Foundry: MLK Jr Truths

[spursncowboys]

Morning Bell: Martin Luther King Jr. Held These Truths. Do You?
by Julia Shaw

On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. stood at the Lincoln Memorial and admonished America to return to its First Principles. In his I Have a Dream Speech, he announced his dream that “one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’” He longed to see a day when all “would be guaranteed the ‘unalienable Rights’ of ‘Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.’” Dr. King did not talk about remaking America. His dream was one which, in his words, was “deeply rooted in the American dream.” It hearkened back to the principles upon which our country was founded. It was not a rejection of our past, but a vision of hope based on the principles of our past.

Dr. King held firm to the truths of the Declaration of Independence in a time when the situation of African Americans appeared hopeless. Based on a series of arbitrary and unjust policies, African Americans were denied basic protections of the rule of law. Segregation prevented access to public accommodations, and many were reduced to poverty as a result of these injustices. Dr. King did not ask African Americans to be satisfied with their condition, nor did he denounce America as an unjust nation. Instead, Dr. King assured his listeners that their cir stances were contrary to America’s creed. He used the central principle of the Declaration – natural human equality – as a rallying cry for civil rights.

Dr. King held that the principle of human equality is the foundation of the Declaration’s statement of natural rights. We are all equal because we all participate in a common human nature. Since we are all equal, we are all en led to the basic rights that are derived from human nature. From these First Principles, Dr. King understood that all Americans—regardless of skin color—should have access to the rule of law, public accommodations, and thereby have the ability to pursue economic opportunities and, ultimately, happiness.

But Dr. King did not think that the principle of equality meant that everyone should be treated the same. He sought equality of rights and equality before the law, not equality of outcomes or equality as a result. For Dr. King, justice was when a person is judged “by the content of their character” rather than by arbitrary considerations such as skin color. Dr. King did not mean that we should treat people of good character and bad character the same. Actual equality is achieved when arbitrary standards are replaced by meaningful criteria such as talent and virtue. A just country, in Dr. King’s vision, is one in which people are rewarded for acting well.

As Americans, we should take this lesson from Martin Luther King Jr. to heart: we should look to our First Principles to guide us through our current political problems. In his latest book, We Still Hold These Truths: Rediscovering Our Principles, Reclaiming Our Future, Matthew Spalding articulates ten core principles of America that define our national creed and explain our common purpose: These principles are equality, natural rights, consent of the governed, religious liberty, private property, rule of law, cons utionalism, self governmentand independence. Spalding writes:

Only when we know these principles once again can we renew America. Only when we understand the significance of these principles can we grasp the nobility of our accomplishments as a people and see how far we have strayed off our course as a nation. Only then can we realize the societal choices before us and begin to develop a strategy to reclaim our future.

The future of America rests on returning to its First Principles. We face an unprecedented expansion of government power and a new kind of tyranny – a softer, bureaucratic tyranny. As we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, let us rely on our First Principles as a guide for the challenges we face ahead.

Quick Hits:

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” – Martin Luther King Jr. August 28, 1963

“If a man hasn’t discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.” – Martin Luther King Jr. June 23, 1963

“One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters they were in reality standing up for the best in the American dream and the most sacred values in our Judeo-Christian heritage, and thusly, carrying our whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in the formulation of the Cons ution and the Declaration of Independence.” – Martin Luther King Jr. April 1963

Martin Luther King’s Conservative Legacy
The Conservative Virtues of Dr. Martin Luther King
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/01/18/...truths-do-you/

[TheManFromAcme]

Good read. We can sure use a Dr. King these days. Instead we are stuck with the ass-clown sharpton's and the James's of the world who don't hold a light to Dr. King and his principles.

To Dr. King..........

[Marcus Bryant]

King advocated individual liberty for all and spoke the truth, while eschewing violence to accomplish that goal. No surprise that a victory was scored.

Without a King, the outcome would have been much, much worse.

Everyone wants to claim King, of course. He's a transcendent figure in American history. Because a large number could identify with his goal and its basis, it was achieved. Yes, you can take parts of his agenda and find a common link with the principles upon which the nation was founded. That doesn't necessarily make those "conservative" nor King a conservative, especially considering that the next stage of his agenda was fairly standard modern liberal fare.

I don't think it's a bad thing for conservatives to make the connection, as what is often lost in the 'us v them' framework of American politics is that there is broad agreement on certain fundamental rights. Considering that it's commonplace to engage in hysteria such as comparing a politician to a Hitler, reminders that this country isn't anything close to that is a good thing. Still, such connections should be forthright, not cynical, and honest.

[TheManFromAcme]

King advocated individual liberty for all and spoke the truth, while eschewing violence to accomplish that goal. No surprise that a victory was scored.

Without a King, the outcome would have been much, much worse.

Everyone wants to claim King, of course. He's a transcendent figure in American history. Because a large number could identify with his goal and its basis, it was achieved. Yes, you can take parts of his agenda and find a common link with the principles upon which the nation was founded. That doesn't necessarily make those "conservative" nor King a conservative, especially considering that the next stage of his agenda was fairly standard modern liberal fare.

I don't think it's a bad thing for conservatives to make the connection, as what is often lost in the 'us v them' framework of American politics is that there is broad agreement on certain fundamental rights. Considering that it's commonplace to engage in hysteria such as comparing a politician to a Hitler, reminders that this country isn't anything close to that is a good thing. Still, such connections should be forthright, not cynical, and honest.

Agreed. Political affiliations and persuasions aside, Dr. King represents, at least for me as a Conservative, everything that could be right about any American wanting to make a difference. Dr. King could have been Latino, Asian, Indian or whatever creed or nationality, it's the idea that he took upon himself, with everything stacked against him, to make a difference and it cost him is life. He's a true warrior in that sense and a strong symbol of our perseverence as a nation regardless of what interanl strife may be upon us.
My comments about wishing we had a Dr. King at present day is to educate some of these (some) Afro-American (NACCP), Hispanics (LULAC) and any other race-based organizations that these organizations are not what Dr. King had in mind, at least in my opnion. These organizations only symbolize the separation, concrete or not, that still exist.

Again, a toast to great man, a great American, a true leader, and above all, a hero that all of us need today......

[spursncowboys]

Good read. We can sure use a Dr. King these days. Instead we are stuck with the ass-clown sharpton's and the James's of the world who don't hold a light to Dr. King and his principles.

To Dr. King..........

Good post. I don't agree with King joining the anti war movement and taking a stand on redistribution of wealth but the guy made a huge difference and did it through Christ.

[PixelPusher]

Everyone wants to claim King, of course. He's a transcendent figure in American history. Because a large number could identify with his goal and its basis, it was achieved. Yes, you can take parts of his agenda and find a common link with the principles upon which the nation was founded. That doesn't necessarily make those "conservative" nor King a conservative, especially considering that the next stage of his agenda was fairly standard modern liberal fare.

I don't think it's a bad thing for conservatives to make the connection, as what is often lost in the 'us v them' framework of American politics is that there is broad agreement on certain fundamental rights. Considering that it's commonplace to engage in hysteria such as comparing a politician to a Hitler, reminders that this country isn't anything close to that is a good thing. Still, such connections should be forthright, not cynical, and honest.

To be a Conservative, is to have no memory of how often the goal posts where moved before you insist they are sacred historical monuments, and should never be moved again.

"For years now, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and his associates have been deliberately undermining the foundations of internal order in this country. With their rabble-rousing demagoguery, they have been cracking the “cake of custom” that holds us together. With their doctrine of “civil disobedience,” they have been teaching hundreds of thousands of Negroes — particularly the adolescents and the children — that it is perfectly alright to break the law and defy cons uted authority if you are a Negro-with-a-grievance; in protest against injustice. And they have done more than talk. They have on occasion after occasion, in almost every part of the country, called out their mobs on the streets, promoted “school strikes,” sit-ins, lie-ins, in explicit violation of the law and in explicit defiance of the public authority. They have taught anarchy and chaos by word and deed — and, no doubt, with the best of intentions — and they have found apt pupils everywhere, with intentions not of the best. Sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind."

Will Herberg, "’Civil Rights’ and Violence: Who Are the Guilty Ones?", The National Review Sept. 7th, 1965

[TheManFromAcme]

Good post. I don't agree with King joining the anti war movement and taking a stand on redistribution of wealth but the guy made a huge difference and did it through Christ.

Amen

[Marcus Bryant]

Never claimed that all conservatives at the time supported King nor that some did not outright reject his goal and methods and resisted those. Which is why I stated that a conservative embrace of King's words today should be open and honest.

[TheManFromAcme]

Never claimed that all conservatives at the time supported King nor that some did not outright reject his goal and methods and resisted those. Which is why I stated that a conservative embrace of King's words today should be open and honest.

Agreed.

[ChumpDumper]

King was a socialist. It's little wonder Republicans want to retroactively make him a party member.

[TheManFromAcme]

King was a socialist. It's little wonder Republicans want to retroactively make him a party member.

Come on man. If he's a socialist, what's Obama? J.P. Morgan?

[ChumpDumper]

Come on man. If he's a socialist, what's Obama? J.P. Morgan?

Relatively speaking, Obama might as well be Morgan. King was much farther to the left near the end of his life. I don't expect you to be anything but ignorant about it.

[Marcus Bryant]

It's a testament to King's greatness that conservatives today embrace his vision, which, yes, was based on the principles on which the nation was ostensibly founded. Principles, yes, which were not lived up to from its inception until King's efforts, as well as the efforts of others who came before. Still, King's effort to make the nation live up to those principles doesn't make him a conservative. It was he who forced conservatives, as well as many who were not in the nation, to live up to those principles.

[TheManFromAcme]

Relatively speaking, Obama might as well be Morgan. King was much farther to the left near the end of his life. I don't expect you to be anything but ignorant about it.

You realize I am not attacking you in any way shape or form do you? Calling me ignorant is not required here, not whatsoever.
I take it as a opportunity to learn and teach just as well. If you don't agree, that is your option but please stop pretending to hold the nobel peace prize.

Act like a gentleman if your cabable of it.

[Marcus Bryant]

Yes, King certainly had views which were left-wing. Hence why making King out to be a conservative is disingenuous. Focusing on King's arguments about individual rights and vision for an America in which all individuals, regardless of race, would be equal before the law, which were rooted in the philosophy of the Revolution, has apparently obscured that fact for some conservatives today.

[ChumpDumper]

You realize I am not attacking you in any way shape or form do you? Calling me ignorant is not required here, not whatsoever.

What a "softie" you are.

I take it as a opportunity to learn and teach just as well. If you don't agree, that is your option but please stop pretending to hold the nobel peace prize.

I hold no prize, I'm just less ignorant on this subject than many. If you want to learn about MLK's political beliefs, read something other than Republican propaganda.

Act like gentleman if your cabable of it.

Or what? You'll shoot me?

[baseline bum]

Oops Heritage... King was also a proponent of what the Republicans call class warfare. Not quite the right-wing hero now? As Chomsky said, everyone remembers the King that marched in opposition to easy targets like racist Alabama sheriffs, but people have forgotten his "non-patriotic" critiques of our nation's domestic policy and military agression.

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/p...g-lecture.html

A second evil which plagues the modern world is that of poverty. Like a monstrous octopus, it projects its nagging, prehensile tentacles in lands and villages all over the world. Almost two-thirds of the peoples of the world go to bed hungry at night. They are undernourished, ill-housed, and shabbily clad. Many of them have no houses or beds to sleep in. Their only beds are the sidewalks of the cities and the dusty roads of the villages. Most of these poverty-stricken children of God have never seen a physician or a dentist. This problem of poverty is not only seen in the class division between the highly developed industrial nations and the so-called underdeveloped nations; it is seen in the great economic gaps within the rich nations themselves. Take my own country for example. We have developed the greatest system of production that history has ever known. We have become the richest nation in the world. Our national gross product this year will reach the astounding figure of almost 650 billion dollars. Yet, at least one-fifth of our fellow citizens - some ten million families, comprising about forty million individuals - are bound to a miserable culture of poverty. In a sense the poverty of the poor in America is more frustrating than the poverty of Africa and Asia. The misery of the poor in Africa and Asia is shared misery, a fact of life for the vast majority; they are all poor together as a result of years of exploitation and underdevelopment. In sad contrast, the poor in America know that they live in the richest nation in the world, and that even though they are perishing on a lonely island of poverty they are surrounded by a vast ocean of material prosperity. Glistening towers of glass and steel easily seen from their slum dwellings spring up almost overnight. Jet liners speed over their ghettoes at 600 miles an hour; satellites streak through outer space and reveal details of the moon. President Johnson, in his State of the Union Message12, emphasized this contradiction when he heralded the United States' "highest standard of living in the world", and deplored that it was accompanied by "dislocation; loss of jobs, and the specter of poverty in the midst of plenty".

So it is obvious that if man is to redeem his spiritual and moral "lag", he must go all out to bridge the social and economic gulf between the "haves" and the "have nots" of the world. Poverty is one of the most urgent items on the agenda of modern life.

There is nothing new about poverty. What is new, however, is that we have the resources to get rid of it. More than a century and a half ago people began to be disturbed about the twin problems of population and production. A thoughtful Englishman named Malthus wrote a book13 that set forth some rather frightening conclusions. He predicted that the human family was gradually moving toward global starvation because the world was producing people faster than it was producing food and material to support them. Later scientists, however, disproved the conclusion of Malthus, and revealed that he had vastly underestimated the resources of the world and the resourcefulness of man.

Not too many years ago, Dr. Kirtley Mather, a Harvard geologist, wrote a book en led Enough and to Spare14. He set forth the basic theme that famine is wholly unnecessary in the modern world. Today, therefore, the question on the agenda must read: Why should there be hunger and privation in any land, in any city, at any table when man has the resources and the scientific know-how to provide all mankind with the basic necessities of life? Even deserts can be irrigated and top soil can be replaced. We cannot complain of a lack of land, for there are twenty-five million square miles of tillable land, of which we are using less than seven million. We have amazing knowledge of vitamins, nutrition, the chemistry of food, and the versatility of atoms. There is no deficit in human resources; the deficit is in human will. The well-off and the secure have too often become indifferent and oblivious to the poverty and deprivation in their midst. The poor in our countries have been shut out of our minds, and driven from the mainstream of our societies, because we have allowed them to become invisible. Just as nonviolence exposed the ugliness of racial injustice, so must the infection and sickness of poverty be exposed and healed - not only its symptoms but its basic causes. This, too, will be a fierce struggle, but we must not be afraid to pursue the remedy no matter how formidable the task.

The time has come for an all-out world war against poverty. The rich nations must use their vast resources of wealth to develop the underdeveloped, school the unschooled, and feed the unfed. Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation. No individual or nation can be great if it does not have a concern for "the least of these". Deeply etched in the fiber of our religious tradition is the conviction that men are made in the image of God and that they are souls of infinite metaphysical value, the heirs of a legacy of dignity and worth. If we feel this as a profound moral fact, we cannot be content to see men hungry, to see men victimized with starvation and ill health when we have the means to help them. The wealthy nations must go all out to bridge the gulf between the rich minority and the poor majority.

In the final analysis, the rich must not ignore the poor because both rich and poor are tied in a single garment of destiny. All life is interrelated, and all men are interdependent. The agony of the poor diminishes the rich, and the salvation of the poor enlarges the rich. We are inevitably our brothers' keeper because of the interrelated structure of reality. John Donne interpreted this truth in graphic terms when he affirmed15:

No man is an Iland, intire of its selfe: every
man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the
maine: if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea,
Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie
were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends
or of thine owne were: any mans death
diminishes me, because I am involved in
Mankinde: and therefore never send to know
for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee.

[baseline bum]

To be a Conservative, is to have no memory of how often the goal posts where moved before you insist they are sacred historical monuments, and should never be moved again.

Wow. It doesn't get any more conservative than articles from William F. Buckley's own magazine. Nice find.

[TheManFromAcme]

What a "softie" you are.
I hold no prize, I'm just less ignorant on this subject than many. If you want to learn about MLK's political beliefs, read something other than Republican propaganda.

Or what? You'll shoot me?

You got what you wanted. I was hoping to continue having dialogue with you so that I can learn just as well. You win. Hope your happy. Instead your liberal hatred towards all things Conservative shines right through.

You'll notice that Mr. Bryant in here has a more civil approach to his opinons and though I may disagree with him, share some of his ideals.

Too bad. I really thought you had some credibility. Good luck with your prize. Lastly, do me/us a favor and don't make a career out of teaching and enriching minds, you do a terrible job.

[Marcus Bryant]

Such is the level of political discourse today that great figures in American history must be changed to suit partisan political purposes, primarily through the claiming process. That is, one side claims a given historical figure and then sets about to rewrite the history of that individual to suit their given narrative instead of an honest accounting. If you don't start with the proposition that King was a conservative, such tenuous and farcical stretches of the imagination are avoided.

Further, it should be ok in this country to disagree with a given historical figure on certain points. Yes, conservatives disagree with King's views on, say, public assistance and his stance on the Vietnam War, as they did and do with other left figures of the time.

Or, yet again, the team sport mentality of American politics renders the national discourse vapid.

[ChumpDumper]

You got what you wanted. I was hoping to continue having dialogue with you so that I can learn just as well. You win. Hope your happy. Instead your liberal hatred towards all things Conservative shines right through.

All you did was gainsay my contention that MLK was a socialist.

You'll notice that Mr. Bryant in here has a more civil approach to his opinons and though I may disagree with him, share some of his ideals.

Do you agree with his contention that MLK was far-left?

Too bad. I really thought you had some credibility. Good luck with your prize. Lastly, do me/us a favor and don't make a career out of teaching and enriching minds, you do a terrible job.

You certainly seemed to learn something about MLK today. You just are angry you were ignorant about it in the first place. If you are really here to learn, you have to accept your ignorance in the first place. I certainly am ignorant about many things. One person can't know everything.

[TheManFromAcme]

[Ignignokt]

TheManFromAcme is a moron.

Don't listen to him Chump.

He takes you seriously, and expects "good dialogue" and open discussion.

People should know better.

[ChumpDumper]

Yeah, he needs to go to you for that.

[spursncowboys]

TheManFromAcme is a moron.

Don't listen to him Chump.

He takes you seriously, and expects "good dialogue" and open discussion.

People should know better.

Yeah, he needs to go to you for that.