John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon at their first televised debate in 1960

BETWEEN THE LINES

THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY I LEFT BEHIND

Exclusive: Joseph Farah recalls moment that opened his eyes, changed his vote

My first Election Night memory was sitting in front of a black-and-white Philco television set (yes, we called them television sets back then) into the wee hours of the evening on Nov. 8 and morning on Nov. 9, waiting for final results as if our very lives depended on them.

My dad was a life-long Democrat. It was my understanding that victory by John F. Kennedy over Richard Nixon was, well, critical to matters like world peace.

World War II had ended only 15 years earlier, and it was still fresh in our minds. The Korean War had ended in an uneasy armistice just seven years before. The Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union was raging. We were rehearsing duck-and-cover exercises often in school for a nuclear war that seemed entirely possible. There were civil defense bomb and fallout shelters in every town.

I was 5 years old.

John F. Kennedy would win in the closest presidential election in history to that point. I breathed a sigh of relief.

So I grew up equating the Democratic Party with peace, safety, freedom.

Watch NBC’s coverage of Election Night in 1960: That lasted for the next 20 years.

Only 20 years later did I begin to rethink things. It was during the campaign between President Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, the former governor of California.

I had been raised to believe Reagan was a warmonger, like Barry Goldwater before him.

I wasn’t thrilled with life in the Carter years, but I didn’t believe there was an alternative. Under Carter, there were gas lines, days you could buy gasoline and days you couldn’t. The economy was sputtering. We had a president whose idea of securing the release of 52 American Embassy hostages from Iran’s new Islamic fundamentalist regime was to not leave the White House Rose Garden. (It was actually called his “Rose Garden strategy.”)

I determined to investigate why Reagan thought the way he did – or the way I had been programmed to believe he thought.

I read everything I could get my hands on, including the books and periodicals Reagan said inspired him.

What I found was stunning. Reagan was right. What he actually believed in made perfect sense. I agreed with him. Unfortunately, my own personal investigation took too long to change my vote. It wasn’t until Reagan won the election that I made that discovery.

I relate this personal story in hopes it might open the eyes of some young person in 2016. You’ve been lied to, too. You’ve been lied to by your teachers, your professors, your media – just like I was.

Experience more of Joseph Farah’s no-nonsense truth-telling in his books, audio and video products, featured in the WND Superstore

This year, we face a momentous election, just as we did in 1980. It represents a turning point. Are we going to continue down the road we’ve been on for too long?

The question you need to ask yourself is the one I asked myself in 1980: What kind of a world do I want to live in?

Do we want to live in a world of peace, freedom, safety and prosperity?

Or do we want to live in a world of violence, government control over our lives, diminishing safety and where the economy is on the brink of disaster?

That’s the choice we face.

A government in debt to the tune of $19 trillion – equal to the nation’s gross domestic product – is unsustainable.

Hillary Clinton sees no problem with the debt.

She wants to increase the number of “Syrian refugees” we take in annually by 500 percent.

She sees no need for tighter border control.

In fact, she believes the worst crises we face are from “climate change,” the choice of bathrooms and locker rooms “transgendered” Americans have and racist targeting of minorities by the nation’s police officers.

On top of those priorities, you can’t believe anything Hillary Clinton says. She’s a liar and, without question, the most corrupt individual who ever ran for the presidency on a major-party ticket.

Maybe it’s time you started thinking for yourself.

That’s what growing up is all about.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2016/07/the-democratic-party-i-left-behind/#oCjVHpqlR3IzUwPg.99