”

Simmering beneath the surface though was the clear divide between a patrol force recognized as the finest in the country, if not the world, and a mayor, de Blasio, who has by word and action divided himself from the one municipal department that provides citizens with something necessary to keep a city breathing and moving forward daily: a sense of security.

Still waiting for the first mainstream press organization to decry the government war on political speech — other than The Wall Street Journal:

The Wisconsin assault on political speech has been in a lull, but it reappeared with a bang on Friday with a fresh document release by a state court. The disclosures include evidence that Wisconsin’s Government Accountability Board wanted to go after Milwaukee radio host Charlie Sykes and Sean Hannity of Fox News

How does that go? First they came for the conservatives, but I was not a conservative. … Just ask Vaclav Havel about repressing speech.

Are the Detroit Lions a professional football team or a street gang? Approach the bench for sentencing, Dominic Raiola and Ndamukong Suh (a man named “Suh”). Here’s an idea: The NFL should exact the same penalty on the head coach as that imposed on the dirty player.

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