JFK Understood: ‘Free and Independent’
by Michael McGrutherWhenever I stumble upon any media about JFK I’m always struck by how conservative he really was. By today’s standards, this speech would put President Kennedy squarely on the side of the Republican/Libertarian movement politically and on the receiving end of liberal media attacks worldwide. In an alternate reality I can imagine a young JFK giving this speech at CPAC as he preps for a White House run. Listen to this chilling warning about what we all know has already come to pass in Europe and is quickly creeping its way into mainstream American life unless we citizens act now to stop this train and derail it back into the ash heap of history.
President Bush’s 8 years in office was like someone taking a stick to a hornets nest that nobody knew still existed. He whacked it good and then paid the price with poisonous stings all over everything he tried to do. But the rest of us out there saw how the press and mainstream media reacted to him and that is how we came to clearly see what we’re really up against in the battle for America’s future.
W. exposed the soft march of a bloodless communist revolution in America by simply being, well, your typical decent, hard working, plain spoken, self-reliant American. He didn’t fit the mold of the modern American man that had been carefully cultivated through the dull 90’s and his actions were all meant to expose the true intentions of the left and boy did his administration succeed!
The side that makes the most noise usually has the most to hide — and my ears are still ringing from the onslaught of loud misinformation that came from the left to achieve political power in America once again. Ronald Reagan may be the first actor to have become President but Barack Obama is the first President who is in fact just an actor.
I was raised by my Mother and Stepfather, both proud JFK Democrats. Much to my surprise my stubborn stepfather begrudgingly voted for a Republican for the first time in his life when he voted for John McCain and Sarah Palin. (He’s 77, a Marine who fought in the Korean War. My Mother has voted for both Republicans and Democrats) Voters like him can be found hanging around American Legions and VFW’s all across America talking about the current state of affairs and many of them know something has gone terribly wrong with their party. But because of the very situation that President Kennedy warned about and Bush brilliantly exposed, these voters were silenced by a press with an agenda that wasn’t truthful and whose main goal was to captivate an entire generation of young idealistic voters and then impress upon them a role model that was carefully crafted to fit a certain marketing demographic.
Many of our arguments against a President Obama didn’t stick for obvious reasons. First time voters would hardly care that President Obama has never run anything before because it’s likely that they haven’t either. And having such a high opinion of one’s abilities regardless of experience is what being young is all about. “Fake it until you make it” is an awful and damaging approach but widely accepted as the way in on the left and the young that are drawn to the left all know this and put it to practice without ever graduating to real skill and craft. They lay blame on everything but themselves for the sad state of American capitalism but never stop to consider that making an effort to be a good and decent person is a big part of what makes capitalism really work.
Another way to know we’re dealing with communists again is their multi-pronged attack on the very institutions that keep people directed towards attempting good and decent behavior in the first place without the need for government intervention; your local church.
We must unite the senior citizen vote to the young conservatives and create a silent super majority that will be unstoppable in 2010 and 2012. Imagine the parents and the children of the baby boomers all shunning the childish behavior of these spoiled brat adults who have wholeheartedly embraced what is bad about human nature and refuse to even try for what is good based on the grounds that it’s all relative. I’d like to see the baton of decency handed down from the grandparents to the grandchildren, totally bypassing the selfish parents in the middle.
So since the Democrats brazenly hijacked the image of Lincoln as the climax in their Distort American History Tour, let’s resurrect JFK as one of our own and remind them that even though he was assassinated it didn’t mean it was OK to ignore his leadership and his call to self sacrifice and his dream for “Man to be what he was born to be — Free and independent”
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36 Comments
While I like the thought, the one problem with stealing JFK is that the democrats do not care about what he really stood for. They've made up their mind that he's a hero, and nothing will change that opinion. In fact, his short record and their historical ignorance allows them to fill in the pieces with whatever they want to keep their delusion alive.
That said, I think that most of our historical figures would actually fit better in the Republican Party today than the democratic party — and I'm all for stealing them. The dems seem to have splintered off from anything connected to America's past in the 1960s and they don't seem to interested in going back. Said differently, the party they became in the 1960s-2000s, is something that has never existed in the mainstream of American political thought before. Yikes.
While I like the thought, the one problem with stealing JFK is that the democrats do not care about what he really stood for. They've made up their mind that he's a hero, and nothing will change that opinion. In fact, his short record and their historical ignorance allows them to fill in the pieces with whatever they want to keep their delusion alive.
That said, I think that most of our historical figures would actually fit better in the Republican Party today than the democratic party — and I'm all for stealing them. The dems seem to have splintered off from anything connected to America's past in the 1960s and they don't seem to interested in going back. Said differently, the party they became in the 1960s-2000s, is something that has never existed in the mainstream of American political thought before. Yikes.
Great piece.
====Whenever I stumble upon any media about JFK I’m always struck by how conservative he really was. By today’s standards, this speech would put President Kennedy squarely on the side of the Republican/Libertarian movement====
No doubt about it, which is also why liberals rarely invoke the name of JFK, they prefer FDR and his liberal spending boondoggles which are more in line with the current manifestation of the democrat party: flaming socialists.
It's a good post, but this is something that has been commented on over the last decade. Rush has made this point multiple times including an "interview" he conducted with JFK in his Limbaugh Letter many years ago. He took one of JFK's speeches on the economy and attached his own questions. The fact is that many Democractic leaders from the 40's-60's were conservative and even if they weren't, they had some dignity and class. ____The problem with your majority is trying to create a medicare and social security position that both sides will support and then getting that position unfiltered to the intended audience. I think the better position is to craft ideas that are less focused on demographics and instead are rooted in the core values of conservatism so that they will be attractive to anyone.
This is true. My husband used to have lots of fun quoting JFK without using JFK's name at first. Once the lefties denounced the quotes as nonsense, he'd reveal the source. Leftist heads would explode and then the lefties would denounce JFK rabidly.
He would have MoveOn and the Kos screaming because of his capitalist and hawkish policies. I remember on Red Dwarf, they went back in time and said that he was a liberal icon. Problem was he wasn't liberal. Bobby didn't seem to be either. What happened to Ted?
And no doubt, a week later they'd removed those quotes from their memories and he was their perfect hero again. There is something really wrong with these people.
Thanks Kevin — I had no idea that Rush has pointed this out before. I may be one of the only Republicans to have never listened to his show – honestly. I guess I should start tuning in now that I am blogging about politics. I know I'm probably going to love every word he says but I've just never been a radio person.
Um… Michael, there is no Rush. We made him up to distract the left while the rest of us fled the country. Keep this between us, will ya?
See I know you're joking because Republicans wouldn't flee the country.
True. I wish the democrats would though, Lord knows they threaten it enough.
Bravo – you're right, it's time to take back the JFK legacy – because it is not representative of the Left anymore. And there's a whole new generation that doesn't have a clue….
Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for yourself.
There's a message that needs to be heard.
The values we now associate with conservatism used to just be American values. Conservatives and liberals still debated political issues, but both sides were at least united by love of country. Since then, unfortunately, these values have been abandoned by the left in favor of some "one world" philosophy which denies American exceptionalism and the values that made America what it was. Today, only the conservatives seem to truly believe in the old American values.
"The dems seem to have splintered off from anything connected to America's past in the 1960s and they don't seem to interested in going back."
That's exactly right, and it started when some bright spark decided to court "moderates" by aping teenagers. By 1970 the Dems had become the party of eternal adolescence, and deserve considerable opprobrium for the lack of adulthood currently on display throughout the culture.
Good, good stuff. I particularly admire the bit about GWB exposing the long march through the institutions simply by not responding to it.
I admit to being among the many who were shocked by the instantaneous vitriol directed at the younger Bush, and the depth of the True Believer mentality thus demonstrated. Maybe his greatest contribution will be seen as driving the Lefties out of the closet at last. Imagine the national discourse about Americanism and Socialism taking place only 10 years ago. Inconceivable.
Americans are now involved in an ideological civil war. Most of the posts here and elsewhere lead me to believe that you don't give a damn about your country. All you care about is that your side is righteous, be you liberal or conservative. You will not listen to constructive ideas from "the other side", you will not help your country that is in peril from unbridled greed and most of you are too apathetic to get involved in healing the wounds that are killing America.
So, flame me! I'm a Canadian who grew up believing that the United States could do ANYTHING. I was proud and secretly envious of Americans. Show the world what you're REALLY made of.
According to Thomas Paine, government, even at its best, is a necessary evil. Some governments are more evil than others.
In this country, I believe we've become insensitive to how badly our governments have eroded our freedoms over the years. Especially our economic freedom. Like sheep we follow corrupt shepards. Secrecy has become a common modus operandi in government. Secrecy is also common in business. GM's years of mismanagement, unknown to most, appear to have finally brought it down. Reading another website I found this article which, in the past, I previously attributed to conspiracy theorists.
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/03/30/americas-ban... causes me to reflect on secret societies, both public and private. It's all about freedom to act responsibly for the good of the individual within the body politic. IMO, strength is in the center.
Can you imagine JFK's response if the Russians were to land Bombers in Cuba??????
Hmmm. Yes, and he did send troops to Vient Nam a fact the current libs forget very quickly.
Easy to toss accustations. And it is easy to blame greed. Now, can you tell me, what does this mean. How is greed doing us in? What wounds are you talking about?
Chappaquiddick?
So, change your own country, and leave ours to us. I wonder if you were one of the hoardes of people worldwide ashamed over our last president too.
A few points.
Greed is outsourcing jobs and not giving a damn about the people in the company's community.
Greed is a corporate ethos that hires a battery of lawyers to divert profits and taxes to offshore holdings.
Greed is a union that exists for its own entrenched existence rather than the betterment of its workers and the company they work for.
Greed is a government bureaucracy that protects its own turf to the detriment of the country. Anything with a 3 letter acronym is guilty.
Greed is a bank that will over extend itself because it sees every other bank raking in huge profits by doing the same thing.
Greed is a marketing effort to make the lowest quality at the lowest price seem like a bargain.
Greed is taking two guys off a garbage truck and replacing them with a mechanical arm. Yeah, I know that's progress, but we have too many people doing too little to make it all function properly.
Money is what we use to keep everything rolling. If we don't make it by working, nothing gets bought and the money stops flowing.
The wounds are deep, they were inflicted by a thousand cuts, from housing, insurance, to the food industry.
Healing can start at your own town hall, by inviting folks who can't get loans for their businesses and inviting the bankers who refused said loans. Should be a fun time for all, but you would start getting to the bottom of the corruption. The next meeting could be with Walmart management and the ghosts of the mom and pop stores.
I'm sorry if this comes off sounding preachy, we're dealing with the same thing in our own country, albeit at a lesser level. It just saddens me that common sense and common decency have sunk to such a low level.
"It just saddens me that common sense and common decency have sunk to such a low level."
That's because it's no longer common, Ron. But I agree with you none the less.
I'll give you another Democrat President who would totally and completely reject what the Democratic Party has become: Andrew Jackson. 'Ol Hickory would take one look at what has become of his beloved party, grab his walking cane and start cracking skulls.
"Every diminution of the public burdens arising from taxation gives to individual enterprise increased power and furnishes to all the members of our happy confederacy new motives for patriotic affection and support. "
"Every good citizen makes his country's honor his own, and cherishes it not only as precious but as sacred. He is willing to risk his life in its defense and its conscious that he gains protection while he gives it. "
"The Bible is the rock on which this Republic rests."
"The duty of government is to leave commerce to its own capital and credit as well as all other branches of business, protecting all in their legal pursuits, granting exclusive privileges to none. "
That sound like a Democrat? Maybe in 1828, not 2009.
Self interest (greed) drive everything that is human. Are you suggesting that politicians, and workers are not greedy. Will you work for less voluntarily? Will you lend money to folks for less interest and at a greater risk than someone else will? Will you pay more for a truck than it is worth in your eyes? Would you buy an American car if you thought it might help a UAW worker keep his job? WIll you pay more for the garbage to be hauled away? Will you pay more taxes than you are legally required to pay? Will you put Wal Mart out of business so that mom and pop can survive?
Will you replace competition and if so , with what?
And last but not least, will you allow folks to keep their own money or force them to give it to a govt to do with it what it wants? If so, why?
The Democratic party took a HUGE left shift after the VN war and with Jimmy Carter. That guy would have taken over everything if he had the votes and popularity. A micro manager and a moralist. He was one scary guy.
I do wonder if JFK and Bobby K would have become like their younger brother. Much as I like Bobby, after his brother's death and the assassination of MLK he started sounding a lot like modern liberal Democrats.
Andrew, __I am sure that Mr. Obama wishes that Rush was a figment of someone's imagination.__I feel the same way about Barney Frank, Ms Pelosi and several others.
And lets not forget about his successor. LBJ
58,178 Total casualties.
"If you are able, save for them a place inside of you and save one backward glance when you are leaving for the places they can no longer go.
Be not ashamed to say you loved them, though you may or may not have always. Take what they have taught you with their dying and keep it with your own.
And in that time when men decide and feel safe to call the war insane, take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind.
Major Michael Davis O'Donnell
1 January 1970
Dak To, Vietnam
Listed as KIA February 7, 1978
Once upon a time I had a Philosophy Prof who was a refugee from Czechoslovakia. He spent untold hours explaining the roots of Marxism to we students. And the basic idea was: Marxism sees humans and our history in Material terms. And Finally, finally, I have seen what he was getting at: the subprime mortgage craze. The theory was that if people own their own homes, then they will be better citizens. That is typical materialist thinking, Marxist right through. IF you are a hardworking person who is frugal and saves your money, THEN you are a good citizen, and you will probably own your own home. Character, something that cannot be re-decorated like Pelosi's office, is the key. Marxists do not think character, or morals, or ethics, are important. Only THINGS matter to them. And they have managed to crawl to the top of almost every Western organization.
To me there are two forms of self interest, personal and community. We're suffering from a severe lack of the second. I would not equate greed with self interest, greed is much more destructive.
I suggest that some politicians, workers, bankers etc.; are greedy. If they're not controlled by a common moral and financial code, then they bring ruin on the rest of us.
I will work for less if I find I cannot get the work if I charge more.
If I were to lend money at any rate of interest, I would take the risk, not the government. The current bailout madness makes no sense. If a company fails because of an avaricious direction, let it. There will be others to pick up the pieces.
I own an American car, and it has given me good service. I hope that its purchase has helped someone stay in a job. I just hope that that someone is a line worker rather than a CEO.
I am paying the exact same amount for garbage collection with a mechanical arm as I was for two guys on the back of the truck. It's not a better situation. They lose the ability to feed their family and contribute to society and the mechanical arm won't pick up anything that's not in the bin
I pay more per dollar in taxes as a Canadian only because services are provided by the state that I would otherwise have to pay for privately. Like most people, I'll only pay what is required.
I try to put Walmart out of business by not shopping there. I think big multinational chains are a blight on our society. There's nothing human about them.
Competition is a mainstay of our human nature. It brings innovation, thrift and a healthy respect for your competitor. Greed, however, seeks to wipe out your competitor at any cost., be it legal or otherwise.
We have all agreed by social contract (even though it was to pay for WW1) to give part of our earnings
to the government for its smooth functioning. Our problem is that the government, no matter who is in power, is no longer smoothly functioning. It is an out of control hydra because of its complexity and lack of transparency
You may think of me as someone with socialist tendencies. You would be wrong. I think we're all far better off without the yoke of a nanny gov't on our backs. But if someone kicks sand in our face with impunity, like the bankers, multicorps and wall street have done, then they have to be brought to account….by the government….because that's all we have to fight with.
…"if by a “Liberal” they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a “Liberal,” then I’m proud to say I’m a “Liberal.”- John F. Kennedy, September 14, 1960
He would still belong to the "big-tent" Democratic Party. Not everyone in the Demcoratic Party is a progressive Liberal, there are many conservatives known as the "blue dogs". So no…. JFK wouldn't be a Republicans any more than Lincoln could actually fit in the Democratic Party.
That's not what we mean by a "Liberal"
The Kennedy's always believed Government played an important role in people's lives. John F. Kennedy himself took special interest in matters that Demcorats of today still care about (including his brother Edward Kennedy). Soundbites don't cut it here. As he said: "someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties." He also ended a period of tight fiscal policies and presided over the first government budget to top the $100 billion mark. He clearly wasn't a fiscal-conservative compared to most of his Republican predecessors.
Sounds like a "Liberal" to me. Not to mention Robert Kennedy, before he was killed, sounded a lot like a "Liberal" too.
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