https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/05/vivek_in_iowa.html
The NYT hates Vivek Ramaswamy. What could be a better recommendation?
If elected President, Vivek Ramaswamy would be historic. He would be the first Jesuit high school graduate elected to the highest office in the land. (See what I did there?)
Since this author and the candidate were both beneficiaries of a Jesuit high school education, I asked him how this influenced him. He gave me a fascinating answer.
The Jesuits speak of magis; Latin for more. Vivek said that he learned that magis means striving to do more and to be better. As a country, we have ideals but we will fall short. But both personally, and as a country, we continue to keep seeking perfection.
Vivek is not Christian, but he believes in God. He became pro-life at his Jesuit high school. One of the Jesuit’s precepts is to see God in all things. Vivek put it this way, “God resides in all of us.”
My other question was about a negative New York Times story about him this week. He said he’s not a whiner and was somewhat glad for the attention. He expects to take hits during the campaign as part of the vetting process.
The main thrust of the NYT piece was that the president doesn’t have the executive power to take certain actions such as abolishing the Department of Education. We know that. But that claim is shorthand for the direction Vivek would take.
He deviated from his stump speech after an impressive recitation of part of the Declaration of Independence by a group of young people. It was a brilliant impromptu riff. Vivek’s favorite president is Thomas Jefferson. No surprise there as they are both Renaissance men.
Jefferson’s original draft used the words “we hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable.” Ben Franklin changed it to “we hold these truths to be self-evident.” I know that this is accurate.
Vivek’s point was that what our country was founded on was not at all self-evident at the time. The rest of the world was mostly under authoritarian rule. We were a new beginning.