Lisa Fabrizio
JFK: Liberal legend
By Lisa Fabrizio
JFK: Liberal Legend
I never intended to write about the life or death of John F. Kennedy, seeing how that subject has been infinitely covered for the past fifty years; especially by numerous leftists who don't believe the reams of material supporting the Warren Commission findings, but expect us to swallow whole the Obama Administration's five minute explanation of the death of Osama bin Laden. But seeing all the fawning press JFK has received these last few weeks and the revivals of the beloved conspiracy theories surrounding his assassination have nearly sent me over the edge.
What has particularly irked me all these years is the specious argument that Jack Ruby killed Lee Harvey Oswald on orders from the CIA or LBJ or somebody else, since he could have had no motive otherwise. Right. Even my father, who despised Jack Kennedy, was ready to shoot Oswald, based solely on the premise that no one should be able to kill the president of the United States.
Speaking of my father, he, along with my mother and most of their relatives and friends were registered Democrats all their lives. Yet, given the decidedly leftward swing of their party shortly after Kennedy's death, I'm fairly certain that they voted Republican in nearly every presidential election since 1968. But there were many more dyed-in-the-wool Democrats who, unlike my parents who held tight to their values, 'progressed' into full-fledged liberals, the sort who run our government at present. Which brings us back to JFK.
If he had lived, would he be a liberal? Without a doubt he would be a legendary liberal today, along the same lines as his younger brother Teddy. Why? Because, while running for president he made his infamous "religion speech" to show publicly that he was ready, willing and able to abandon his supposedly most deeply held beliefs in order to gain office. If that is not an example of liberalism at its worst, I don't know what is. Here's what he said in issuing the perfect get-out-of-jail card for his future fellow party members:
And it's not just religious purging that the true leftist must undergo; loss of historical sense and even common sense are also casualties of liberalism. It is true that Kennedy opposed and feared the Russians because he knew that they were a danger to his country; a country he indeed loved and fought for. Yet, within a few short decades, most of his party had become enamored with the economic and social facets of socialism; forgetting the millions starved and executed in its wake.
Indeed, after conservatives won the Cold War – yes, they did – Democrats, maybe nostalgic for Nikita Khrushchev, began to embrace, and continue to embrace his ways. In a weird variation of the Stockholm syndrome, neo-liberals began to propose policies eerily similar to the ones championed by the late Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; less religion, less respect for private property, more collectivism and much, much more government control.
Modern liberalism requires its followers to forswear allegiance to anyone or anything that interferes with that which they worship above all: the state. A ready example is in the new Common Core federal education program, which would teach our children that: "The commands of government officials must be obeyed by all," and "The wants of the individual are less important than the well-being of the nation." Could Uncle Joe Stalin have put it any better?
So the answer to the question, "Would Jack Kennedy be a liberal today?" is, that not only would he be a liberal, it's that he was the proto-liberal who opened the floodgates of the disastrous slide of his party toward socialism by separating them from their consciences. The rest was easy.
© Lisa Fabrizio
November 28, 2013
JFK: Liberal Legend
I never intended to write about the life or death of John F. Kennedy, seeing how that subject has been infinitely covered for the past fifty years; especially by numerous leftists who don't believe the reams of material supporting the Warren Commission findings, but expect us to swallow whole the Obama Administration's five minute explanation of the death of Osama bin Laden. But seeing all the fawning press JFK has received these last few weeks and the revivals of the beloved conspiracy theories surrounding his assassination have nearly sent me over the edge.
What has particularly irked me all these years is the specious argument that Jack Ruby killed Lee Harvey Oswald on orders from the CIA or LBJ or somebody else, since he could have had no motive otherwise. Right. Even my father, who despised Jack Kennedy, was ready to shoot Oswald, based solely on the premise that no one should be able to kill the president of the United States.
Speaking of my father, he, along with my mother and most of their relatives and friends were registered Democrats all their lives. Yet, given the decidedly leftward swing of their party shortly after Kennedy's death, I'm fairly certain that they voted Republican in nearly every presidential election since 1968. But there were many more dyed-in-the-wool Democrats who, unlike my parents who held tight to their values, 'progressed' into full-fledged liberals, the sort who run our government at present. Which brings us back to JFK.
If he had lived, would he be a liberal? Without a doubt he would be a legendary liberal today, along the same lines as his younger brother Teddy. Why? Because, while running for president he made his infamous "religion speech" to show publicly that he was ready, willing and able to abandon his supposedly most deeply held beliefs in order to gain office. If that is not an example of liberalism at its worst, I don't know what is. Here's what he said in issuing the perfect get-out-of-jail card for his future fellow party members:
-
I believe in a president whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation, or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office. I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me.
And it's not just religious purging that the true leftist must undergo; loss of historical sense and even common sense are also casualties of liberalism. It is true that Kennedy opposed and feared the Russians because he knew that they were a danger to his country; a country he indeed loved and fought for. Yet, within a few short decades, most of his party had become enamored with the economic and social facets of socialism; forgetting the millions starved and executed in its wake.
Indeed, after conservatives won the Cold War – yes, they did – Democrats, maybe nostalgic for Nikita Khrushchev, began to embrace, and continue to embrace his ways. In a weird variation of the Stockholm syndrome, neo-liberals began to propose policies eerily similar to the ones championed by the late Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; less religion, less respect for private property, more collectivism and much, much more government control.
Modern liberalism requires its followers to forswear allegiance to anyone or anything that interferes with that which they worship above all: the state. A ready example is in the new Common Core federal education program, which would teach our children that: "The commands of government officials must be obeyed by all," and "The wants of the individual are less important than the well-being of the nation." Could Uncle Joe Stalin have put it any better?
So the answer to the question, "Would Jack Kennedy be a liberal today?" is, that not only would he be a liberal, it's that he was the proto-liberal who opened the floodgates of the disastrous slide of his party toward socialism by separating them from their consciences. The rest was easy.
© Lisa Fabrizio
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