Could this man be elected president today?

Could this man be elected president today?
Would he be too conservative?

"Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country"

"For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed."

“And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe—the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.”

"Let every nation know... 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."

"...let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own."

Selected quotes from President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration speech.
(Well, not all originally his, but he said them in his speech.)

 

This is from his one and ONLY inauguration speech!!!!!!

 

UMmmmmm . . . maybe. But it will cost you big.

 

OK, So I'll bite. What's your point?

 

"What's your point?"

My point is exactly as stated in the original post:
Could this man be elected president today?
Would he be too conservative?

 

Touché Mr. SteveFoester! "It's the economy stupid!"

 

Isn't a call to service is a "mom and apple pie" standby of any inauguration speech, and really of the rhetoric and positioning of any president, in modern times?

Some would argue not only that these aren't necessarily conservative positions, but that a conservative could oppose them from conservative principles.

Kennedy's most formative experience was surely his heroic service in World War II. Under two liberal Democratic presidents, with mainstream political skepticism pretty substantially concentrated in the Republican Party of the day.

And the Republican Party especially still had a substantial isolationist or non-interventionist tradition when Kennedy took office.

And his inaugural as President bookended the farewell address of his immediate predecessor, President Eisenhower, where he urged considerable caution about the "military-industrial complex," and that we mesh military power "with our peaceful methods and goals."

I'm a dual citizen of Canada and the United States. The political party I'm a member of in Canada was founded by people like J.S. Woodsworth, a Methodist minister and the leader of its first iteration, and Tommy Douglas, a Baptist preacher and the leader of its second iteration and our great folk hero.

They called for the "Kingdom of God here and now" and a "New Jerusalem" and stuff.

…Now to achieve this in practice, these early leaders called specifically for an economic reorganization they openly described as socialism. "The very heart of the teaching of Jesus," Woodsworth wrote, "was the setting up of the Kingdom of God on earth. The vision splendid has sent forth an increasing group to attempt the task of 'Christianizing the Social Order'. Some of us whose study of history and economics and social conditions has driven us to the socialist position find it easy to associate the Ideal Kingdom of Jesus with the co-operative commonwealth of socialism."

Even within the U.S., today, there's also the kind of big issue of, for instance, African American Christian church people, in the main, not identifying with "conservative" politics at all.

 

Too late to edit, gah. One of his formative experiences; I shouldn't have said the most. There was the loss of his older brother that must have hit hard. His family had some interesting and unique background besides, etc.

 

No hidden agenda here!

Kizmet and other moderators: I do hope you find this is tangentially education related in that Cold War era history/politics is a recognized topic of study. There was no hidden agenda in my original question. It was in part to help me gauge just how we have changed since JFK’s election.

Was this a standard Cold-War period motherhood, apple pie, guns AND butter posturing speech? Maybe, but I thought he really meant what he said (naïvely?) and his speech sure fired up a generation of people, regardless of political persuasion.

JFK’s words seemingly were not aimed only at his domestic or international conservative detractors (he certainly had a lot of conservative democrat opposition); instead, they appeared to be aimed at a world that actually believed the USA could be a force for encouraging all that was good in the world.

It appears that Kennedy did believe in pre-emptive actions to tamp down ‘un-good’ actions that threatened the advance to a better world. Obviously some of those actions were successful, some limited successes, and some unmitigated failures (those topics should be beyond the scope of this discussion). However, he was a ‘Cold Warrior’ that drew on the past failures of appeasement.

(I’d prefer to save the Eisenhower farewell address and Canadian politics for another day.)

BTW: I am a bit older than the normal DI member, and a Cold War-Vietnam era USAF veteran; so I may have different perspectives (not necessarily better and maybe even worse than others). As I have done for all of my adult life, I am still taking distant education and B&M courses (undergrad, grad, and CEU) for the ‘love of learning’ and as required for licensure maintenance.

 

I enjoy your comments.

Abner :smile:

 

Spoken like someone who received a Kizmet-gram via PM. You're in the political discussion forum on an education site. Nothing in the forum needs to be education related unless the road signs have changed recently and we all missed them.

If that has happened, I'm sure we'd all like to know about it so we don't cause problems.

As to Kennedy, all of those statements are political rhetoric. Did he believe what he was saying? Maybe, probably. However, I refuse to believe the American way of life is "good" and any other way of life is "evil". Moreover, considering the way most of the rest of the world roots against America, I'd argue that we're probably a problem and not a solution.

At the end of the day though, given human behavior, if we weren't the problem, someone else would be. As such, I'm glad to be part of the problem if for no other reason than I don't have to dislike America. Hatred takes up so much energy it's not worth it.

 

No Kizmet-gram or other moderator warnings yet! Like I said, I'm trying gauge just how we have changed since JFK’s election.

 

One of the other Mods alerted me that my name was being dropped in this thread. Until just now I never read through this thread. I've never sent a pm to bobbyjim but I have sent a few to ITJD over the years.

ITJD - I'm glad that those pms I sent are still working.:evil:

 

I credit the removal of my old d-bag boss plus the resultant reduction in stress for my more wonderful online personality. However, your PMs hold a special place in my heart and their printed physical representations have their own special place, taped to my headboard.. :kiss:

 

I love you too ITJD.:love:

 

This thread is now officially "worth it" and has made my day.