Conservatives still don't get Martin Luther King.

[Tom Joad]

To all our conservatives friends, Happy Martin Luther King Day!

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/0...n-Luther-King#

"South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond wrote his constituents, "[W]e are now witnessing the whirlwind sowed years ago when some preachers and teachers began telling people that each man could be his own judge in his own case." Another, even more prominent conservative said it was just the sort of "great tragedy that began when we began compromising with law and order, and people started choosing which laws they'd break."

That was Ronald Reagan, the governor of California, arguing that King had it coming. King was the man who taught people they could choose which laws they'd break--in his soaring exegesis on St. Thomas Aquinas
from that Birmingham jail in 1963: "Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. ... Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong."

That's not what you hear from conservatives today, of course. What you get now are convoluted and fantastical tributes arguing that, properly understood, Martin Luther King was actually one of them (Glenn Beck) -- or would have been, had he lived. But, if we are going to have a holiday to honor history, we might as well honor history. We might as well recover the true story. Conservatives--both Democrats and Republicans--hated King's doctrines. Hating them was one of the litmus tests of conservatism.

continued

[donquixote99]

Lovely quote from St. Ronnie. That was from before he had Peggy Noonan to give him pretty, uplifting things to say....

The Chicago Tribune's editorial on the day of Martin Luther King's funeral is really incredible. It absolutely drips with racist resentment, beginning with a startling quote from Matthew that speaks of 'good seed' and 'bad seed.' A screeching dog whistle, in context.... It goes on to object to this supposed doctrine: "Yield the sidewalk to the migrants from the south who have descended on your cities. Honor their every want, because the "liberals" tell you it is your fault...." The basic line, stated in just about so many words, was 'don't mourn King, mourn all the trouble he caused.'

(There's a joke making fun of "women drivers' in the humor feature, found just to the right of the editorial. I hadn't realized it, but the Chicago Trib in those days was a lot like Fox News is now.)

I also read that Spiro Agnew, governor of Maryland at the time, called into a group of 100 black leaders from the state to an audience, the day before the funeral. These were 'black establishment' leaders: pasotrs, NAACP leaders, etc, men working in the movement made by King, and devoting their energies in those days to try to head off violence in the wake of the assassination. Agnew sets the stage with a big unit of state troopers, and a National Guard general standing next to him, and angrily tells them all off, saying there was no difference between them and the "...caterwalling, riot-inciting, burn-America-down type of leader."

Conservatives as they were, and as they still are.



Archive of Chicago Tribune April 9, 1968: scroll down to page 15 for editorial page: http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1968/04/09/

This book on Google is my basic source, and reports on Agnew's show-of-force: https://books.google.com/books?id=dM...aws%22&f=false

[Tom Joad]

I do not believe that a Martin Luther King national holiday could get through today's Republican congress.

[Pio1980]

Originally Posted by Tom Joad

I do not believe that a Martin Luther King national holiday could get through today's Republican congress.

One can only wonder about the Emancipation Proclamation going over. "What an aggregious violation of private property rights!" "Job killing, babble babble, snort snort!".


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