Posted on 02/05/2002 9:00:05 AM PST by Angelique
DECONSTRUCTING THE JFK MYTH
A NICE DREAM BETTER LEFT TO THE THEATER
By: SARTRE
"Ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country." - JFK
This stirring call to action best remembers the King of Camelot. He inspired an entire generation of youth to the call of public service. What noble intentions they had when entering into the hallowed halls of government duty. It is sad that the premise was so flawed! The invocation needed to read: "Ask not what you can do for your country -- Ask what we can do together to insure individual Liberty" . . .
How different our nation would be if Americans could understand the difference between these two calls to action. By the diminished standards of today, it can be argued that Kennedy was more of a reactionary than many current day Republicans. But let no one be misled, the propagandists of the ilk of Sargeant Shriver and Arthur Schlesinger Jr., designed a legend that defied factual references. Jack was a socialist through to the core. Don't be offended that a hero to some was really a predator with the charm of the tooth fairy. His open smile and quick wit, disguised the left hand that turned into the social excess of the 'Great Society'. What a legacy for decades to come. Its failure is evident to any sane person. The consequences of central planning and federal intrusion have allowed the multiple expansion of coercive government into every facet of society. Just what is great about this kingdom?
The likes of a Stewart Udall and Abraham Ribicoff were certainly in the vanguard of a 'collectivist' revolution. Who could forget good old Abe, taking up the George McGovern cause at the 1968 Chicago Democratic convention! But you don't have to rely on the ideology of appointees to strip away the sentiment of the fair haired hero. He proclaimed proudly to the NY Liberal Party on September 14, 1960:
"But 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."
Note the pompous self delusion when it came to rationalize the 'good intentions' of their cause. Couple this with a willingness to micro manage public policy that established the federal programs that would reshape America society, and we have the proof that for Kennedy, country really means - government. And what is a socialist, if not a 'public servant' of the State?
And who can question that JFK's cold war interventionist credentials? "And the only basic issue in the 1960 campaign is whether our government will fall in a conservative rut and die there, or whether we will move ahead in the liberal spirit of daring, of breaking new ground, of doing in our generation what Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman and Adlai Stevenson did in their time of influence and responsibility."
Read that again, 'our government', 'move ahead', 'liberal spirit of daring', the same old internationalist tradition of Wilson and FDR is pure socialism . . . So why not call it for what it is, the surrender of the Republic to the supremacy of the State. JFK surrounded himself with mad men like Robert McNamara and Dean Rusk, who's only allegiance was to project the empire into world affairs. The notion that Communism in Southeast Asia was the greatest threat to domestic tranquillity, when the comrades were devising similar programs down in foggy bottom, decries credulity.
So were we supposed to take JFK at his word when he proclaimed in his inaugural address that: "the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God." Or are we better served by reflecting upon the actual record that created the environment that allowed the next deceiver to establish that Great Society?
The Peace Corp established little accord, but broke ground to instill a false duty to serve the State. His failed attempts to introduce the Medicare approach of cradle to grave health, greased the skids for the dismay we now call socialized medicine. Kennedy's civil rights bill was meant to right former wrongs, but as any credible historian will reluctantly acknowledge, we are more divided today in culture and convictions, than back some forty years ago. The ideological polarization's are clear to any student of current events. So why do we indulge in national denial about the real results and adverse consequences of the 'New Frontier'?
The 'pretender emancipator', had no problem auctioning off the freedoms of the people to the overseers and carpetbaggers of the federal bureaucracy. The Kennedy plantation was extended far outside the Hyannis compound. The rise of the War on Poverty, has brought forth an even greater dependency. But this time, all American citizens are under the yoke of a federal master.
The JFK government admiration society, ushered in the era of State/Capitalism that merges both big business and big government into the same axis of public control. Individual rights became the ultimate causality of this socialism. So how does the Liberal reconcile the inherent conflict in their programs with "the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state"?
As we all know, consistency is seldom practiced while veneration for the federal crumbs are now a way of life. Idealism as the virtue of self sacrifice in support of government policy is a sickness. Kennedy is revered for preaching contempt for your own dignity. The illicit need to infuse a pathetic personal identity into the public persona, causes false heroes to be honored. When they become martyrs, factual chronicles become a fantasy. Just like Camelot, a nice dream better left for the theater.
www.murderinc.com/fam/costello.html
Perhaps it is true, but similar to the slings against Jefferson. If it were true, one must certainly respect that he did not announce, and force, his proclivities, or suggested pecadillos, on others as we experience now. From an historical perspective, would it matter?
It is precisely those who shove their sexual proclivities up everyone's nose, who cause the problems.
So, put up or shut up. I demand you list JFK's "corruptions".
I understand that JFK de-mythologizing is a ritual of the conservative GOP, but as a life-long hard right partisan, I think objective truth is more important than JFK smashing, don't you?
Wanna go at it, RLK?
Try this: I think JFK was more conservative than most 20th century presidents. He was certainly a "smaller government" man than Reagan.
You sound like Victor Lasky, the hack mentor of Luciana Goldberg.
Good grief!
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You should have read the rest of the posts here before posting this.
I've voted straight Republican for decades. But the glee with which some Conservatives relish the horrific death of an American President is shameful.
Pitiful.
Pitiful.
Pitiful.
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Pitiful.
Ditter "loves it" that nopardons cheers.
Dr. Eckleburg says it is "pitiful that ditter loves it that nopardons cheers when our President is murdered."
And RLK says it is "pitiful" that Dr. Eckleburg thinks it is pitiful that ditter is a fool, and nopardons is blood-thirsty.
Have I got this right, guys?
Let's all cheer because our Commander-in-Chief is slaughtered in front of our children, his brains splatterd across his wife's lap. Your sentiments on this forum are the most un-patriotic crap I have ever read on Free Republic.
You who so happily desecrate his memory and dance on his grave are the worst types in our country.
What do you teach your children (if you have any!)? That it is permissible to "cheer" the ugly death of an American President?....a trauma that remains un-healed 40 years later?
To cheer the cold-blooded murder of an American President is chilling.
You don't have to be a Kennedy groupie to agree with this. Not unless principle is absent from your universe, and self-interest is all.
I'm willing to give people the benefit of the doubt and think the reason for this ugly vitriol isn't even "self-interest" or "lack of principle," as you well noted.
I would hope this knee-jerk bashing of a man no more righteous than any sinner and a President worse than some, better than others, grows from a narrow reading of history and a lack of Christian perspective.
Considering the garbage we're all spoon-fed on this subject, it's no wonder people are so ignorant.
"He got what he deserved," they chant.
A more accurate observation by Clint Eastwood in "The Unforgiven"...
"Deserves got nothing to do with it."
Oh, twaddle and fiddlesticks.
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