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John F. Kennedy

2011-09-06T01:33:33Z

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{{Officeholder
|name=John F. Kennedy
|image=John_kennedy.jpg
|party=[[Democratic]]
|spouse=[[Jacqueline Kennedy|Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy]]
|religion=[[Roman Catholic]]
|offices=
{{Officeholder/president
|country=the United States
|number=35th
|terms=January 20, 1961 – November 22, 1963
|vp=[[Lyndon Johnson]]
|preceded=[[Dwight Eisenhower]]
|former=y
|succeeded=[[Lyndon Johnson]]
}}
{{Officeholder/senator
|state=Massachusetts
|terms=January 3, 1953 – December 22, 1960
|preceded=Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.
|former=y
|succeeded=Benjamin A. Smith
}}
{{Officeholder/representative
|state=Massachusetts
|district=11th
|terms=January 3, 1947 – January 3, 1953
|preceded=James Michael Curley
|former=y
|succeeded=Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr.
}}
}}
'''John Fitzgerald Kennedy''', often called '''JFK''', (May 29, 1917 - November 22, 1963) was the 35<sup>th</sup> [[President of the United States of America]], serving for 1033 days in 1961-63. He was the youngest person elected president and one of the most glamorous and beloved. He did not accomplish a great deal while alive, but after his assassination he became a legendary figure in whom admirers saw the ideals of American mythology incarnated.

The [[Kennedy Family]] had long been leaders of the Irish Catholic wing of the [[Democratic Party]]; JFK was middle-of-the-road on domestic issues and conservative on foreign policy, sending military forces into Cuba and Vietnam.

In Congress the [[Conservative Coalition]] blocked nearly all of his domestic programs, so there were few changes in domestic policy, even as the civil rights movement gained strength.

The Kennedy style called for youth, dynamism, vigor and an intellectual approach to aggressive new policies in foreign affairs. The downside was his inexperience in foreign affairs, standing in stark contrast to the vast experience of the president he replaced, Republican [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]]. Kennedy's rashness and inexperience caused a national humiliation in 1961 as he sent CIA-trained Cuban exiles into an ill-prepared attack on Castro's Cuba. At the [[Bay of Pigs]], all Kennedy's invaders were killed or captured, and he was forced to ransom them for cash. Kennedy's supporters blamed the fiasco on Eisenhower. Russian boss [[Nikita Khrushchev]], seeing for himself Kennedy's inexperience at a summit conference, threw up the [[Berlin Wall]] as the Soviets escalated the [[Cold War]] regarding the status of Berlin, predicting correctly that Kennedy's response would be weak. Khrushchev went too far in 1962 when he sent nuclear missiles into Cuba aimed at the U.S. For the first time since Pearl harbor -- or indeed since Washington and New Orleans were attacked in the [[War of 1812]]-- the U.S. was vulnerable to a major attack by an enemy power. Kennedy and Khrushchev reached a compromise whereby the Soviets removed their missiles from Cuba publicly (giving Kennedy a public relations triumph), while Kennedy secretly removed American missiles from Turkey aimed at the Soviets, and also promised that America would never invade Cuba—a promise still in effect in 2009. Vietnam proved a trap for Kennedy as he sent in 16,000 additional military advisors to prop up an ineffective, corrupt regime in South Vietnam. Historians are uncertain whether or how Kennedy would have avoided the failures of [[Lyndon Johnson]] in Vietnam, for Kennedy himself had no definite plans of what to do.

He was assassinated on [[November 22]] 1963 while riding in his convertible limousine in [[Dallas]], [[Texas]]. A [[Communist]] sympathizer, [[Lee Harvey Oswald]], was allegedly the only assassin, and afterward Kennedy became a national icon and martyr. His reputation has since been dimmed by news of his repeated philandering. He is best known for his call to civic virtue:
{{cquote|'''And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.'''|4=John Kennedy's [[John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address|Inaugural Address]]|5=<ref>http://www.famousquotes.me.uk/speeches/John_F_Kennedy/5.htm</ref>}}

==Career==
Educated at private schools and (following numerous relatives) Harvard College, young Kennedy was an indifferent student until the war in Europe focused his attention. Extensive interviews with major British politicians and observers led to an unusually precocious senior thesis that became an influential book Why England Slept (1940). As second son in the powerful [[Kennedy Family]], he was marked for an intellectual career as a writer or journalist, while his older brother Joseph was slated for politics by their hyper-manipulative father, [[Joseph P. Kennedy]]. The brother’s death in combat, combined with JFK’s heroic war record, set the stage for his political debut as a Congressional candidate in 1946.
===Medical===
Kennedy was the sickest president since [[William Henry Harrison]], but he successfully kept his multiple maladies a secret from the press and policy makers. Besides Addison's disease, Kennedy's most serious problem was chronic back pain, which surfaced when he strained an unstable back (probably birth-related) on a motor trip in 1938. He further aggravated it while playing tennis in 1940 and during PT boat service during the war. Surgery in 1944 only worsened the condition; by 1954 Kennedy found the pain so acute that he underwent back surgery once again despite the risk of an Addisonian crisis, which nearly took his life.<ref> Dallek (2003); James N. Giglio, "Why Another Kennedy Book?" ''Reviews in American History,'' Volume 31, Number 4, December 2003, pp. 645-656 in [[Project MUSE]]</ref>

As a teenager, Kennedy was in and out of the country's best hospitals for chronic colitis, stomach problems, and an undisclosed blood condition, which was at first mistakenly diagnosed as leukemia. Dr. Janet Travell, a specialist in the treatment of muscular disorders, was his primary physician after 1955, but other specialists tried any number of different treatments. As president he took seven powerful prescription drugs daily including hydrocortisone, fludrocortisone acetate, and Meticorten for Addison's disease, a malfunction of the adrenal glands; and T3 for hypothyroidism. In addition he regularly took Equanil for anxiety and tension; for his gastrointestinal problems he took anti-spasmodics Lomotil and Bentyl; for weight gain a daily dose of testosterone; and Chlor-Trimeton for his allergies. White House physicians were alarmed when they learned he was seeing Dr. Max Jacobson, a New York City celebrity physician, who injected him with a concoction of amphetamines, steroids, calcium, placenta, and vitamins, a potentially dangerous combination which pepped him up.<ref> Dallek (2003)</ref>

Historians have not identified a single policy decision that seems to have been affected by his physical condition or medical treatments; they believe he never took any illegal drugs.<ref> Giglio (2003)</ref>

==Politics==
Although the father had abandoned Boston in frustration, JFK’s return to the city restored the family’s traditional power base among the large and powerful Irish-American community in Massachusetts. Strong family connections with the Chicago Irish political community (led by Mayor [[Richard J. Daley]]) augmented his national Catholic base. JFK always had two sets of advisors, an inner circle of Irish politicians who planned his campaigns, and a Protestant-Jewish coterie of intellectuals (mostly from Harvard) who promoted his stature as the intellectual in politics. That image was solidified by the Pulitzer Prize awarded his ''Profiles in Courage'' (1956). JFK possessed powerful assets: an excellent speaker and glib commentator on major issues, a middle-of-the-road political record that offended no one, strong expertise in foreign policy, articulate anti-Communism, unfailing charm and stage presence, a national network of Irish allies, a Catholic base that comprised a fourth of the electorate, and an immense purse that was ready to fund his ambitions, not to mention innumerable relatives who campaigned endlessly on his behalf.

JFK fought his way into the Senate in 1952 by defeating incumbent Republican [[Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.]], the archetypal Yankee. With the national Democratic party leaderless, JFK largely ignored the old-boy Senate (controlled by his rival [[Lyndon Johnson]]) to display his talents through newspaper and television interviews, magazine articles, and highly publicized speeches to Democratic party gatherings in every part of the country. Aided by his closest advisor, his brother [[Robert Kennedy]], JFK appealed to conservatives by tolerating [[Joe McCarthy]]<ref>JFK's father Joe Kennedy was a major supporter and close personal friend of McCarthy, and Robert worked for a while for McCarthy. McCarthy dated at least one of JFK's sisters.</ref> and instead launching relentless attacks on corrupt labor leaders, especially [[Jimmy Hoffa]] of the [[Teamsters Union]].

The Kennedy family represented the conservative wing of the Democratic party, and was known for its anti-Communism and close ties with Republican Senator [[Joe McCarthy]] Many liberal Democrats, led by [[Eleanor Roosevelt]], distrusted JFK primarily because they could never forget the father’s break with Franklin Roosevelt or the family’s support for McCarthy. Yet with the fading away of [[Adlai Stevenson]] (the liberal Democratic candidate in 1952 and 1956), liberals lacked a viable candidate of their own.

==Nomination==
By 1960 JFK was the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination to face [[Richard M. Nixon]], with the biggest question mark whether his Catholic base of support would be outweighed by anti-Catholicism of the sort that hurt [[Al Smith]] so badly in 1928. Of course prohibition was no longer an issue, and fear of Tammany-like bossism had faded away with the demise of most big city machines. The Kennedy juggernaut defeated rival [[Hubert Humphrey]], a liberal, in the West Virginia primary, a state with so much poverty and so few Catholics that party leaders were convinced they had a winner. Kennedy won over the party’s intellectuals by his effective academic connections, while shaming doubters by a brilliant performance before the Protestant ministers of Houston. There he enunciated the position that he did not speak for the Catholic Church on matters of religion, and it did not speak for him on public affairs. He was able to take that position because there were no high intensity moral issues such as abortion before the public.

Although JFK’s religiosity consisted of nominal attendance at Sunday Mass, he excited tens of millions of Catholics who saw his election as president as confirmation of their full recognition as true Americans. With 8 of 10 Catholics voting for Kennedy, he ran up majorities in ethnic strongholds like Chicago that provided the narrow margin of victory against Richard Nixon. Apart from a few pockets of anti-popery among some Midwestern Lutherans and Southern Baptists, fears of Catholicism largely disappeared from the voting booth after 1960, and Kennedy gets credit for bringing Catholics into the American political mainstream.

==Foreign policy==
President Kennedy was primarily interested in foreign policy. Weeks after his [[John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address|memorable inaugural address]] sounded the tocsin for vigorous anti-communism, he encountered disaster when his invasion of Cuba failed at the [[Bay of Pigs]] in 1961, and he was forced to ransom thousands of soldiers who were captured by [[Fidel Castro]]'s Communist regime. Soviet leader [[Nikita Khrushchev]], sensing weakness, pushed hard on the Berlin issue, and was able to build the Berlin Wall despite Kennedy’s anguished rhetoric, "Ich bin ein Berliner!" ("I am a Berliner!")
===Peace Corps===
He launched the [[Peace Corps]] by executive order in 1961, putting his brother-in-law [[Sargent Shriver]] (b. 1915 ) in charge. It was not designed as a liberal antipoverty program; rather it was designed to be a powerful new weapon in the Cold War arsenal, one that could reach the people directly at the grass roots not merely their national leaders. Kennedy in the 1960 campaign promised to form the agency, saying:
:"I believe that as a counter to the flood of well trained and accomplished tacticians now helping nations with their problems that the Communists are sending out, I believe an American Peace Corps...could be trained to help these people live a life of freedom in agriculture, in handiwork, in road building, in government and other skills, young Americans who will represent the cause of freedom around the globe."<ref> Quote [http://www.jfklink.com/speeches/jfk/nov60/jfk041160_chicago02.html Nov. 4, 1960, Chicago speech online] see also T. Zane Reeves, ''The Politics of the Peace Corps & Vista'' (1988) p. 20.</ref>

The Peace Corps has been endorsed by all subsequent presidents; nearly 200,000 Americans have served and it is still in operation, albeit with a modest record of achievement.

===Ireland===
Kennedy paid a state visit to [[Ireland]] in 1962 - the first state visit of an American President to the country, which had secured independence from Britain forty years earlier. Kennedy visited his ancestral home in County Wexford, and was greeted by huge crowds in the cities of [[Dublin]], [[Limerick]] and [[Cork]]. He told crowds that once he had completed his term as president, he would like to become US Ambassador to Ireland, and live there. Among the many dignitaries at Kennedy's funeral a year later was [[President of Ireland|Irish President]] [[Eamon de Valera]].

===Cuban Missile Crisis===
see [[Cuban Missile Crisis]]

Khrushchev and Castro went too far in 1962, secretly setting up medium range missiles in Cuba equipped with nuclear warheads that threatened the southeast as far as Atlanta. In his greatest moment, Kennedy rejected invasion plans but imposed a blockade and demanded the missiles be removed immediately. Khrushchev publicly backed down, but privately got Kennedy to remove American missiles from Turkey, while Castro secured the promise that the United States would never invade his island. The Cuban missile crisis reversed JFK’s image of ineptness in foreign policy, but his quiet, continuous escalation of military involvement in Vietnam set the stage for the whirlwind reaped by his successor.

==Domestic policy==
As senator, JFK had shown limited interest in domestic affairs apart from labor union corruption. As president he ignored that issue. Working with his high-powered economic advisors he proposed a Keynesian program to stimulate the economy, not by higher spending but by tax cuts. No matter: none of his domestic policy initiatives went anywhere. Congress was effectively controlled a conservative coalition of Republicans and southern Democrats; the alignment remained unchanged after the status-quo midterm elections of 1962.

Kennedy authorized the de-segregation of federal housing and proposed the civil rights bill, passed after his assassination. He pledged to put a man on the moon before the end of the 1960s, a pledge that was later fulfilled after his death. Likewise he proposed tax cuts, which were approved after his death.

===Civil rights===
A new issue that Kennedy had not anticipated blazed into view as the civil rights movement in the South, led by Martin Luther King, produced dramatic confrontations with segregationist Democrats, especially Governor George Wallace of Alabama, and Ross Barnett of Mississippi. A month before the 1962 election Kennedy sent federal marshals and Army MP’s to enforce a federal court order that African American student James Meredith be admitted to the University of Mississippi. Violent resistance by townspeople left two civilians dead, hundreds injured, and 166 federals injured. The confrontation in Alabama in 1963 was nonviolent, and boosted Wallace’s visibility as a leader of southern Democrats. JFK ignored the risks to his southern base and spoke out in favor of civil rights legislation, but as in so many instances, no legislation was passed.

==Legacy==
[[Image:JFK bust.jpg|thumb|Bust of John F. Kennedy by Robert Berks.]]
Kennedy’s assassination in November, 1963, was a stunning shock to all Americans. Pierson (2007) argues that the liberal media turned Kennedy's death into a martyrdom against racism, ignoring Kennedy's weak interest in race and his strong opposition to Communism. Lee Harvey Oswald's Communist ties were downplayed, and instead, the conservative city of [[Dallas]] was made the guilty party. Incoming president Lyndon Johnson used the martyrdom theme to rally support for his liberal programs, painting them as memorials to Kennedy until Johnson won reelection in 1964 by a landslide over conservative leader [[Barry Goldwater]].

The Catholic community took his assassination hard, and immediately elevated JFK to a sort of sainthood status, celebrating the miracle that he had liberated them from second class citizenship. Johnson in 1964 successfully retained the Catholic base JFK had fostered, but that was the last hurrah. By 1966 Catholics started showing their disillusionment with Johnson, who never recovered from the wave after wave of urban riots that followed his civil rights bills, nor from the disillusionment of the intellectuals with his [[Vietnam War]] policy. With the assassination of Robert Kennedy in 1968, and the failure of youngest brother [[Ted Kennedy]] to recover his brothers’ national base, the Kennedy legacy increasingly became the romantic memory of Camelot. Disclosures of JFK’s astonishing sexual involvements, and detailed reports of his multiple grave medical problems fascinated the public but failed to break the myth that if only JFK had lived his second term would be a story of political triumphs that would restore the people’s faith in their government
The assassination was so incomprehensible that hundreds of conspiracy theories sprang up and new ones emerge every year. Over 350 people and organizations have been named as guilty of the assassination.

Kennedy appointed liberal Arthur Goldberg to the [[U.S. Supreme Court]], as well as [[Byron White]]. White's rulings combined both liberal and conservative positions.

Kennedy's image appears on the American half-dollar coin.
===Was Kennedy a liberal or a conservative?===
Kennedy was basically a conservative, but he had to appeal to a primarily liberal base, so he offered symbols for the liberals while following a conservative course in foreign and domestic policy. After his death Kennedy's legacy was picked up by liberals, and there is a vague notion to the effect that Kennedy was a liberal. He was actually more of a conservative..<ref> The best studies of Kennedy's relations with liberalism are William E. Leuchtenburg, ''In the Shadow of FDR: From Harry Truman to Ronald Reagan'' (2001) pp 63-120 [ excerpt and text search]; Alonzo Hamby, ''Liberalism and Its Challengers: From F.D.R. to Bush'' (1992) [http://www.amazon.com/Liberalism-Its-Challengers-F-D-R-Bush/dp/0195070305/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257264863&sr=1-1 excerpt and text search]. Leuchtenburg is a liberal and Hamby is a conservative; both are excellent historians.</ref>

To be a liberal in the days when Kennedy was in politics, 1946-63, meant supporting the programs of the [[New Deal]], following in the footsteps of [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]], and upholding the [[New Deal Coalition]]. Support for labor unions was important; support for civil rights was a minor issue (and one more associated with the Republican Party). Hostility to the Catholic Church was common among liberals. In foreign policy liberals had turned away from Roosevelt's détente with the Soviets and had adopted the [[containment]] policy. Liberals rejected [[rollback]], that is efforts to remove Communists regimes from power. Verbal support for the United Nations was standard rhetoric, although in practice it meant little. The symbolically most important issue of them all for liberals was opposition to [[Joe McCarthy]] and his style of aggressive anti-Communism.

On most of these points Kennedy was largely on the conservative side. He refused to call himself a liberal, but he had a base in Massachusetts with many strong liberals in academe and labor unions that had to be appeased, so he never attacked liberalism too loudly. He solved the state problem by a close alliance with the Democratic party organizations in the cities, controlled mostly by Irish politicians. JFK's campaign manager and chief confidante was his brother Bobby, a devout Catholic who was in close touch with the Catholic establishment as well as the local machines. JFK thus maintained very close ties to the Catholic establishment; he carefully followed the required public rituals such as Mass on Sunday and no meat on Friday. It was a major achievement by Kennedy in 1960 to resolve the religious issue and bring Catholics into the mainstream of American life and to the top ranks of national leadership.<ref>By contrast, the only Catholic in Eisenhower's cabinet was a plumber who was Secretary of Labor.</ref>

On foreign policy he was a leading anti-Communist hawk; he won in 1960 by attacking Eisenhower's foreign policies as not aggressive enough. When elected he sent forces to invade Cuba and rollback Communism; he increased the military presence in Vietnam by a factor of 16 and unleashed the CIA to undermine Communism in the South; he sent the Navy to a direct confrontation with the Soviets in the Cuban Missile Crisis, forcing the Soviets to withdraw. Liberals have misread these episodes--saying that the Cuban invasion was really Eisenhower's idea; that in Vietnam he might have changed his mind in a second term; and that in Cuba he was liberal because he did not blow the world up.

On the liberal side, he achieved the creation of the Peace Corps. To combat Communism in Latin America he proposed a liberal program of financial and technical assistance and free-food programs, and indicated he would take a sympathetic view of revolutionary movements that have the legitimate objective of bettering the life of the hemisphere's poor and downtrodden. Kennedy explicitly exempted any such movements dominated by "external"—meaning Communist—forces, thereby shutting the door on renewed diplomatic relations with Fidel Castro's Cuba

On domestic issues, as president he tried to cut taxes and blocked his liberal advisors who wanted deficit spending in 1961. Civil rights did not interest him and he put it on the back burner. He was no more active than Eisenhower in that regard. On unions, he built up a reputation of strong opposition to union corruption, especially in the Teamsters; he quietly kept on good terms with [[George Meany]], the AFL-CIO leader, while avoiding [[Walter Reuther]], the leader of the liberal wing of the AFL-CIO.

Kennedy had a pro-business reputation and sponsored policies such as tax cuts and low inflation that conservative businessmen wanted. On taking office he called for a "full-fledged alliance" with business. He did get into a brush-up with the steel industry when the steelmen broke their promise to him to keep prices down; that move made Kennedy more popular among the anti-business liberals, but Kennedy never proposed major legislation that business opposed. He named Douglas Dillon, a leading Republican businessman, as his Secretary of the Treasury. On dealing with unemployment, he never proposed New-Dealish programs but instead had a package that was acceptable to conservative Republicans.<ref> House Republican Minority Leader Charles Halleck said of those proposals: "We find no great quarrel with them, but we do not find them earthshaking." ''Time'' Feb. 10, 1961</ref>

Crime was a signature issue for Kennedy, and on taking office he promised a major crackdown on organized crime, thus appealing to conservatives. On appointing Brother Bobby as Attorney General, he quipped, "I can't see that it's wrong to give him a little legal experience before he goes out to practice law." On the liberal side, Kennedy asked Congress for federal aid for school construction and more money for federally assisted housing. They did not oblige.

Joe McCarthy was a close friend of the Kennedy family. Joe Kennedy was his biggest financial backer, and often brought the Wisconsin Senator to family outings--and encouraged him to date the Kennedy girls. Bobby Kennedy began his career as an aide to McCarthy. Liberals intensely hated McCarthy and that carried over to the entire Kennedy clan. JFK was not close to McCarthy, but he refused to attack him publicly or to vote for his Senate censure in 1954 when McCarthy's career was collapsing.

==Quotes==

* "The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining."

* "The men who create power make an indispensable contribution to the Nation’s greatness, but the men who question power make a contribution just as indispensable, especially when that questioning is disinterested, for they determine whether we use power or power uses us." Oct 26, 1963

* "And so, my fellow americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man." Inaugural address, January 20, 1961

* "The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger - but recognize the opportunity." Speech in Indianapolis, April 12, 1959

== See also ==

*[[Gallery of American Heroes]]
*[[John F. Kennedy, Jr.]]

== External links ==
*[http://millercenter.org/academic/americanpresident/kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy]
*[http://www.jfklibrary.org/ John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum]

==Further reading==
*Dallek, Robert, ''An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963'' (2003), a standard scholarly biography; strress on medical issues [http://www.amazon.com/Unfinished-Life-John-Kennedy-Dynasty/dp/0316907928/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195218173&sr=8-3 excerpt and text search]
* O'Brien, Michael. ''John F. Kennedy: A Biography'' (2005), the most detailed scholarly biography [http://www.amazon.com/John-Kennedy-Biography-Michael-OBrien/dp/0312281293/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195218173&sr=8-4 excerpt and text search]
* Parmet, Herbert. ''Jack: The Struggles of John F. Kennedy'' (1980); ''JFK: The Presidency of John F. Kennedy'' (1983), scholarly biography
* Reeves, Thomas C. ''A Question of Character: A Life of John F. Kennedy.'' (1991) conservative critique [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE7D9143EF931A35755C0A967958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all New York Times Book Review]

===Bibliography===
* Balmer, Randall. ''God in the White House: A History--How Faith Shaped the Presidency from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush.'' (2008)
* Bryant, Nick. ''The Bystander: John F. Kennedy and the Struggle for Black Equality'' (2006) [http://www.amazon.com/Bystander-Kennedy-Struggle-Black-Equality/dp/0465008267/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195218173&sr=8-9 excerpt and text search]
* Bugliosi, Vincent. ''Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President,'' (2007) 1632 pp. Debunks dozens of conspiracy theories and concludes Oswald acted alone. [http://www.amazon.com/Reclaiming-History-Assassination-President-Kennedy/dp/0393045250/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1227416692&sr=1-1 excerpt and text search]
* Burner, David. ''John F. Kennedy and a New Generation'' (1988)
* Clarke, Thurston, ''Ask Not: The Inauguration of John F. Kennedy and the Speech That Changed America'' ISBN 0805072136 [http://www.amazon.com/Ask-Not-Inauguration-Kennedy-Changed/dp/0805072136/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195218173&sr=8-5 excerpt and text search]
*Dallek, Robert, ''An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963'' (2003), a standard scholarly biography; strress on medical issues [http://www.amazon.com/Unfinished-Life-John-Kennedy-Dynasty/dp/0316907928/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195218173&sr=8-3 excerpt and text search]
* Donaldson, Gary A. ''The First Modern Campaign: Kennedy, Nixon, and the Election of 1960'' (2007)
* Freedman, Lawrence. ''Kennedy's Wars: Berlin, Cuba, Laos and Vietnam'' (2000) [http://www.amazon.com/Kennedys-Wars-Berlin-Cuba-Vietnam/dp/0195152433/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195218513&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]; [http://www.questia.com/library/book/kennedys-wars-berlin-cuba-laos-and-vietnam-by-lawrence-freedman.jsp full text online]
* Fursenko, Aleksandr and Timothy Naftali. ''One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro and Kennedy, 1958–1964'' (1997) [http://www.amazon.com/One-Hell-Gamble-Khrushchev-1958-1964/dp/0393317900/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195218554&sr=8-2 excerpt and text search] adds information from Russian sources
* Giglio, James. ''The Presidency of John F. Kennedy'' (1991), standard scholarly overview of policies
* Harper, Paul, and Joann P. Krieg eds. ''John F. Kennedy: The Promise Revisited'' (1988), scholarly articles on presidency [http://www.questiaschool.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=15070503 online edition]
* Hersh, Seymour. ''The Dark Side of Camelot'' (1997), highly negative assessment focused on scandals
* Kunz, Diane B. ''The Diplomacy of the Crucial Decade: American Foreign Relations during the 1960s'' (1994)
* Lichtenstein. Nelson, ed. ''Political Profiles: The Kennedy Years'' (1976) 621pp; very good short, analytical biographies of 500 major players
* Leuchtenburg, William E. ''In the Shadow of FDR: From Harry Truman to Barack Obama'' (2009) excellent analysis of how JFK tried to replicate FDR's appeal without his liberalism [http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-FDR-Harry-Truman-George/dp/0801487374/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257738655&sr=1-2 excerpt and text search]
* O'Brien, Michael. ''John F. Kennedy: A Biography'' (2005), the most detailed scholarly biography [http://www.amazon.com/John-Kennedy-Biography-Michael-OBrien/dp/0312281293/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195218173&sr=8-4 excerpt and text search]
* Parmet, Herbert. ''Jack: The Struggles of John F. Kennedy'' (1980); ''JFK: The Presidency of John F. Kennedy'' (1983), scholarly biography
* Paterson, Thomas G. ''Kennedy's Quest for Victory: American Foreign Policy, 1961-1963'' (1989) [http://www.amazon.com/Kennedys-Quest-Victory-American-1961-1963/dp/019504584X/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195218173&sr=8-11 excerpt and text search], Leftists approach disparages anti-Communism
* Piereson, James. ''Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism'' (2007) [http://www.amazon.com/Camelot-Cultural-Revolution-Assassination-Liberalism/dp/1594031886/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1227415678&sr=8-2 excerpt and text search], conservative interpetation
* Pietrusza, David ''1960: LBJ vs. JFK vs. Nixon: The Epic Campaign that Forged Three Presidencies'' New York: Union Square Press, 2008
* Preble, Christopher A. ''John F. Kennedy and the Missile Gap'' (2004)
* Reeves, Richard. ''President Kennedy: Profile of Power'' (1993), balanced assessment of policies
* Reeves, Thomas. ''A Question of Character: A Life of John F. Kennedy'' (1991) detailed assessment of his character flaws by conservative historian [http://www.amazon.com/Question-Character-Life-John-Kennedy/dp/076151287X/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195218173&sr=8-10 excerpt and text search]
* Schlesinger, Arthur, Jr. ''A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House'' (1965), major memoir by a close advisor [http://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Days-Kennedy-White-House/dp/1579124496/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195218430&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]
* Schlesinger, Arthur, Jr. ''Robert Kennedy And His Times'' (2002)
* Smith, Jean Edward. "Kennedy and Defense: The Formative Years". ''Air University Review'' (March–April 1967) [http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1967/mar-apr/smith.html online]
* Sundquist, James L''Politics and Policy: The Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson Years'' (1968), excellent analysis of the major political issues of the era.

===Primary sources===
* [http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/publications/ERP/ Council of Economic Advisors, ''Economic Report of the President'' (annual 1947- )], complete series online; important analysis of current trends and policies, plus statistcial tables
* Sorensen, Theodore. ''Kennedy'' (1966), major memoir by a close advisor

== References ==

{{reflist|2}}

{{USPresidents}}
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[[Category:Democratic Party]]
[[Category:Irish-Americans]]
[[Category:American war heroes]]
[[Category:United States History]]
[[Category:Cold War]]
[[Category:1950s]]
[[Category:1960s]]
[[Category:Catholic Politicians]]
[[Category:Kennedy Family]]
[[Category:Religion and Politics]]
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Nisei

2011-09-06T01:33:27Z

CoraLBrownings: clean up

Essay: Omnipotence, and the logic of power

2011-09-06T01:33:24Z

CoraLBrownings: clean up

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Is power to its possessing object like a motorcycle to its rider? What is power, '''''really'''''?

There is a difference between an Agent that has every kind of Concrete power (CA), and an Agent that has Pure agency over all (concrete and abstract) things (PA).

Assuming the present reader understands the above statement, then there immediately is seen two mutually contrary intuitions as to how to answer a question such as “Can an omnipotent being create a rock too heavy for that being to lift?"

The first question to ask of the above question is whether the power of that being shall be defined as dissociable from that being, or as the very same thing as (equivalent to, identical to) that being. In other words, there is the matter of adopting the image either of that ‘omnipotent being’ as an actual, concrete compound of ‘being’ and ‘omnipotence’, or the image of that being as the same thing as its omnipotence. The difficulty in deciding which image, if either, is the better is in the fact that the ‘Greek-trained’, Western mind views omnipotence typically as more-or-less of an abstraction. So, a more concrete frame of reference may help make buoyant the obscurities:

If my motorcycle, as merely a motorcycle, is fantasized to be omnipotent, then it still clearly is dissociable from me when I cause it to accelerate at its maximum power. I’ll be treated to the famous All-you-can-eat Asphalt Buffet. In other words, if my motorcycle, as such, is imagined to be omnipotent, then it is not possible to determine any features of its supposed omnipotence that are not part of that picture: it’s a motorcycle. Only if some other concrete features are added to it (at least fictionally) can it be pictured to have those other features. For example, if it has a science-fictional energy field that acts to eliminate inertia for itself and from anyone within that field, and if that field is made to be automatically activated when the power is turned on, then, when I floor the throttle, the motorcycle shall not leave me behind on my behind.

Additionally, a regular motorcycle, as such, has no ability to remain upright on its own while rolling down the road. If it were ‘omnipotent’, then it seems that the only way it could remain upright while traveling rider-less at a finite speed is if the physics of finite speed above a certain rate prevents an articulated object from bending, rolling, or yawing from the impact-friction of intervening particles.

Even the question of whether an ‘omnipotent’ motorcycle can ever be turned off once it is turned on can seem un-decidable if the picture one adopts is that in which the general metaphysical concept of omnipotence is emphasized over that of ‘motorcycle-ness’. Omnipotence naturally is perceived as the superior object of the two, so there is some tendency, on the part of people with comparatively too much abstract training, to an automatic adoption of such an imbalanced picture.

Then, there is the question of whether, when rider-less and in-motion, the ‘omnipotent’ mere motorcycle will run into things, violate traffic conventions, and otherwise make a mess of its path. Say I tape the throttle down, as I’m riding the bike, so the bike maintains a rate of sixty miles per hour, and then I jump off into the side of the road. The bike is going to run into whatever it is headed toward unless something, or someone, causes it to move otherwise. It isn’t automatically going to do things that we may wish it to do just because we paint it into a single picture with omnipotence.

In short, an omnipotent motorcycle is limited in the kinds of actual, possible things that can be accomplished, including the incoherent mental picture of an ‘omnipotent motorcycle’.

I wish to return, now, to the question about the rock: “Can an omnipotent being create a rock too heavy for that being to lift?" For the intuition of what I shall call “power as an over-something cause of an effect”, such a question presents a paradox, since, if power is assumed to be most truly and directly defined in the active sense of something being exceeded or otherwise changed, then for a power to be able to create something which exceeds or otherwise compromises that power means that that power is not un-exceed-able.

But, for the concrete intuition of power as an actual kind of agent, the question about the rock is not a true paradox. In fact, to that concrete intuition, its own answer to the question in the negative is not misleading: the omnipotent being is not, in fact, found to be limited in its power if it cannot create such a rock.

And, the reason that an agent which is pictured as un-exceed-able is not found to be exceeded by being unable to exceed itself is because the concrete, and quite empirical, reality of exceed-able agency (that is, an exceed-able agent) is that there actually can or do exist other agents which are, in at least some features, superior to at least some of that exceed-able agent’s own features. This is how, for example, a human, who clearly is not more powerful in every way than his material world, and who can construct a devise for fatally bonking a rhinoceros in the head, can actually be killed by that same device.

It would appear, then, that nothing in the physical world can be omnipotent over the rest of the physical world, including an arbitrary physical ‘first cause’. And, if it is presupposed that some mere-and-indifferent physical ‘first cause’ can be omnipresent such that it ever-and-presently has actual omnipotence, then, by what manner is it identifiably merely physical except by presupposing it to be indifferent? But, the man holding the pool stick is more powerful than the pool game (the latter of which includes the pool stick), and yet the balls are the only things that remain on the table. It may be an over-simplistic, that is, somewhat misleading, analogue, but, otherwise, it appears to this author’s intuitions to be correct.

Let me now say some words that may be found by most (if not all) adversaries to my position to be a little too abstract:

An ‘agent’ which is ‘over all agents (pure agency) is tantamount to infinite regress and or logical explosion, assuming the two are not (contrary to the obscuring-ly pragmatic functions of the human creature’s mind) the same thing. Pure agency cannot actually be identified in terms of any actual kind of agent, which means pure agency is not any kind of agent, but rather a pure abstraction of ‘effect’ for which something else is the ‘cause’ To posit ‘an agent which is over all agents’ is a self-contrary position, and therefore does not identify the ultimate conceivable cause or agent.

Power, or agency, is not essentially the state of affairs that a thing is exceeded, or inferior to something, but that something is greater than something else. Otherwise, power implies infinite regress if not logical explosion. In terms of cause/effect, if being ‘over’ absolutely any given thing, including any given instance of an agent/power, is what power is defined to be, then, within the confine/guide of this definition, power necessarily is exceeded by another power, and that other power exceeded by another, ad infinitum. Something must be located, or existing, in terms only of itself (which implies it is non-synthetic), otherwise nothing actually exists. But, things clearly do exist, even if unplumbed by the human mind.

The words of all my adversaries regarding the subject of omnipotence seem to me to treat the abstraction called ‘logic’ as the very thing which must alone exist of itself, and this concretely, locally. In any case, if that is the way in which logic is to be treated, then, of course, the natural or intuitive conclusion as to what omnipotence means is going to be something which cannot help but show such ‘logic’ up for what such ‘logic’ really is: nothing in itself. The fact that people can fail to see that that is what the immediately intuitive truth of power, or, actual existence of agency as something that exists as an actual agent, is doing to the kind of ‘logic’ that treats logic as a thing in itself is because such people are trying actually to attain an epistemologically superior view of everything that can possibly exist, a point of view from which all the actual topography of reality all that possibly can exist may be discretely look down upon. The mental ‘topographic map’ representing that actual ‘landscape’ certainly can be look down upon, but it’s just a map. There is no such thing as a perfect generalized abstraction of concrete things which is a kind of ‘glue’ that holds every concrete thing together and makes all those things be what they are (‘law of identity’, admission-of-knowledge-but-ignorance). Something must have an identity in itself. But, the Greek abstraction known as ‘logos’ has no identity in itself; otherwise, you could identify it without making even the slightest implicit reference to anything more sensible.

Now, for a synthetic living being (a living creature), its mind and person are in many ways distinct from its macro-mechanical power. For example, a human can become paralyzed, yet be fully aware, so that his most obviously relative power is absent while his mind and knowledge are present-and-undiminished. For another example, a human’s macro-mechanical power, when in particular coordination with gravity and external rigid masses, has the capacity to render the human paralyzed, unconscious, or even dead.

But, to abstract from empirically known powers the sensible notion that power is the facility to effect (or bring about) a state of affairs is helpful only in so far as that sense consists in itself. In other words, it is not a foolproof, or original, sense of power, because it is derived (abstracted) from the effective natures of actual, concrete objects.

When the mental generalization of power as the facility to effect a state of affairs is held as a kind of magic bullet for understanding the nature of concrete power, then it serves only to enhance a legalistically narrow-minded view of the very concrete things from which the generalization is made. Power itself is not a facility to effect a state of affairs. Power '''''is''''' a state of affairs. In other words, power is a concrete thing. Because, if power is not itself a state of affairs, then power consists of nothing. There must be a concrete thing which has/is the facility to act upon other concrete things.

That which most essentially exists must be concrete; it cannot be a mere mental abstraction from the concrete. In order for there to exist such a thing as the facility to effect a state of affairs, there must exist an actual thing which, by being a state of affairs, has/is that facility.

So, the proper definition of power is that it is the original, and thus the most meaningful, state of affairs.

To identify omnipotence as including the facility to exceed, compromise, or otherwise change even itself is not to have at all identified that in which power consists, but only to have identified power as including the facility to exceed, compromise, or otherwise change other powers. Other concrete things. '''Furthermore, since there must exist an original, or immediately meaningful, state of affairs, then any mental negation of that state of affairs does not represent a state of affairs.''' Which means that omnipotence cannot logically be identified as including the facility to effect the negation of any immediately meaningful state of affairs, since, essentially, all that which is truly immediately meaningful is included in that most concrete of all objects which is omnipotence.

But, to say that omnipotence (God) is the most concrete of all objects does not mean that God is not a spirit. It means, rather, that the spirit which is God is that very power which alone gives substance and animation to all creatures. The word 'spirit' is related to the word 'respiration', in which the latter means a repeated intake of an invisible-yet-concrete thing by which the life of the living creature is maintained. If air, for all its invisibility, is nevertheless real and concrete, then so much more is God both invisible and concrete.

A mental abstraction is a concrete thing only in so far as the mind is a concrete thing. The mind is not an unconditional, irrelevant abstraction, but a real, and meaningful, thing. If logic truly required that omnipotence include the facility to negatively effect its supreme status, then the mind would not be that which can represent reality, but would most essentially be that which, by being an unconditional facility for formalism, is the facility for self-delusion, and for which half-witted abstractions will serve the purpose of proving that nothing, in the end, has any meaning, except self-congratulation. Power is not fully defined as the facility to bring about a state of affairs, else any instance of power could bring about any state of affairs. Any motorcycle could accelerate at infinite velocity, no matter how heavy the motorcycle, and no matter how weak the engine.

Atheists find fault with the [[ontological argument]]. For similar reasons, I find fault with atheist's anti-omnipotence argument. If it cuts one way, then it cuts the other way, just by turning it around.

Logic is just another word for consistency/coherence. Just like this essay, logic is defined as ‘all pertinent points connected’, even though its connections shall not be found to be laid out in an order convenient for a simple-minded fool. For, while, in an imperfect world, natural language is an unfortunate necessity, in a perfect one it is a necessary constituent. Mathematical exactness is not a standard for natural language, while it is a standard for a natural mind; and, the fact is, that some parts of math are impossible to plumb, which in no way precludes its knowability to whatever finite depth it is known.

Now, the logic---the definition---of [[omnipotence]] is that nothing can logically be greater than it in power. In other words, it is not logically possible to define, (i.e., distinguish/limit) omnipotence as including being subject either to be exceeded or to be caused to discohere. For example, it is not logically possible for omnipotence to exceed itself by creating a rock too heavy for it to lift. To equate this logical impossibility with either a generic or concrete lack of capacity is logically (and concretely) erroneous.

<blockquote>
“Omnipotence is not omnipotent unless omnipotence has the power to create a power which is more powerful than omnipotence. But, if it can create a power which is more powerful that itself, then it already is not omnipotent, since a greater power than itself can exist.”</blockquote>

Talk about not being able to make up one’s mind. Is omnipotence a power than which no greater can exist? Or, is omnipotence a power which can be exceeded by its own power?

Any synthetic object is consistent only in so far as it is synthetically coherent: in so far as its disparate constituents cohere to one another. There is no coherent logic that requires that omnipotence be distinguished as including being subject either to be exceeded or to be caused to discohere.

Does there exist a power which can exceed itself, or even a power which can destroy itself? Are such powers even logically possible? A man has power to accumulate, outside himself, other existing powers, such that the cumulative result has power to kill the man. This does not mean that the man has power to exceed his own powers; it means that there exist other powers which, together, are more powerful than the man’s own power to stay alive and well. Further, a man has power, directly by one of his hands/arms, to break the fingers of his other hand. This does not mean that his hand has power to destroy itself; it means that neither of his hands is indestructible, and that either hand has power, combined with the power of his arms, to break the other hand (his ‘victim’ arm must resist being moved by the other arm/hand in order to obtain sufficient leverage to break the fingers of the ‘victim’ hand). Therefore, to abstract that a man has power to exceed his own power is an erroneous abstraction, because a man’s power is not one power, but many, and the whole is coherent by a less-than-omnipotent bond. Such an abstraction is equivalent to saying that 2+2=5 (which allows logical explosion). All of which means that omnipotence must include omnipotent coherence.

The abilities of a human to perceive and to think are concrete powers, in that a human’s mind and sensory faculties are concrete powers. But, these are synthetically concrete powers, which means they are contingent on the collective powers of their parts. This means that the extent to which an individual human’s mind is coherent in regard to omnipotence depends on the extent to which the correlated concrete parts of his concretely real brain are coherent. This implies that an omnipotent entity, if it has a mind at all, has a mind which is inherently coherent. It further implies that, since all knowledge is a function of concrete things, an omnipotent entity knows all things by it being the most concrete thing in existence---for there is nothing as concrete as that which is non-synthetic and which has created all synthetic powers.

Coherence is not primarily an abstraction, but a concrete thing. Only if coherence is essentially a mental object can omnipotent coherence be denied to omnipotence. Omnipotent coherence is logically inherent to an object which is not made of things which are not itself. A finger is concretely distinct from a whole hand, so, a finger can be caused to discohere from the hand. And, the parts of the finger are concretely distinct from the whole finger, so, all the parts of the finger can be caused to discohere such that the finger is destroyed.

There is no such thing as a power which can exceed itself; so, by what power can unexceed-able power exceed itself?

It is not a state of affairs that there is a power which can exceed itself. It also is not a state of affairs that an unexceed-able power can cause to exist something which is not a state of affairs. It is this power which atheists are rejecting, by saying, in so many words, that such a power is not a state of affairs.

But, if it is not a state of affairs that an unexceed-able power can cause to exist something which is not a state of affairs, then by what state of affairs do atheists assert that unexceed-able power must be exceed-able in order to be unexceed-able? There is no such state of affairs. Rather, there are two mutually exclusive states of affairs which, mistaken by atheists for one state of affairs, compels atheists to so assert.

Power is not in a one-to-one relationship to its effect, but to the object it effects. That is, power primarily is an object, not an action by an object. In other words, power is not primarily a cause for a state of affairs, but is a state-of-affairs in itself.

Even in math, 1 is not reducible, or identical, to its role in 1+1=2. So, power is not the abstract state either of being superior to, or of the capacity to change, something. Power is something, concretely.

Causality, or superiority, is not something in itself, any more than effect or inferiority is something in itself. Causality is an abstraction of the knowledge that some things are concretely prior, or superior, to other things.

It is agreed by atheists that there is no power but what is concrete. They say, further, that there is nothing but what is concrete. So, all things that, to them, exist are, by, definition, powers; for, anything which, to them, is concrete, can change some other concrete thing, and can be changed by some other concrete thing, and, thus, no part of which can be distinguished as omnipotent. But, altogether, this equates, for the atheist, to there being no God.

But, whereas atheists say that the only things which exist are physical, I say that what they call physical is nothing but a synthesis of the concrete. Further, I say that what they call concrete is illusory to the human mind beyond its merely practical applications. In other words, I say that the world which we all call physical cannot be plumbed; that it is made of infinite gradations, and, thus, that it cannot be comprehended beyond the terminal uses to which we may put it. In yet other words, we can sense, in the physical usage of the term, only so much, and, thus, that we cannot comprehend the physical beyond the extent of our senses, such that, if the physical is made of infinite gradations of itself, then it is entirely a synthetic and contingent entity beyond which our minds intuit a non-contingent, or terminal, cause.

But, is our need for terminal applications of the physical so great a need as to so limit our thinking so that our intuition of a terminal cause is in error? If it is in error, then even the ‘physical’ is as I say: infinitely gradated. But, if it is not in error, then does this mean that the synthetic whole of the non-sentient physical world has a non-sentient terminal cause within itself (a power called a Unifying Field Theory, or UFT for short)? For, if there is a true UFT, then it exists at an arbitrary level in the ‘ground of logic’, and, furthermore, it logically can be harnessed by man such that man becomes omnipotent in terms of human needs, including entropy-free eternal life, and otherwise-mastery-of-the-physical-world-for-human-interests. All because sentient, or “subjective”, life is defined, by atheists, as the contingency of a late-model complexity of a finitely-graded non-sentient stuff.

Knowledge never is superior to its object. But, this does not mean that no kinds of knowledge are identical to their object. Some knowledge is, in fact, identical to its object. The same is true of power: it is not an abstract state of “being superior to”, rather, it is a concrete something to begin with, and, thus, which is superior to inferior things. So, the greatest power is that thing which is superior to all other things. An abstraction is a thing which is a thing only by being based on things which are concrete. The abstraction of a perfect triangle is based on a perception of a gradation below which the perceiver does not immediately perceive. No concrete line is smooth, because a concrete line is a synthesis of concrete points. Or, if a concrete line, and thus, a concrete triangle, may be perfect, yet it can be taken apart if it is synthetic. But, if it is not synthetic, then it is omnipotent at least in terms of its coherence, and in terms of anything of which it alone most basically comprises.

If omniscience is knowledge of all things, then omnipotence is power of all things. Though uncommonly ambiguous, this statement nevertheless is coherent. Furthermore, its ambiguity is precisely what allows it to be interpreted in such a way as to command the common-sense presupposition that knowledge and power pertain to concrete things.

'''''But, some kinds of knowledge are, in a sense, abstract, by pertaining to things outside itself; whereas power, in order to exist at all, necessarily pertains to itself without regard for its effects on external objects. Therefore, to identify power as an abstraction is, at best, imprecise, and, at worst, the most misleading thing possible.'''''

In order for cause and effect to exist, there must exist concrete things (objects and forces) which are, themselves, concrete things prior to their causality. But, many of the more abstract kinds of knowledge are, by definition, effects---'''including "logic"'''.

So, knowledge is ''in view of'' concrete things, while power ''is'' concrete things. It is knowledge to know that the Earth orbits the sun, but it is power to cause the Earth to orbit the sun. And, in the case both of that knowledge and of that power, gravity is the primary concrete thing. (Some may object, by saying that gravity is, in fact, an abstraction. But, if by ‘abstraction’ they mean a theory about the origins and geometries of the action and sensible force between masses, then their objection misses the point by misinterpreting my words. Gravity must be an actual thing in order for theories as to its origins and geometries to be formulated. Gravity is not primarily a theoretical construct residing in the mind, but is a very concrete thing residing very much independently of theoretic mental action.)

So, when I claim that it is incoherent to hold that omnipotence includes power to make 2+2=explosion while not holding that omniscience includes knowledge that 2+2=explosion, it is palpably ignorant to object that this claim is nonsense. The objection is argued by stating that 2+2 does not, in fact, equal explosion, while the combination of the meanings of ‘power’ and ‘all’ necessarily results in power even to make 2+2=explosion. But, that argument poses power as pertaining to nothing (as being a mere abstraction of priority), while granting that knowledge pertains to something (as being something). But, it is obvious that, within the knowledge of the world of actual, concrete things, power pertains to actual, concrete things. Which means that for any power to exist, it must '''''be''''' something prior the fact that it has power '''''over''''' something.

Power is not the state of being over something. So, neither is all-power the state of being over exhaustively all things. To say that omnipotence must mean being more powerful even that itself is very clearly incoherent nonsense. Therefore, if all-power is meant merely as the capacity to change all things, then it is inconsistent not to allow that all-knowledge is the capacity to see that all things can be changed.

(And, if a mere abstraction of two-and-two apples cannot be changed into logical explosion, then how much more can an omnipotently coherent concrete thing not be changed. All the concrete apples will rot into dirt before the fool will see that his "logic" does not add up to proof of anything except the proof of his foolishness.)

There is no sound basis in our knowledge of power that allows us to infer that all-power is the capacity to change all things. In other words, while there is such a thing as the naked mental abstraction of capacity, there is no such thing as naked capacity: it’s a king who, by having no clothes, does not exist. The clothes, in this case, are the illusions which our abstractions paint when we take the abstract-ness of our abstractions for the real thing, so that once we remove the clothes off of that which we hail as King, we are left with nothing worthy of esteem. (Atheism abstracts God in the image of man, for the very motive of rejecting God at the outset, and so atheism cannot help but conclude that there can be no such God.) In short, logic is not anything in itself---yet atheists worship it by insisting that it requires that omnipotence includes an immediate ‘power’ to exceed or otherwise compromise its own logical distinction as omnipotence.

Power is not a nothing, so all-power cannot be a nothing either. Rather, all-power must be the most primary, most concrete thing, and thus which, unlike the functions of our physical minds, is, by definition, not subject to a failure to cohere.

Power is not the effect which a thing has on something. Power is the thing that effects---even when it seems to us not to effect, since the best we can do to identify it is to see what happens to our logics when we deny its non-contingent logical possibility.

Power does not consist of the abstracted capacity to change concrete things. Power consists of concrete things. In other words, in order for there to be a power over a given concrete thing, there must be a concrete thing over that given concrete thing. But, if that given thing is not concrete, but abstract, such as a perfect mental representative of concrete triangles, then there is no power over it, because it is not a thing in itself, but an abstraction of a thing in itself. A given concrete triangle does not, in itself, represent triangle-ness, any more than a given concrete apple represents the taste of apples. Your mind represents triangle-ness, just as your mind represents apples and your remembered taste experiences of apples. In other words, there is no apple in the world that can claim to know that such a thing as an apple exists. Each apple, in itself, is a representative only of itself---which means that the only other thing which can truly represent it is a sentient object whose sentience includes knowledge of every detail of that apple, as far down into the physics of it constituents as that apple exists.

A given concrete apple does not have any direct concrete connection to the apple-ness of other apples, living or dead: any concrete apple can be burned to ash without any other concrete apple ceasing to be an apple.

There is no changing a given meaning as such. When you mean a particular thing, that is what you mean. Wherever you go, there you are. To mean a triangle is not to mean a square, but a triangle.

But, to mean something for which you fail to see is foolish does not mean that it is not foolish. It means that you have a hastily flawed view of the nature, and mechanics, of your own synthetically-bound thinking. There is no such thing as “power-over-something”; power must be something itself, just like foolishness must be something itself; but, power must be the far more concrete.

Knowledge pertains to things. Power is a thing. Therefore, knowledge pertains to power. Therefore, to claim to know that it only makes sense that all-power means an abstraction of power over all things is to claim to know that everyone knows that this meaning makes only the right sense to them, and thus to ‘intuit’ that anyone who denies that it only makes sense to them is lying, even that they are lying for dubious reasons, such as that they want to have their theological cake and eat it too.

But, as I hope I’ve demonstrated to your mind by the particular set and sequence of words of this essay, it is the ‘New Atheist’ who is trying to have his cake and eat it too, by insisting that ‘power’ cannot mean any concreteness when it is combined with ‘all’ (even though the ideas of “all powers in existence”, and “an inherently coherent terminal power which has created all those powers” are genuine alternatives in regard to such combination). If there is no God, then so be it. But, even then, that does not preclude the fact that ‘power’, when combined with ‘all’, can mean something at least as concrete as my (and your) flimsy physical mind.

==References==

Matthew 26:59-64, John 18:35-38, John 19:7-11

Matthew 26:59-64 …Now the chief priests, and elders, and all the council, sought false witness against Jesus, to put him to death; But found none: yea, though many false witnesses came, [yet] found they none. At the last came two false witnesses, And said, This [fellow] said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days. And the high priest arose, and said unto him, Answerest thou nothing? what [is it which] these witness against thee? But Jesus held his peace. And the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

John 18:35-38 …Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done? Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence. Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault [at all].

John 19:7-11 …The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God. When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the more afraid; And went again into the judgment hall, and saith unto Jesus, Whence art thou? But Jesus gave him no answer. Then saith Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee? Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power [at all] against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.

[[User:PatternOfPersona|PatternOfPersona]] 02:48, 7 July 2011 (EDT)
[[Category:Essays]]
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