John F. Kennedy , winner of the Democratic Nomination for Congress in the 11th Massachusetts District, relaxes with his dog on June 22, 1946

 The American people have long held a fascination with John F. Kennedy. Not only because of the sad way his life ended, but because the way that he so well embodied the beliefs of the United States. He was an iconoclast who believed in tradition while leaning into being an individual.

In a speech on July 4, 1946 he said that we shouldn’t forget that as Americans we’re lucky to be born with so many individual rights:

To us, who have been reared in the American tradition, these rights have become part of our very being. They have become so much a part of our being that most of us are prone to feel that they are rights universally recognized and universally exercised. But the sad fact is that this is not true. They were dearly won for us only a few short centuries ago and they were dearly preserved for us in the days just past. And there are large sections of the world today where these rights are denied as a matter of philosophy and as a matter of government.