Fodaoson Loc: South Texas

“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.”
John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage

Smedley_buzkill

If Kennedy was alive today he'd be a Republican getting impeached by Democrap "progressives."

elledee

Right on!!!

waltmoreno

Even die hard Democratic strategist James Carville who was responsible for Clinton's two wins recently said that today's Democratic party has gone completely off the radar screen. Folks, that means they've gone completely off the rails in their attempts to pander to their radical left wing.

Fodaoson Loc: South Texas

With our two party system, this development leaves us centrist/conservative Democrats out in the cold

Noraa Loc: Kansas

My Father was a die hard Democrat. He would be feeling out in the cold now also.

Auntie Lulu

Bravo! You called that correctly. Kennedy was more conservative than many of the Republicans we have today.

working class stiff Loc: N. Carolina

BS...Kennedy as a member of the party of Trump is wishful thinking.

Oldsailor65 Loc: Iowa

Absolutely, JFK would not be a Democrat today and neither would Harry Truman!
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Harry Truman

In 1979, modern advances in medicine were able to bring Harry Truman back to life.

The first thing Harry wanted to do was go to the White House and see what changes had been made. He introduced himself to Jimmy Carter and asked him what was going on in the world.

Jimmy said, well some Iranian students took over our embassy in Iran and took over 300 US citizens hostage.

Harry said of course you sent the Marines in and rescued them?

Jimmy said, no we’ve decided to bring about economic sanctions against Iran.

Harry said what else is going on? Jimmy said, well Russia invaded Afghanistan.

To this Harry said “you sent the 101st Airborne in and kicked their ass out didn’t you?

Jimmy said, no we are going to boycott the 1980 Olympics.

Harry turned around to leave, shaking his head. Jimmy said where are you going?

Harry said, I’m leaving, goin back to the cemetery, I can’t stand anymore.
The next thing I know you’ll be telling me that you gave away the Panama Canal away.

Which China Now Controls

bylm1-Bernie

Hard for today's liberals to admit but it's true.

working class stiff Loc: N. Carolina

Nothing to admit....just another fantasy clouding the thinking of today's conservatives. Saying it's true doesn't make it so.

bylm1-Bernie

Quite right, Stiff, but persons with average or better intelligence can examine policies and practices and are able to put 2 & 2 together and come out with 4, even over 60 years. If you want to really impress people, you could take a few of today's Democrat policies and promises and compare them with Kennedy's talks and his policies and I wouldn't be a bit surprise if, even you, would be able to make a sensible pronouncement. Good luck with your research. BTW, there have been many books written on this and you might save yourself some time if you looked them up.

working class stiff Loc: N. Carolina

Even I can make the sensible calculation that the world of 1960 does not t***slate into the world of 2020. Comparing apples to oranges is a fools errand. There is no way of knowing what views Kennedy would have had if he were born in 1980 and grown up in the eras after that.

Given that Kennedy talked about liberalism as forward thinking and unafraid to try new things, and conservatives would like to take us back to the years even before the Kennedy administration, the 2+2 answer does not make him a conservative, nor rule out that he would still be a liberal.

Hope you're doing well and enjoying your Sunday afternoon.

American Vet

And that's why I try to remember that the democrats in charge today are 'l*****ts' - not liberals.

Fodaoson Loc: South Texas

Liberalism Old Style Milton Friedman
Liberalism, as it developed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and flowered in the nineteenth, puts major emphasis on the freedom of individuals to control their own destinies. Individualism is its creed; collectivism and tyranny its enemy. The state exists to protect individuals from coercion by other individuals or groups and to widen the range within which individuals can exercise their freedom; it is purely instrumental and has no significance in and of itself. Society is a collection of individuals, and the whole is no greater than the sum of its parts. The ultimate values are the values of the individuals who form the society; there are no super-individual values or ends. Nations may be convenient administrative units; nationalism is an alien creed.

In politics, liberalism expressed itself as a reaction against authoritarian regimes. Liberals favored limiting the rights of hereditary rulers, establishing democratic parliamentary institutions, extending the franchise, and guaranteeing civil rights. They favored such measures both for their own sake, as a direct expression of essential political freedoms, and as a means of facilitating the adoption of liberal economic measures.
In economic policy, liberalism expressed itself as a reaction against government intervention in economic affairs. Liberals favored free competition at home and free trade among nations. They regarded the organization of economic activity through free private enterprise operating in a competitive market as a direct expression of essential economic freedoms and as important also in facilitating the preservation of political liberty. They regarded free trade among nations as a means of eliminating conflicts that might otherwise produce war. Just as within a country, individuals following their own interests under the pressures of competition indirectly promote the interests of the whole; so, between countries, individuals following their own interests under conditions of free trade indirectly promote the interests of the world as a whole. By providing free access to goods, services, and resources on the same terms to all, free trade would knit the world into a single economic community.

“Liberalism” has taken on a very different meaning in the twentieth century and particularly in the United States. This difference is least in the concrete political forms favored: both the nineteenth-century liberal and the twentieth-century liberal favor or profess to favor parliamentary forms, nearly universal adult franchise, and the protection of civil rights. But even in politics there are some not unimportant differences: in any issue involving a choice between centralization or decentralization of political responsibility, the nineteenth-century liberal will resolve any doubt in favor of strengthening the importance of local governments at the expense of the central government; for, to him, the main desideratum is to strengthen the defenses against arbitrary government and to protect individual freedom as much as possible; the twentieth-century liberal will resolve the same doubt in favor of increasing the power of the central government at the expense of local government; for, to him, the main desideratum is to strengthen the power of the government to do “good for” the people...


I am an old style Liberal