Would JFK be a Democrat today?
By Richard Larsen
Fifty years ago this week newly elected President John F. Kennedy delivered his Inaugural Address. Written mostly by Ted Sorensen, who passed away last year, the speech was a memorable one, not only for its content but for the youthful enthusiasm and energy in delivery by the youngest elected president. Reading through it, and listening to it anew causes one to consider the probability that JFK wouldn’t have the same party affiliation if he were alive today as he did in 1961.
The most frequently cited line from that speech was, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” This aphorism was immediately engraved on the American psyche, collectively and individually, and has become timelessly and indelibly impressed in our minds.
As truthfully as it rings to us all, we’re obviously far removed from that mentality today. Either through control of purse strings or by regulation, the country now does much more for us than we do for it. It provides our education, owns the entire student loan industry, controls the banking and finance industry, controls health care delivery and the health insurance industry, owns much of the auto industry and controls the rest of it, controls much of our energy apparatus, controls much of our food production system, and manipulates our currency value by printing more of it. It is indeed difficult to find any aspect of our lives that is not controlled, owned or affected by government.
Increasingly the only thing our country asks of us is our acquiescence to the government’s expansive statist objectives of cradle-to-grave control, and an increasing share of our paycheck to fund it all. The corollary to JKF’s truism could well be, “The more our government does for us, the less we do for ourselves or our country.”
Another notable line from that memorable address was, “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.” Sounding much like George W. Bush, we can’t help but realize how far removed we are today from that conviction. “Oppose any foe,” but we can’t profile or identify the religious orientation of our enemies who are motivated by their extremist Wahhabi ideology. “Support any friend,” which among nation states typically refers to allies, but seemingly less and less applied to our staunchest ally in the Middle East, Israel. Hardly a week goes by without someone prominent in our government or that self-proclaimed bastion of human rights, the United Nations, for one reason or another castigating, criticizing or condemning our “best friends” in that region of the world.
Kennedy’s idyllic line calling for a united world to “explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths,” has newfound meaning when we come to terms with more current verities. “Explore the stars’ is now unlikely with the discontinuation of the Shuttle program and no replacement in sight, and a newly stated NASA primary objective of “Muslim outreach.” Much disease has been eradicated since that time, and we’re still working on conquering the deserts, but we can’t “tap the ocean depths” if we’re looking for oil, per Obama’s Executive Order.
Unlike many of his fellow alumni from Harvard, JFK understood economics. A short time after his Inaugural Address, Kennedy said, “Lower rates of taxation will stimulate economic activity and so raise the levels of personal and corporate income as to yield within a few years an increased — not a reduced — flow of revenues to the federal government.” And on another occasion, “Our tax system still siphons out of the private economy too large a share of personal and business purchasing power and reduces the incentive for risk, investment and effort — thereby aborting our recoveries and stifling our national growth rate.”
And on another occasion, “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…. And the reason is that only full employment can balance the budget, and tax reduction can pave the way to that employment. 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.”
Words have meaning, and composed as they are in the lofty, historical settings of inaugurations, they are designed to inspire, motivate and provide direction for a country. If they are as timeless as we assert they are, it is incumbent upon us to review and recommit to those timeless ideals and principles. And given JFK’s ideology of individual responsibility, self-help, fiscal soundness, and of America’s courage to lead the world, it would be hard to conceive of him being a Democrat today.
Award-winning columnist Richard Larsen of Pocatello is president of the brokerage firm Larsen Financial. He graduated from Idaho State University with degrees in history and political science.
Rick -
Some of our buddies around here suffer from an irrational fear of ‘greedycorporations’. (The two words are inseparable for them, kinda the way southerners combine ‘damnyankees’).
It’s to the point where it requires a proper name. I’m considering ‘corpophobia’. And I fear it’s progressed much too far for anybody to ever convince them that it’s really irrational.
You might have had a slight chance before the supremes granted them the right to free speech, but now, you might as well give up.
This whole article smacks of historical revisionism. I won’t have anything to do with that liberal mushy-headed nonsense. Truth be told, every liberal president just wants to increase the size and power of biggovernment and take away statesrights.
Don’t confuse revisionism for analysis. There’s a huge difference.
Pops,
In response to your list of reasons the words liberal and progressive are pejorative terms, I offer the following reasons that the words Conservative, Right Wing, and Republican are synonymous with hypocrisy:
George (Salem Ben Laden) Bush
Tom (Jack Abramahoff) Delay
Mark (Hiking the Apalachian trail) Sanford
Dick (I don’t work for Haliburton anymore) Cheney
Scooter (Plame Affair) Libby
Karl (I deny any involvement) Rove
John (bomb Iran) McCain
Reverend (Bomb Iran) Hagee
Alberto (Lawyergate) Gonzales
Larry (Wide Stance) Craig
Mark (I never met a male page I didn’t like) Foley
Ollie (yes, I did lie) North
And the list goes on; however I must go. So much hypocrisy, so little time!
And the list goes on; however I must go. So much hypocrisy, so little time!
I’m just wondering since I wrote this why Richard now calls himself a “classical liberal?” Perhaps he now feels the need to distance himself from the above mentioned labels?
Sorry for the repeat. I lost the list through pressing the wrong key and had to go back to my Appleworks WP and re copy it.
Rick:
I believe you are mis-reading my views to a great extent due to the limitations of the written word in cyber-space.
Being wary and concerned about undue corporate influence does not equate to lack of concern regarding encroachment of government as well.
And refusing to be naivete to the scope of undue influence a corporatocracy has on our nation, does not equate to some type of phobia or being against corporations in general.
I happen to be concerned about gravitating away from limited government about as much as I am concerned about the undue influence of conglomerates that allows for collusion with government that greatly dilutes our freedoms and influence as individuals to compete without manipulation of markets in the marketplace as well as receive attention from our elected officials despite our lack of financial power or resources.
I agree corporations do not take freedoms, but there are many corporate citizens that are very effective at diluting freedoms of the individual and manipulate the system so that their voice is much stronger than that of individuals.
I simply stand by my view which is similar to the founders regarding the pitfalls of concentrated power in the hands of the few.
That does not equate to being against corporations nor the ability to recognize solid corporate citizens versus those who seek welfare from the government.
TIFs allow for one entity to receive favor, subsidy, and deference over other business entities and individuals in a community which is fundamentally and morally wrong. It is asking the existing tax base to basically pay or subsidize for a company to give the community jobs. It is government manipulating the invisible hand of the marketplace by deference to give a competitive advantage in the form of tax abatement to one at the expense of the rest. That is wrong.
The best way to attract business is having an adequate tax base that does not carry burdensome rates for all taxpayers that supports solid education systems, infrastructure, and limited local government. All business and individuals pays the same rate that is low, not burdensome, and that is equitable without abatement, special concession, or undue deference.
We should attract business whose business plans, logistical needs are in line with a competitive advantage to want to locate here because we invest wisely in education and infrastructure through a tax base that is not unduly burdened. In this manner we attract corporate citizens for the right reasons that will pay their fair share along with everyone else.
TIFs have been proven at a macro level to be ineffective to retaining jobs or attracting jobs that create the projected multipliers that are so often promoted as justification for abatement.
I believe limited government as well as wariness of undue corporate influence is a balanced view. Concern for undue corporate influence that we are seeing is well-founded and is not at the exclusion of concern for the over-reach of government as well.
Rick,
My My you give yourself a lot of credit.
For one a very simple question—Who was the first republican President, and who was the founder of the republican party? Try Abraham
Lincoln. And I don’t consider the party of the Abolitionists anything but ultra Liberal.
Your reasoning of Kennedy’s weakness against Krushchev is nothing more than rationalization.
You may in fact be correct, on some points but,
you are really contradicting yourself.
So we conclude from your analysis that the Berlin Wall was built because of Kennedy’s weakness. Quite an analysis. hardly
No I am implying the comment was not worth the Salt it was made with. “Kruschev’s aid.” Our side says we win.
And your casual accusations about the members of JFK’s own Party is also taken with a grain of Salt. The Southern Democrats were still a Party in power. A man by the name of George Wallace was leading the band down there, remember?
So McCarthy has nothing to do with the era of Eisenhower, and neither does a man named Dulles’ Eisenhower’s Secretary of State.
Your argument might hold a little more water
if you asked the question, “Would Truman be a Republican?” This might go. Dewey seemed a little more to the leanings of Roosevelt than Truman did.
Domestic politics are one issue. And foreign policies are another. The Conservative Democrat in 2011 is more or less gone. He left the Democratic party during the Reagan Era
and has been Republican ever since.
The modern Democratic Party hails from a place called Massachusetts. The same State the Abolitionist’s began their movement over 150 years ago. Illinois and Minnosota are extensions of that arm.
I am sure that writing this article has dealt you deeply into Kennedy Politics. And if fact does raise some questions concerning the politics of Robert Kennedy.
What we see with the Kennedy’s pursuit of the Teamsters
Pushed the button too soon.
Robert Kennedy attorney General and Jimmy Hoffa. What we see is the pursuit of corruprtion by the Kennedy’s against the old line Democratic forces that really gained most of their power during the Eisenhower Administration. The Republicans to this point,
because of U.S. Grant followed policies of hands off to Private Business. Dulles was the man in the Eisenhower billet that continued policies most reminescent of Grant.
The Kennedy’s were in fact the founders of the New party because they wanted to be rid of characters like George Wallace or the Teamsters on the National Democratic scene.
John Kennedy’s visit to Dallas was poigant to
the Party Politics of still pandering to the Conservative base of the Democratic Party.
It really has done little good. That Conservative base has deserted to the Republicans.
And it is this Conservative Base that ww see stalwarting the Republican party with dry gultch politics.
Also the greatest changes are most apparent
with the Daley Machine in Chicago. 1968 and the Chicago Democratic Convention saw the Party Split. Nixon grabbed the old line Party Conservatives, but the aftermath only destroyed confidence in Government on all counts by the American People.
Though Reagan, after the fact, is criticized by the Democrats for pandering to the Private sector, his election did not surround those issues. Most people voted for Reagan, not because they understood his politics. They voted for him because he represented a return to Trust in Government. Above all else the American people trusted him.
Did the American People trust Kennedy? It was the closest election in History to date. Some people think he was elected because of his
families war record, and his own volume, “Profiles in Courage.” Reagan was a lot like Kennedy. Good looking and a real pleasure to see on the TV screen. People didn’t like LBJ because he didn’t cut a pretty TV profile.
So I will give you this Rick. Where does Nixon stand in comparison to Kennedy. That is the real issue. If Kennedy as you say would be a Republican, where would Nixon be?
And some policies, such as Eisemhower’s Civil Rights Bill, only follow Truman’s Integration of the Armed Forces. It only makes us all believe that the main issues follow one another. And the mainstream issues are held by the President in power. He does not make the agenda. The agenda along with the social problems and otherwise are handed to him by the electorate.
Nixon would probably be like a McCain: Republican in name only with few core constitutionally based beliefs.
I fear the “Ramblin” Rose of Texas just lost his title of ‘windiest rambler’ of the blog world.
C.R.,
Since 57 per cent of our government is now under the corporate control in one way or another, either through contract or through policy; e.g., the military industrial complex, not to fear corporate power would be much more foolhardy than to fear it. Over fifty per cent of our government jobs have been outsourced.
Also, the financial corporations appear to control our country’s very existence in that their antics nearly accomplished its destruction. I know, you will say that it was the nasty greedy stupid little guys who didn’t have sense enough not to sign the dotted line on those mortgage contracts.
If you want to call a healthy desire to guard against the potential power of corporations to destroy the Liberty I want my kids and grandkids to enjoy, then I’m guilty.
Your obvious devotion to corporate power seems a little weird to me, too.
Jen -
Come on, you can do better than throw out bogus statistics. There’s no reliable way anybody could come up with that (57%) number. And I’m not even saying the real number is lower – for all I know or care, it might be far higher!
Regardless, it’s a meaningless number. Whatever the real number is, it just says that is the amount of things getting done that wouldn’t otherwise be getting done. Whom do you prefer that the government turn to to do whatever those 57percenters are doing? Individuals? Partnerships? Sole proprietors? Only large organizations can accomplish large tasks, and the only viable form of large organizations is the corporation.
Re the financial corporations “controlling our very existence”, there’s not much point in the two of us having that conversation any more.
Do me a favor sometime when you’ve got 15 spare minutes, and Google “Sub-prime Crisis”. There are some impartial, unbiased, objective, and even fairly accurate analyses of that disaster to be found there. You’ll get some info with less political bias and more rational economic analysis than you get from Nomi P. I don’t expect it to wean you from the conspiracy school of economic theory, but it might add to your understanding.
I have no devotion to “corporate power.” I have a devotion to liberty and to principles that work, like free enterprise. The financial institutions function completely within the framework of the regulation that congress makes for them. Congress created the subprime mess with bad policy. Congress allows the FOMC to dilute and emasculate our currency with the likes of QEII. Your anger should be directed toward those who create the framework of their operations, not with the institutions who have to try to find ways to make a buck with the cards dealt to them.
CR you’re right. Said the way it was, his line could have also be translated as “I’m a jelly donut.”
Jen,
Thanks, that was good.
The difference between my list and yours is that you listed people with moral failings, whereas I listed people who wish to destroy America. Moral failings exist in both parties. The desire to destroy America, not so much. The Democratic Party would be more respectable if it would kick out the “destroy America” bunch. Both parties would be more respectable if they kicked out the moral misfits.
Pops, superb rejoinder! Well said!
Pops,
Kicking out moral misfits seems to be the the best thing that these characters do. It is almost like Congress has a secret service,
paid for by the tax-payer, to find out who is
not keeping their pants up in Public Places,
or on government property.
The Moral Majority has a living holiday
with with moral misfits. It always makes the headlines. They are having a hard time with Obama. The man actually loves his wife and family. Hard to believe!!!!
Pops,
In terms of”destroying America”, I have the personal opinion that the hypocrites have done more in that direction than the dissenters who have been above board in their philosophy. I must tell you though that Bernadine Dohrn makes me sick because no matter how much she professes to have changed, I still remember the vile remark she made after Sharon Tate was murdered and the “fork salute” that became their way of greeting one another. People like her may have had a desire to destroy America, but she and her husband were caught and found guilty. The reason they weren’t punished is because the government’s case was based on information gained through illegal wire taps. Those who think that the Ayers are influencing Obama are out to lunch, however.
Those who believe that G.W.Bush was less apt to be involved in activities that were not in the best interests of the country by association with oil billionaire Saudis can’t have it both ways. But then the Bush family had a long history of consorting with the enemy when it came to “business.” If the Republicans would kick out all the friends whose elections have been bought by special interests there would be more empty seats than occupied. Same for the Democrats.
C.R.,
I have never said there is any kind of “conspiracy” going on. I don’t know why you persist in reading that into evrything I say about corporate power and the problems they pose to our democracy. Nomi Prins did nodt write a “conspiracy” book. She worked for Goldman Sachs and had an insiders look at the things that were being done and the money that was made by players.
I probably know more in a minute about what caused the sub prime crisis than you’d know in another year, so save the google nonsense. I’ve asked very refined and specific questions of Google and it gives me sites that you never dreamed of that are much more credible than the ones that are relatively readily accessible.
Do you know young Andrew Cuomo’s role in the crisis? Do you agre that the recent merger of NBC and Comcast was a good th ing? That he number of independent broadcasting companies is practically down to nothing. I don’t think that is a good thing. Corporate forms are raising about 70 per cent of pork and chicken. I don’t think that is good either. Corporate control of banks is bigger than ever. You know how I feel about that. The military industrial complex guides whether or not we go to war and how long we stay involved. But as long as the corporations are “just people” now I guess we have to say they have the right to do anything they want. The once mainstays of labor and production in the U.S. have taken their opertions off shore until at last there is little left that could be called the middle class in this country. But that is okay. They aren’t bad. As Richard said, they have to make a buck. Unfortuanate that he used that term bcause it belongs to the working class and seems ludicrous in light of the fact that right now th e biggest ones are sitting on piles of cash while millions of Americans are without work, have lost their homes, and rely on the govrnment to even have food and shelter of any kind. The irony inherent in the argument about corportions and govrnment is that without a powerful government there would be no need for the corportions to lobby to get what they need. It is an unholy alliance. I fear their power mostly because it is so entertwined with the government. The question Who’s in charge” seems appropriate.
Richard,
I am a Democrat and since 1900 the center of the Democratic Party’s role was one of opposing and limiting the growth and power of the modern corporation. You, on the other hand, see corporations as needing to be allowed to grow unfettered and without regulation. In the 1910s corporate control over economic life was judged un-American. In the 1930s FDR said that recovery from the Great Depression wouldn’t happen until antitrust laws broke up more monopolies. In the 1970s Jimmy Carter was about to declare the “moral equivalent of war” against U.S. oil companies whose profits had soared with the rise in the price of petroleum caused by the 1973 OPEC oil embargo. Ever since I can remember the Republican Party has always represented the interests of inherited and corporate wealth. I always thought of the Democratic Party as representing the interests of all classes of people that are part of the country and corporations were once a part of that. Obviously that is not true any more for most of them.. Therefore, Richard, I fear you will never convince me of much of your way of thinking.
My anger has been directed appropriately at the banks that went beyond any framework or moral law and created their own rules. That they went global with the sales of derivatives they knew they were worthless escalated the Freddie and Fannie crisis and sent it over the top. Young Andrew Cuomo has been blamed for enabling them .
As for QII, FOMC’s QI had relatively mild results. It looks to me that the intent to buy long term assets when there are short term liabilities will cause a problem. It doesn’t lookl to me like they would be able to do it on the short term end of th e scale even if they wanted to. They say they have the “tools” to deal with that. I don’t know why they are so worried about deflation rather than inflation. Does that make sense to you?You and others disagree with the decision of FOMA, including Alan Greenspan, but I have yet to hear what their and your alternatives would be.
Overall, it is very confusing and worrisome.
Jen -
You deny being ‘conspiraphobic’, but your posts literally scream to the contrary. Even your claim that transparent, easy to locate internet sites are somehow inferior or less reliable than remote, opaque ones, speaks that same thing. And your comment to Rick about the oil companies’ profiting from the early 70′s oil shortage, indeed every time you mention the word “profits”, you imply that corporations get their profits by stealing from consumers. Corporate profits are the difference between the dollar value of what the corporation produces, and the dollar value of the resources it consumes in the process of production, simple as that.
Right this moment, many of our Idaho farmer neighbors are reaping ‘obscene’ (at least compared to normal) profits due to some world-wide food commodity shortages, but seemingly because they are not incorporated businesses (although many of them are), you find their profits perfectly acceptable, right?
You find it “confusing and worrisome” that “70%” of our production of pork and chicken comes from a handful of large-scale corporate farm operations, but I’m betting that you don’t find the fact that those products are dirt cheap compared to what our parents and grandparents paid for the same stuff “confusing or worrisome”.
75 years ago, when a normal income was $2500/annum, an egg cost $.05 in the grocery store. Today, an egg often costs $.07-$.08, and the average annual income is somewhere in the $40,000 range, and I’m betting that you find that neither “confusing nor worrisome”!
No, I know absolutely nothing about Cuomo Jr’s role in the sub-prime crisis. Assuming he played a roll, my intuitive guess would be that he was on the take from the New York investment bankers, but that’s actually unfair to say, since I’ve not heard anything about him in that regard.
BTW, it’s more than a little ‘conspiraphobic’ to say “Corporate control of banks is bigger than ever.” I’m reasonably certain that there isn’t a single unincorporated bank in the whole United States, and likely never has been, so banking is 100% corporate controlled. How can 100% be “bigger than ever” when it’s never been less than 100%?
C.R.,
By bigger than ever, I was referring to financial institutions’ and banks’ bigger than ever power to control the economy and shape legislation that is favorable to their interests even when it has adverse effects on the interests of others. Have you listened to the news today? Seems Goldman Sachs helped themselves to a huge bundle while “distributing the bailout money”. The congresswoman who was talking about it said that it would equal $10.00 for every American. She also said that the Treasury Secretary was in on it and that nothing changed after Obama came into office because Paulson made sure that more former Goldman Sachs lackeys were in a position to protect GS “interests.” In her words, It seems that corporations are now the government.
I don’t think there is a giant conspiracy. I think that the economic policies of the government for the past thirty years have led to monopolies and mergers that are eroding our freedom. You don’t agree? Well, that is just fine with me, but stop telling me that I am some kind of twinkled toed twit that believes there is a deep conspiracy going on. I have nothing against profits. I just think that it would be better if corporations would have put the interests of the country that spawned them first. That is a pie in the sky thing, isn’t it. Most of them are international now and they don’t give a fat rat’s hat. As for cheap pork and chicken, ask the people in the midwest whether it is “cheap.” They spew pig manure out onto the fields creating such a terrible smell that people can’t stand to live there and their property values have plummeted. I don’t know if you’ve ever lived next to a pig farm, but there are few things that have a worse odor. The corporation has also ignored the limits as to the number of animals they were allowed to have and are crowding them together in an obscene and cruel fashion. Makes you not even want to buy the “cheap” pork. Chickens are put in “battery cages.” I buy cage free eggs rather than support putting the chicken in a battery sized cage for life and giving it hormones to make it lay more and more eggs. Wow! One would think that is something that only a conspiratoro- phobic woman would believe. Google it.
As to the search engine thing, all I do is find sites just like you said and ask google questions using some key words I find there, rather than just accepting one view of a subject. I thought everybody did that. It leads to all kinds of things from essays and papers and books to newspaper articles and opinions – both here and abroad. There is nothing obscure about them. They are on the internet after all! Young Andrew Cuomo played a very significant part in the ultimate overselling of derivatives on a global scale. Try asking google how he was involved.
I find your comments increasingly condescending. Is it something I said? You used to be more fun.
Jen -
Yeh, there’s a substantial downside to large-scale farming, but given the choice between cheap food and non-stinky air, the majority seems to be going for the cheap food. Maybe the day will come when it gets too bad to put up with, but not yet.
I’ve always understood that GS got immense amounts of money out of the bailout. I said several times while the thing was at its peak, that with GS at least, it was never a case of “too big to fail”, it was always “too politically connected” to fail.
Sorry about the perceived “condescension”. Wasn’t my intention. Frustration maybe, but not condesension.
Jen
C.R. only disagrees with you because that it is the thing to do. He is from the old school.
And he only likes the argument. If you say it is black, he’ll find a way to call it white.
What fun otherwise.
I agree with all your points. I think the Banks
(i.e. Bank of America, and Wells Fargo to name just two) are the Government. It is almost against the Law not to have a Bank Account and Debit Card. Credit Scores, which the Banks control, say who is to live and who is to die.
It is modern American Government and you have no choice but to follow their rules. The more I think about it, the more I realize that Obama
bailing out these Banks amy have been a mistake. It only made them more greedy.
Also, Big cities have destroyed much in the way
of independent living. It is a fast food world
made rich by debit cards, and people who must work and work and work to make money, money, money. It is like the world has deteriorated
into mass nothingness. Buy, Buy, Buy, more and more and more, and it is all about the economy. nuts
Ranger -
Who’s forcing you to have a debit card? I don’t have one.
C.R.
And that is exactly the point. If America wised up to the effort of passive non resistance in line with Martin Luther King
and Ghandi, applying it to economics instead of Politics, America would be able to break the stranglehold of Corporate banking Power in America.
The first enemy is the whole trap of mass consumer credit. The banks are enslaving and have enslaved the American population, covered by the paper hanging insurance companies , backed by the banks, to make the economy of the nation one of debt and plastic. It is the Banks that own this country, not the middle mclass which is quickly disappearing.
If the American people stopped their addictive habits of credit spending which the banks have addicted America, in the same vein as the tobacco companies have addicted sixty million nAmericans to an early grave, then and only then can America and the middle class return to self determination.
Then and only then will a savings account draw interest. Then your money will be worth something, and the banks will not be able to cheapen your money and make it worthless.
Ranger -
You know, it is actually possible to resist “addictive habits”. I’m neither addicted to tobacco, nor to credit spending.
Admittedly, the banks have managed to get the average American consumer into bed, but it was a seduction, not a rape. Nobody forces anybody to use a credit card to live beyond his means.
And your charge that the banks are cheapening our money is misdirected. Private banks don’t have that power. Only the Federal Reserve bank has the power to cheapen the national currency.
C.R.
What came first the chicken or the egg.
Ceryainly it is a matter of choice, at first. Just like the first cigarette for the noicotine addict, and then the ensuing years of trying to quit. The long and drwn out classes and counseling for people who want to quit but are so psychologically trapped they can’t.
Yes and the thousands if not million of alcholics who fancy themseves social drinkers but are really closet drinkers, can’t function without booze.
You justify something because you are not a victim. And we must educate people again
and again with the same warning that is made to
be put on every package or cigarette.
The seduction is like.\, “Lottery winner ops out for cash settlement 89 million. Chicken feed compared to the millions the lottery has
made. And worse yet the seduction continues.
America needs to learn how to become self sufficient like you no less. Then it will be a better place. America suffers from economic ignorance and sucker habits. And you analysis
of the Federal Reseve is simplistic to say the least. This is another scenario of what came first the Chicken or the egg.
Ranger -
I don’t recall “analyzing the Federal Reserve” in this discussion. That would require enough verbiage to make even Disgusted embarrassed. I only stated that the Fed alone has the power to “cheapen” (read inflate) the nation’s money supply.
Were a private bank, even the largest private bank in the world, to start issuing their own version of U.S. currency, the T-men would be all over them – it’s called ‘counterfeiting’!
If that sounds “simplistic”, perhaps it’s because it, like a great many things in the world, actually IS simple, and ain’t no chicken vs. egg conundrum involved.
Jen,
The whole world is going to have to come to the same conclusion you have with respect to US relations with Saudi Arabian leaders and other unsavory dictators and governments. Why? Because the Mideast is burning, and all the nasty dictators we’ve propped up over the years are going to be replaced by our worst nightmare, Jihadists. We should have kept our principles and our wits about us.
It seems to me that we’ve moved away from the original point here. This article is attempting to analyze if JFK would still be a Democrat today or not, and if he would be, what type of Democrat. I do believe, because of family loyalty, Kennedy would still call himself a Democrat today, but he certainly would privately be to the right of most of the modern platform of said party. Kennedy was partisan and politically savy. The moderate-conservative Democrat was en vogue at that time. Notice how Bobby became more socially aware and liberal by the time 1968 rolled around. The Kennedy family has followed suit. The more liberal the Democrat Party becomes, so do the Kennedys, at least publicly. They like winning elections and playing to the base to do so. I do think that out of the 3 Kennedy brothers that served in elected office, JFK was the most capable of governing on a national level. He was able to put partisan rhetoric aside and see what would actually work, regardless of where the idea came from. I am a young conservative, born as Reagan was running for re-election, and have not done an in-depth study of the Cuban Missile Crisis, but from my limited understanding, Kennedy brought in old-line, anti-soviet Republicans, such as Dean Atchinson, to have a wide range of perspectives. At the end of the day, he chose something that made absolutely no-one in his administration totally happy. Even he didn’t really know if it would work. He led. He put this nation’s safety above and beyond his party loyalties, and had it come to it, would have used any and every means to protect it. That’s what we need in a chief executive of this nation. Did he have moral failings? Absolutely! Would he be a total conservative today? Doubtful. I doubt he’d be a tea partier, but he knew when to stand up for the good of the nation, even if the nation didn’t see it itself.
As to the debate that’s been going on here for a while about ultra-powerful and ultra-wealthy corporations being in charge vs. government being in charge…
There are some very ethical and moral large corporations out there, but there are some (the ones who make headlines, sadly) who have forgotten what REAL capitalism is. it used to be in this nation, that successful business was based on trust. They understood that to be successful in the long-term, you built relationships with the customer base. You earned their trust. Now, it seems, many in the corporate world have forgotten (either intentionally or otherwise) about longterm success en lieu of the short-term bottom-line and quick profit. I do not believe profits are evil, quite the contrary. Large profits should be the reward for good and ethical business practices, regardless the size and scope of the corporation in question.
The government cannot, and should not, soley provide the various services it it charged to. I would have absolutely no qualms whatsoever if the government farmed out its well-fare/social services out to banks and companies that designed themselves to persue those niche markets. Private industry absolutely can partner with the government as a customer to provide goods and services to those who need them, and corporations SHOULD compete with each other for said government business. That being said, the government should under no circumstances, federalize/nationalize/control/take over said companies. Then the two become one and we are doomed. That is happening in some aspects, and we’re seeing the fruits of that now. Because the federal government was handing out free money, basically, in the form of bailouts/stimulus, the corporations, wanting the handout, allowed themselves to be co-opted by the government. It made good short-term business sense, but really bad long-term economic sense.
The Republican Party of Lincoln was, for the day, socially liberal and pro-big government, but that was more a product of the times than anything else. Lincoln was a big-government liberal because he had to be to hold the nation together. I’m proud of the GOPs “socially liberal” stance on slavery, and I’d like to point out that it was a very liberal Democrat (LBJ) who, as a member of Congress, constantly blocked essentially the same legislation he would later sign as President, that being the Civil Rights Act of 1964. While Eisenhower was in the White House, LBJ, a southern Democrat, constantly voted against any civil rights legislation. While publicly he appeared to be a friend to the African-American community, he was privately extremely racist and opportunistic. His only goal was to give them free government handouts so they’d vote Democrat. It worked. His social policies, and the the more progressive social policies toward African Americans in the ensuing decades have done more harm than good to the African American community. Subsidized public housing, contriceptives, etc, while being perpetuated by well meaning people, were created not out of sympathy or love of African Americans, but out of political greed and the deeply rooted racist attitudes of keeping them in check. The result is today you have the total break-down of the African American family, more and more African American children are being born into homes with no father, African American men view their manhood as being able to father as many children as possible with as many women as possible and see how they can get out of supporting them. Also, keep in mind that the party of the status quo of racism and slavery in the south was…wait for it…the Democratic Party!
I hope my little rant here hasn’t bored you, though I’m sure many of you will just glance at it, look at the length and say “to hell with this guy! He’s too long-winded! I’m not reading that!” If you took the time to read it, I hope you gleam some insight from it, and if you have any to provide to me, I welcome it. My goal is not to judge anyone, but to provide my point of view on the original topic of this article, and to address some of the issues being debated in the ensuing comments. Thanks again for taking the time to read mine!