Myths of Martin Luther King

www.lewrockwell.com ^ | January 18, 2003 | Marcus Epstein

[Tailgunner Joe]

Honoring the King Myth

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[BenLurkin]

A man worthy of honor,

[I_Love_My_Husband]

Very interesting! This article shows that Kings true legacy IS someone like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, unfortunately.

[CyberCowboy777]

King said of Reagan, "When a Hollywood performer, lacking distinction even as an actor, can become a leading war hawk candidate for the presidency, only the irrationalities induced by war psychosis can explain such a turn of events."

When was this?

[Tailgunner Joe]

Memorial Day, 1967, "The Domestic Impact of the War in Vietnam"

[Cagey]

When was this?

Good Question considering King died in 1968 and Reagan was only in his first term of being the Governor of California.

[Restorer]

Why is a man once reviled by the Right now celebrated by it as a hero?

Because the Right was wrong when it opposed the civil rights movement of the 50s and (early) 60s?

I wonder if the author is attempting to say that conservatives of the time were right. He never explicitly says so, but the article strikes me as vaguely Lottian.

[sharktrager]

during the 50s and 60s, the Right almost unanimously opposed the civil rights movement

...except for those pesky Republicans in the House and Senate who passed the Civil Rights Act, while a majority of Democrats (including Al Gore's father) voted against it.

[CyberCowboy777]

I guess it was said...

Interesting that King felt it important to take a shot at that time.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Do you support state-imposed integration? (i.e. bussing?)

[CyberCowboy777]

As I understand it the Right was not against Civil Rights per say. There was a debate on the implications of “special rights” and the power of the Federal Government to force private citizen and businesses to comply with certain laws.

Protecting people from violence and forced labor was not the issue, nor was the issue of preferences (of whites) in public jobs and policies.

Are preferences for Blacks any more right?

Should a business be forced to hire or keep on an individual that it does not want? Maybe so, but we must then accept the consequences of reduced liberty. It is a valid debate and should not be demonized. Just as admission quotas today.

[Reactionary]

It seems to me that "integration" is a violation of freedom of association. It may not be politically correct to say it, but I think that clear that it does.

[Reactionary]

that - it's.

Duh.

[2nd_Amendment_Defender]

I do not believe some of the information in the above article. But I do believe that Martin Luther King was an adulterer and supported affirmative action. Affirmative action is racism against people of caucasion decent.

[CyberCowboy777]

What information is suspect to you?

[Captainpaintball]

Bflr. This is gonna get me in a heap of trouble!

[Restorer]

As I understand it the Right was not against Civil Rights per say.You're talking about only one element of the right. Don't forget that a great many "conservatives," in the South and elsewhere were conciously trying to "keep them in their place."

I would argue that these people were not truly conservative of the real America, but they would have given you a really good argument at the time that they were. And, unfortunately, very few true conservatives were willing to go after these people, since they needed their political support to fight Communism.

An understandable point of view, but sadly mistaken, IMHO>

[Restorer]

Do you support state-imposed integration? (i.e. bussing?)

Nope. Never have.

However, the failure of conservatives to articulate a truly color-blind alternative civil rights movement was a major contributor to the development of the self-parodying one we have today.

It is entirely understandable that blacks would gravitate to the support of those who claimed to be interested in fighting for them.

The mistreatment of blacks just wasn't important to most conservatives of the day. And we all continue to pay a very steep price for that failure of the conservative imagination.

[2nd_Amendment_Defender]

I don't think King plagiarized his "I Have A Dream" speech. From what I have read, he may have copied a very small portion of the speech from another work, but that doesn't make the speech plagiarized.

I do not think this man deserves his own holiday though. Adulterers don't deserve a hero status.