11/19/98

Thirty-five years ago, the course of this country was changed forever. The difference between Nov. 21 and Nov. 22 was and is immeasurable. Think of how many events were altered because President John F. Kennedy was killed. In all likelihood, there would have been no Nixon Presidency (and therefore no Watergate). There most assuredly would not have been 50,000 dead in Vietnam, and there probably would not have been a Carter or Reagan Presidency. And so on and so on.

America in the early '60s was a country on top of the world. Its optimism was boundless. We were exploring space! Its economy was just starting to percolate back from the recession of the late '50s. A renewed vigor had swept the country, for both young and old. Its citizens were probably more swept off their feet by our First Lady than by the President. Their youthfulness and vision had gripped everyone save the most partisan. That was another difference from today. Democrats and Republicans disagreed without being disagreeable, generally speaking.

As someone who tries to learn from history, it is interesting to look at JFK's words back then in light of today. He is many times characterized as liberal but his words are "cold warrior" all the way. His economic policies were conservative and his social agenda was cautious at best. He was pragmatic and "bottom line" (although that phrase was not known then) to a fault. His greatest trait, much like Ronald Reagan's, was how he made people feel. He would have been the model for years to come.

With his death, however, all that changed. The country changed with it, more so than from any other cataclysmic event save the Civil War and the death of Lincoln. When someone said "we would never laugh again," Arthur Schlesinger responded, "we'll laugh again, it's just that we will never be young again." Young people should remember how much society has changed since then, some good and some bad. There were no personal computers; no cable TV; no one yet on the moon; no disco; no Watergate; no Internet; no militia-style bombings; no oil crisis; as yet no southern presidents; no civil rights gains; no cell phones; no TV remote; no electronic calculators; in the South, few paved roads; no HMOs; no Nikes; children were still dying from polio and small pox; no "Vietnam"; no AIDS; no super-sonic flight; virtually no air-conditioning. I'm sure you can think of even more examples.

The point is that we must view the country in the proper context, then and now. We have become more cynical, more commercialized, less moral, less assured, and more selfish. I contend that all of those have flowed from the fact that our President was shot down in a supposedly "modern" society. We realized that we were indeed vulnerable. We realized, and more since then, that we were not safe. Our confidence was shaken and it has never really been fully restored.

Some would say that is good because we were arrogant. I say it is bad because we never saw any limits. And besides, back then, there was a threat from across the ocean that required a certain bluster.

This is the hand that fate has dealt us though and we need to look at what we can do in that context. We, as a country, need to remember that because this is a "smaller" world, we must act as one of many. We need to remember that, with the virtual collapse of communism, we must get along with those who share the same goals. We need to remember that, because of the "information age," we need to be more circumspect with how we use that information and knowledge. We need to remember that, true to our "melting pot" history, we must conform to the dictates of the Constitution because of the increasing diversity of the population. We need to remember that, because our population is 80 million more now than it was then, we must use all our resources wisely.

This is the position we are in now; it matters not how we got here. We will be judged on how we move forward from this point as we enter the new century.