John Kennedy, A Man for Our Time.
While hunting around for something else entirely, I ran across some quotes from President John Kennedy and I couldn’t resist posting them here. They do seem particularly relevant to what we are doing today – both in this country and around the world. I do not agree with much of what Kennedy wished to do with the country then but, to be honest with you, I think he’s a lot closer to what I believe as a conservative than what today’s Democrat party offers America.
- “All this will not be finished in the first hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first thousand days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.”
This was from his inauguration address in 1961. He was speaking of a series of things he wanted to see accomplished in his administration, but it certainly seems to echo much of what our President has said about the War on Terror, doesn’t it?
- “I hear it said that West Berlin is militarily untenable – and so was Bastogne, and so, in fact, was Stalingrad. Any danger spot is tenable if men – brave men – will make it so.”
Again, could this be any more apropos to our current situation in Iraq?
- “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
No comment necessary, I think.
- “The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are. The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.”
I wonder what he would say of his party today, as so many of them choose that very path?
- “The new frontier of which I speak is not a set of promises-it is a set of challenges. It sums up not what I intend to offer the American people, but what I intend to ask of them. It appeals to their pride, not their pocketbook-it holds out the promise of more sacrifice instead of more security.”
This is from Kennedy’s nomination acceptance speech in 1960 (and the full speech is a striking contrast to John Kerry’s acceptance speech of 2003). He is speaking of a New Frontier where the country takes on the challenges of the new world, opened by the advent of atomic power, the Communist crises around the world, and the rare opportunity to actually plant the seeds of democracy in far-flung places. I happen to think we’re at a similar place today with all the opportunities Kennedy saw in 1960. The appeals he wished to make then are the same appeals our President needs to make to us now.
And doesn’t it seem romantically anachronistic to hear a President who felt his obligation was to ask things of the American people instead of responding to their demands on him? I wonder if it’s possible to get back to that America.
- “The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were.”
Democracy in the Arab world? Unthinkable! Tyrannical regimes faced down by the threat of annihilation? Absurd? Simplisme! An alliance that spreads democracy to nations that have never known it and, without our help, never will? Cowboy bravado! Political opportunism! The very notion that negotiation with terrorists is a fool’s errand? It will end us all!
Kennedy knew something back then, didn’t he?
- “The tax on capital gains directly affects investment decisions, the mobility and flow of risk capital… the ease or difficulty experienced by new ventures in obtaining capital, and thereby the strength and potential for growth in the economy.”
Twenty years later, this quote morphed into “No tax cuts for the rich!”.
- “We stand for freedom. That is our conviction for ourselves; that is our only commitment to others.”
Again, no comment seems necessary.
I’ll end with the quote for which I was really looking. It actually happens to be the sentence after his most famous quote: “And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country”. It is also from his 1961 inaugural address and could speak very powerfully to us today, if we’d only listen. His first sentence was directed to Americans but the second was directed to the world. Here’s how he followed that famous quote:
“My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”
Could an American President say something like that today and hear a positive answer? I think it’s not only possible, but necessary today. I think that if our President were to put out such a call to the world today, he would hear support from places we rarely consider: Poland, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia, Australia, Taiwan, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Italy, England, and the Netherlands, among many others. I tihnk it’s time the President put out that call, clearly and succintly, and see who answers to help.
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Category: Political Pontifications
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I'm afraid that I have to take issue with your characterization of Kennedy's quotes.
John F. Kennedy, along with his brother, were two people who very clearly understood what it is that the concept of freedom requires of a free people, that freedom requires as much from you as it grants you. The phrase 'The Price of Freedom Is Eternal Vigilance' refers not only to a military readiness, but to personal vigilance against our own fears and desires to put away that which is different from us. I don't think that his words have any resemblance at all to what we are doing today. I think that John F. Kennedy recognized that the act of governance requires a great deal, one of the first being honesty. It's difficult to accuse the Bush administration of much of that.
I have yet to see a valid reason to have attacked Iraq. It is a fact that Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11, so it didn't have anything to do with defending us against an attack that had occurred. He did not have any WMD's, nor had he been seeking uranium from Africa, though the administration promulgated those lies, so Iraq was not a 'clear and present danger' to us at the time we attacked. It is certainly true that we've got our hand in the honey jar now, but that doesn't mean that we had a valid reason to be there.
This doesn't mean that Hussein was a good guy. He was not. But, if the president thought that his human rights abuses were enough to justify a war, why didn't he predicate his desire to attack on that instead of lying to us? Probably because he knew two things- the American people would never have condoned a war simply on that reason, regardless of how justifiable it would have been (and it may have been) and they also knew that they were planning their own little list of human rights abuses. Witness the administration's repudiation of the Geneva conventions. Did you know that Japan took that same action before WWII?
So how can we say that we are trying to export democracy when we don't practice it here at home, when we torture our prisoners of war and hold them without due process? What kind of message do you think that sends? In point of fact, that kind of action plays right into the hands of the terrorists because it makes everything that they have been saying about us for the last twenty years true. And, btw, 'enemy combatant' and 'prisoner of war' are the same thing. It is a distinction without a difference.
So many people I have talked to see the torture as okay because 'They're terrorists'. In the first place, we don't know that. We don't know the facts of each and every case. In addition, what is this torture supposed to do? Frighten them? If they are a terrorist, is it supposed to give them reason to stop being a terrorist? When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, part of the purpose was to demoralize the American people and make it more difficult for them to pursue a war. Did that work? When Germany attacked Poland, part of their purpose was to demoralize the Poles. In point of fact, as always happens, it filled them with fury. I read of a Polish pilot flying with American forces in the 57th Fighter Group. His name was Mike Gladych. Nobody wanted to let him use their aircraft because he went nuts whenever he saw a German plane. One day, the group formed up after battling enemy fighters, but no Mike. A call was made for him and he replied, "I'm fine. I have an FW-190 cornered over here. I'm out of ammo but I'm trying to run him out of gas!" He was trying to run an enemy fighter out of gas over their home territory. The German actions did exactly what they always do, they enraged the Poles and when Polish fighters appeared on a battlefield, the Germans ran because they knew that there would be no mercy from them. This is what our policy with regards to prisoners of war is doing. Our actions in Iraq are not helping us, they are hurting us and making us less secure every day.
Kennedy also said "The men who create power make an indispensable contribution to the Nation's greatness, but the men who question power make a contribution just as indispensable, especially when that questioning is disinterested, for they determin whether we use power or power uses us." I think Kennedy would have recognized Iraq as a clear case of power using us. He also said, "Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind." "Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate."
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, when many were urging him to attack Cuba, he brilliantly turned to a diplomatic solution. By the force of his personality and the power of his convictions, he brought about a solution that was somewhat short of the ending of life on the planet as we know it, which was a considerable accomplishment.
anyway, thanks for the opportunity to air my opinion. It's not that I don't respect yours, I just disagree.
Joe, I appreciate your comments but I honestly don't have time to address everything that's just factually incorrect.
You, of course, have the liberty to believe what you wish but you don't actually have the right to make things up which is, I'm afraid, what you've done in most of your comments. Unfortunately, I find it very difficult to respect your opinions much in the same way, I'd wager, that you'd likely not respect the opinions of a man who contended that the moon were made of green cheese.
I will touch on one point, though, where your facts are a bit out of order. You say that our "abuse" of detainees is making our enemies more merciless. I wonder what level of mercy they showed Nick Berg when they sawed off his head, or how merciful they were to the Italian hostage they shot in the head on camera. I believe that could Daniel Pearl answer you today, he'd question the tender mercies of the terrorists who murdered him. These, by the way, were in no way combatants. They were unarmed civilians kidnapped and killed not only because they were infidels but also because the killers believed their deaths would sow fear in our hearts. And they were killed before there was a single story about Guantanamo Bay or Abu Ghraib.
So, please, don't tell me how much more merciful the terrorists would be if only we coddled them that little bit more.