President Kennedy’s famous “ask not” quote is canonized by the media as one of the most stirring statements since Roosevelt’s “…a date which will live in infamy” proclamation given after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Here it is, as the liberal media would like it to appear following the Book of Revelation in the New Testament:
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.
What we have here are two socialist choices:
1. Asking what our country can do for us: Demanding government services and entitlements, or
2. Asking our fellow citizens to do more for country/government: pay more taxes; support more programs, urge bigger government.
Both of these options beg for more and bigger government. Both of these options ignore asking the people to do things for themselves. The spirit of self-determination, self-sufficiency and independence are what made our country great prior to its decline of the last 50 years propelled by socialist tendencies.
The third, ignored but better, option is this:
Ask not what not what your country can do for you; ask not what you can do for your country; but ask what you can do for yourself and for your neighbors.
This best represents and promotes the enlightened self-interest that enabled the success of our nation and our liberties.
Leave “country” (synonymous with “government”) out of it. Those are both socialist options. The freedom option is the one that emphasizes individual responsibility for our own needs, not the “needs” of the country that, in the end, just lead to bigger government and smaller freedoms.
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