|
I know that it drives the left nuts to quote JFK because they like to trade on his image, he would be a great Republican
Remarks of Senator John F. Kennedy, State Capitol, Albany, NY
September 29th, 1960
It is an old struggle but it has a new form, and I think in the next 10 years or the next 15 years, in the lifetime of nearly everyone here, we will see an entirely different world picture than we see today. We will either see freedom on the ascendancy around the world, or other countries of Latin America and Africa and Asia will begin to move in the direction of China and Russia. And, therefore, I think it incumbent upon us to concern ourselves with the problems in New York, with the problems here in the United States, so that we build a stronger society, so that what we are speaks louder than what we say.
But we should also frame every action with reference to the world around us. The security of the United States is the basic responsibility now before us, and in my judgment that security can be maintained by the United States once more standing as an example to all mankind.
I am chairman of the Subcommittee on Africa of the Foreign Relations Committee, and every African nationalist 20 or 25 or 30 years ago quoted Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Now many of them quote Marx: many of them are Marxist if not Communists. Many of them believe that that represents the way of the future. What has happened to the vitality of the United States that they should feel that history moves in the direction of the most reactionary system of government ever devised? Why is it that we who represent the final flowering of the human experience in self-government should be regarded as a tired country, as a country which has seen its best days? I don't hold that view. think our high noon is yet to come. But I think if we devote ourselves to the public interest, if we are willing to bear the burdens which go with self-government and the maintenance of freedom in a country such as the United States, if we say that we will have a defense second to none, if we concentrate ourselves on building our economy so that we are the No.1 productive power in the world and maintain that position, if we provide equality of opportunity for our citizens, regardless of their religion and regardless of their race, then what we will be will speak far louder than what the Communist
|