Posted on 01/21/2013 5:02:56 PM PST by SeekAndFind
I’m confused. I hear there is some kind of celebration of a black leader going on in Washington today, Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday, except that it’s somebody else. I think I’ll skip whoever this poser may be, and celebrate Dr. King instead for his conservative principles.
Scott writes movingly below about King’s prophetic gifts and courage, and rightly so. I appended a brief note about how King’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail” contains a short treatise about natural law that is a serious difficulty and deep embarrassment for today’s liberals, who wish to acknowledge and empower nothing higher than an individual’s own will:
One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”
Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.
In addition, as with his “I Have a Dream Speech” in Washington in 1963, King in Birmingham called for America to live up to its principles and promises, rather than attacking America’s principles and promises as fraudulent like Obama’s long-time pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright, or most other Zinn-Chomsky style leftists today. (Interesting, by the way, that a Southern Baptist preacher would invoke the Roman Catholic figures Augustine and Aquinas in this argument.)
People forget these conservative and deeply American strains to King’s message. At the time of his death he was contending against the Black Panthers and the more radical fringe of the New Left (even as he turned against Vietnam and started saying dodgy things about socialism). “I can’t agree with the move toward a kind of Black Nationalism,” King told the New York Times in a cautiously worded criticism of Stokely Carmichael. King’s murder swung events toward radicalism. Washington DC civil rights leader Julius Hobson, for example, argued that “The next black man who comes into the black community preaching non-violence should be violently dealt with by the black people who hear him. The Martin Luther King concept of nonviolence died with him.”
On Saturday, CNN took note of the fact that many conservatives consider King a hero. And look at who they quote:
“He was against all policies based on race,” says Peter Schramm, a conservative historian. “The basis of his attack on segregation was ‘judge us by the content of our character, not by the color of our skin.’ That’s a profound moral argument.”
Go Peter! (By the way, there’s almost no one, except perhaps Peter Myers, who can express the full greatness of Frederick Douglass better than Peter.) And see also more of this tribute from Human Events. I suspect if there were a rigorous content analysis done of who invokes which parts of King, you’d find conservatives cite King’s thought much more than liberals, who only invoke his out-of-focus image and legacy. In this respect, Clarence Thomas is the real heir to King today—not Jesse Jackson or Obama.
What are you trying to prove about Jefferson? Something negative about him? You give those who like to rip the US fodder for those who are learning about the US; just like what happens in government schools. Why do you think kids come out of schools hating the US?
RE: What are you trying to prove about Jefferson? Something negative about him?
Nope, we have to tell it like it is.
What he accomplished for the country -— GOOD.
Personally, he had his flaws. I don’t call that ripping at all. I call that LEARNING from his mistakes. And if we teach both truthfully and in a balanced way, I see no reason why his accomplishments for the country are in any way, reduced and why kids should hate him.
Policy wise, we should also honestly discuss his support for the French Revolution. That is NOT in any way ripping him. That is LEARNING FROM HISTORY.
I’ll grant you policies; but when I hear about unverifiable fornication that has nothing to do with policy, I cringe - especially when it comes from our side. I didn’t care about Clinton’s affair either; until he broke the law trying to hide it.
RE: but when I hear about unverifiable fornication that has nothing to do with policy, I cringe
What if the fornication was verifiable? Should that not be part of history?
I say it should.
Let’s just say that Jefferson’s adultery with Sally Hemmings were verified...( and In 1998, DNA tests revealed a match between her last child and the Jefferson male family line. Although some historians have noted that the evidence can also support other possible fathers, most have concluded that Jefferson had a long relationship with Hemings and fathered at least one and likely all of her six children, four of whom survived to adulthood.)
I don’t see why the truth ( all of the above statement I made ) cannot be discussed by historians. If one feels that it isn’t necessary in a classroom setting, I’ll grant you that, but why the heck should it not be discussed and debated?
That relationship would not in any way diminish the Declaration of Independence or the Louisiana Purchase or his support for the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Any clear thinking person will NOT conclude thusly:
“Because Jefferson fathered a child by a black woman, the ideals of the Declaration are now null and void”
Only an idiot will think that way.
“King will be historically remembered as the man who led the way to end racism in the sixties”
The only problem with your statement is that “racism” didn’t “end in the sixties”...
Where did you get that idea?
And during his final days, was Martin Luther King, Jr. preaching the Gospel of Christ? No! Instead his plan of salvation as he marched in Memphis was to advocate for slavery -- the slavery of unionism. He wasn't much of a preacher or much of a Christian. Advocating for the Big Labor goons of the AFSCME is the mark of a communist not a man of God.
And King's brazenly opposed freedom and individual liberty as he spoke against Right to Work:
“In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as ‘right to work.’ It is a law to rob us of our civil rights and job rights. Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and working conditions of everyone. Wherever these laws have been passed, wages are lower, job opportunities are fewer and there are no civil rights. We do not intend to let them do this to us. We demand this fraud be stopped. Our weapon is our vote.”
That's disgusting rhetoric and is certainly most un-Christian. The tell-all photo posted by Jack Hydrazine shows the real MLK, not the faux saint who was given a federal holiday the union-supported liberals.
Whatever else he did, he was one of the primary players in the undermining of association of freedom, and for me that negates a lot of what some consider “good” that he did. Freedom of assocation was one of the oldest God-given rights. The lack of it was the acceleration of all the present “social engineering”.
I couldn't agree more. Rand Paul took a lot of heat even here on Free Republic when he merely questioned some of the aspects of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Likewise Barry Goldwater saw the dangers opened by this Pandora's Box, which as we now see nearly 50 years later, has only impeded freedom, liberty and as you so correctly point out, has trampled the God-given right of free association. And lurking behind the bit-by-bit dismantling of the Principles set forth by our Founding Fathers is the shadow of one Martin Luther King, Junior.
Well written and very informative post. Thank you for sharing your obviously much deliberated thoughts on the subject.
Agreed; that's why I stated unverifiable.
Any clear thinking person will NOT conclude thusly
Unfortunately there are a lot of young impressionable people that have not learned that lesson, so we have to be careful that we stipulate this if it is brought up, "That [the] relationship would not in any way diminish [his contributions]."
Looks like we've come close to parity; and thanks for a decent conversation.
OK, let me refrase that; ““King will be historically remembered as the man who helped lead the way to end racismn by law in the sixties”
“OK, let me refrase that; ““King will be historically remembered as the man who helped lead the way to end racismn by law in the sixties””
Again, you are incorrect.
The attempts to “end racism by law in the sixties” (to wit, the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act) ended nothing, and instead created an entire new class of “privileged individuals” by enshrining reverse discrimination as a matter of public policy.
Hint: “racism” (a word which was originally coined by the marxist/socialists as a tool to be used against the established order) is as naturally-occurring a condition as is sunlight. There is an inherent preference amongst humans to be with others like themselves, and an inherent distrust of others unlike themselves. It is something that is simply “there”, and cannot be erased with words on paper. If that was the case, why does “hate” still exist, in the wake of the deluge of “hate-crime” laws we have today?
&
If that was the case, why does “hate” still exist, in the wake of the deluge of “hate-crime” laws we have today?
First, the Civil Rights Acts - which began in 1957, and by Conservative Republicans that get no credit for it - did work to help end discrimination in law. Second, although you are correct that the laws were used as a tool for reverse discrimination; it was because of interpretation of the laws by "civil rights" lawyers that had a socialists agenda. Many of these laws, and "hate crime laws" if not all, have been used against minority criminals too. That's not to say I think "hate crime laws are good. On the contrary; they are redundant, and idiotic. Have you ever heard of someone doing a crime with love?
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