Some Silly Little Communist

Speaking of history (and I was in the last post), today is the 41st anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assasination in Dallas, Texas by Lee Harvey Oswald. This day was one of the great traumas of my life and I remember it vividly and starkly.

Most people don't recall that JFK was the first "Catholic" president (it was made a big deal at the time--I don't even know if there has been a Catholic president since then), and I remember fervently defending him from those at school saying that he would give the Pope power over the US if he were elected. Those were days when some children weren't allowed to play with me because I was Catholic (can you believe it?).

Well, Kennedy was elected, and I was so proud. The day he was murdered was a day of emptiness that I shall never forget. Nor will I forget the days that followed as we watched his funeral on our tiny B&W TV, weeping and feeling that his death was the darkest day in history.

There have been plenty of dark days in history since then...but Kennedy's assasination was the beginning of the end of my youth. "He didn't even have the satisfaction of being killed for civil rights . . . . It's — it had to be some silly little Communist," Jackie Kennedy said, on hearing that a leftist had been arrested for her husband's murder.

I suspect that JFK's horrible death and its aftermath was the beginning of a intense personal journey which slowly but surely taught me to despise the platitudes and endless bullshit that emanates from the left side of the political spectrum. Those "silly little Communists" haven't quite gone away even today. They are still running around creating havoc (see here, for example) and spouting their vile slogans while claiming they are for "world peace" and "cosmic justice" and "freedom". But, like the Islamofascist Jihadis, who have inherited the mantle of that "silly little cause", they are still a culture of death and destruction carried out for the so-called "greater good".

The greatest good would be the defeat of totalitarian evil in all its incarnations--once and for all. Rest in Peace, President Kennedy. We will remember.