Posted on 02/16/2017 8:04:13 AM PST by Kaslin
President Ronald Reagan said: "I didn't leave the Democratic Party. The party left me." Actor and former president of the National Rifle Association Charlton Heston, who called himself a "Kennedy Democrat," switched to the Republican Party after the 1960s.
On racial preferences, JFK, in 1963, said he opposed them: "I don't think that is the generally held view, at least as I understand it, of the Negro community, that there is some compensation due for the lost years, particularly in the field of education. What I think they would like is to see their children well-educated so that they could hold jobs and have their children accepted and have themselves accepted as equal members of the community. So I don't think we can undo the past. In fact, the past is going to be with us for a good many years in uneducated men and women who lost their chance for a decent education. We have to do the best we can now. That is what we are trying to do. I don't think quotas are a good idea. I think it is a mistake to begin to assign quotas on the basis of religion or race or color, or nationality.
"I think we get into a good deal of trouble. Our whole view of ourselves is a sort of one society. That has not been true. At least that is where we are trying to go. I think that we ought not to begin the quota system. On the other hand, I do think that we ought to make an effort to give a fair chance to everyone who is qualified, not through a quota, but just look over our employment rolls, look over our areas where we are hiring people, and at least make sure we are giving everyone a fair chance, but not hard-and-fast quotas. We are too mixed, this society of ours, to begin to divide ourselves on the basis of race or color."
On tax cuts, in a 1962 speech Kennedy said: "It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low, and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now. ... The purpose of cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget deficit but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy, which can bring a budget surplus."
On dealing with foreign enemies, JFK believed, as Reagan did, in peace through strength, not strength through peace. In his inaugural address, Kennedy said, "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."
On the Second Amendment, this lifetime member of the NRA believed it conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms. In 1961, Kennedy said: "Today we need a nation of minutemen: citizens who are not only prepared to take up arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as a basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom. The cause of liberty, the cause of America, cannot succeed with any lesser effort."
Abortion was not an issue during the 1960 presidential campaign. Nor was it an issue during his presidency. Kennedy did say this: "Now, on the question of limiting population: As you know, the Japanese have been doing it very vigorously, through abortion, which I think would be repugnant to all Americans."
In 1971, in a letter to a constituent, John Kennedy's brother, Sen. Ted Kennedy, wrote: "It is my personal feeling that the legalization of abortion on demand is not in accordance with the value which our civilization places on human life. Wanted or unwanted, I believe that human life, even at its earliest stages, has certain rights which must be recognized -- the right to be born, the right to love, the right to grow old. ... Once life has begun, no matter at what stage of growth, it is my belief that termination should not be decided merely by desire."
On guns, taxes, racial preferences, foreign policy and abortion, John F. Kennedy would not be comfortable in today's Democratic Party. He was, after all, a Kennedy Democrat.
+1. JFK, Clintons, Obama, the politicians prefered by Hollywood.
Totally agree with you. I have never held with lionizing Kennedy. He was, at best, a mediocre president who:
1. Was unfaithful to his wife.
2. Defiled the White House with his infidelities.
3. Had no guilt about cheating to get elected.
4. Hid from the public the extent of his drug dependence.
5. Attempted to overthrow at least one foreign head of state.
6. Believed in nepotism in hiring little brother as AG
7. Sent men into battle without adequate safeguards.
All these and more convince me, as you, that Kennedy would have evolved eventually, like his brother Edward.
Records of the Kennedy national security meetings, both here and in our larger collection, show that none of JFK’s conversations about a coup in Saigon featured consideration of what might physically happen to Ngo Dinh Diem or Ngo Dinh Nhu. The audio record of the October 29th meeting which we cite below also reveals no discussion of this issue. That meeting, the last held at the White House to consider a coup before this actually took place, would have been the key moment for such a conversation. The conclusion of the Church Committee agrees that Washington gave no consideration to killing Diem. (Note 12) The weight of evidence therefore supports the view that President Kennedy did not conspire in the death of Diem. However, there is also the exceedingly strange transcript of Diem’s final phone conversation with Ambassador Lodge on the afternoon of the coup (Document 23), which carries the distinct impression that Diem is being abandoned by the U.S. Whether this represents Lodge’s contribution, or JFK’s wishes, is not apparent from the evidence available today.
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB101/
Oh yeah. I saw them in Boston at The Garden back in...'81 I think. Awesome show. Keith Emerson absolutely destroyed a Hammond (B3?) and turned it into kindling after doing "Hoedown".
Thanks for that information. I also thought of the Bay of Pigs fiasco and his willingness to open himself to extortion. President Kennedy was a politician, not a saint.
He’d think where’s the poontang and the swimming pool
Who cares what history’s most overrated potus thinks
Dude...the autopsy pics
Please...that was way way gross
You’re Brilliant but you’re dreamg
Yankee bootlegger patricians don’t do conservatism well
Kennedy looks better to me the older I get.
Dennis Prager always says there is a greater divide between leftists and liberals than between conservatives and liberals. And leftists now own the D party.
Americans want freedom and acceptance to live their own lives. They want general security, that police and government have their backs, but they don’t want a police state or a shadowy government supposedly fixing things. We can handle differences among people. But leftists need conflict. They need to divide people up by anything they can find. Skin color, Stars on bellies, whatever.
<3 heart for the Sage.
A few weeks after that moment, I remember reading a story that had a quote from Dave Powers, one of JFK's closest aides, who was at the time the director of the Kennedy library. Powers said that they had searched and searched through their files and could find no photo of Bentsen and JFK, or any direct knowledge that they were friends.
Bentsen did serve in the House in the early '50s when JFK was also a congressmen, and likely Bentsen did know him well enough to say hello, but they were hardly the friends he said they were.
Of course, this story did not get any national traction at all. And Quayle did put his foot in it by saying earlier that he was just as experienced as JFK, etc.
1. Was unfaithful to his wife.
2. Defiled the White House with his infidelities.
3. Had no guilt about cheating to get elected.
4. Hid from the public the extent of his drug dependence.
5. Attempted to overthrow at least one foreign head of state.
6. Believed in nepotism in hiring little brother as AG
7. Sent men into battle without adequate safeguards.
8. Did nothing to prevent--and in fact welcomed--the construction of the Berlin Wall
9. Gave federal employees the right to unionize
10. Increased government spending at home and abroad
He’d think the women have become hideously ugly trolls take one look across the fence at conservative women and declare himself a Reaganite.
11. Chose Lyndon Johnson as his Veep.
As to the debate question itself, it was a classic set-up with Bentsen and the “moderator” on the same page, pre-arranged, to ambush Qualye.
The media is scum now.
The media was scum then.
When exactly did the media transform from journalism to scum?
Yeah, The era of psycodelia, I was, shall we say, partaking. I think it was Emerson that was playing a portable keyboard and when the song crescendoed it turned into a flame thrower. To say I was amazed would be a huge understatement.
JFK would probably think, ‘What? All the hot women are republicans? I’m switching parties’.
Just like his brothers evolved, and just like the next two generations of Kennedys that followed him.
What would have gone through his mind?
The same thing Oswald put through his mind in Dallas.
He would have just been killed by some other hardcore socialist... just like “his party” has become.
I was part of the infatuation crowd. I was 16 when he was shot and in catholic schools. The priest were all Irish, my mother had a crush on him nd well the adorations was everywhere.
I learned a lot as i aged and the stories came out and I looked at marylyn Monroe’s death and judith exner and all of that. and the Warren report was not our finest hour no matter who you believe did it.
About that time, I had a dose of reality and what do they say, young and idealistic, old and practical.
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