January 17, 2006: Short Take on Fayetteville Public Access TV

Hello, this is Joe Alexander here for another Short Take. Today is Tuesday, January 17th and yesterday was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, and so everyone who works for the government and lives from the armed robbery and extortion euphemistically called taxation, got a holiday, and those of us who make a living in the free enterprise system and get our money from making voluntary free-will deals with other people, went to work as usual. The day before yesterday, Sunday, I listened to the Reverend Stiles's "Sunday Morning Coming Down" radio show on KXUA and he played the tape of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech that he gave at the March on Washington in 1963. I was 11 years old at the time and so I was vaguely aware that this march was happening and that Martin Luther King had given this memorable speech, but it wasn't particularly important to me at that time and I didn't know all that much about it. So I was glad for
this opportunity to hear the speech now as an adult with somewhat more awareness of the big picture than I had when I was 11 years old. I found the speech extremely moving and could see why this man Martin Luther King Jr. had such a strong effect on the hearts and minds of so many people. Two things in particular about the speech stand out especially in my mind. The first is
where he said that he wanted his kids to live in a country where they were judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. In other words it sounded to me like Martin Luther King believed the most important thing about people is not their race, but their own individuality and the character they have developed as individuals. And of course the character you develop as an individual is determined by the accumulation of all the free-will choices you make. Every day we have many seemingly small and not-too-significant choices to make, forks in the road where we can choose either to act with some honor and virtue or in a way that's kind of sleazy and scummy and not so virtuous. Do I tell the truth or fudge and lie a little bit because that appears to be to my benefit at the moment? Do I do this today or be a little bit lazy and put it off 'til tomorrow? Do I do my best to do this job right or do I let myself get away with some sloppiness and shoddiness? Do I treat other people the way I'd want to be treated or do I take advantage of some ability I may have to make someone else take the short end of the stick? Do I exercise and eat healthy today or do I
indulge myself in a little laziness and gluttony? Anyway, by whether or not we choose the way of virtue or vice in all the thousands of apparently unimportant little choices and decisions in life, we create good or bad character for ourself, and it's entirely up to us as individuals which way we go, it has nothing to do with our race or socio-economic class or gender or national or tribal affiliation. So what I heard Martin Luther King say was that he considered the most important thing about people is the character we each develop for ourselves as an individual and that's what we should be judged on, not our race or some other factor beyond our control. I didn't hear Dr. King say that any people should not be judged at all and allowed to get away with anything, and I didn't hear him say that he
thought his children should get any special favors or privileges because of the color of their skin. He just said he wanted his children judged on the character they created for themselves as individuals, not by the color of their skin, or, I would imagine, some other factor handed to them by life's
circumstances not under their control.

The other thing that impressed me about Dr. King's speech was that he sounded to me like he truly loved America and he truly believed in the ideals that motivated America's founders. He wasn't cynical about America and he didn't claim the founding ideals of America were misguided or
unrealistic or unworkable or impractical somehow. Dr. King believed in freedom, he wasn't a slime-bag like Bill Clinton who said the Constitution was a radical document that gave the people too much individual freedom. Dr. King didn't say the ideals of the founding fathers were impractical
today because they don't give the President enough power to fight the alleged terrorists as the evil monster who pollutes the White House today does. Dr. King didn't say the founding fathers of America were just a bunch of selfish aristocratic slave-owning dead white men who just wanted freedom for themselves and didn't care about anyone else, as the politically-correct left-wing useful-idiots-for-communism say today. No, it sounded to me like Dr. King believed America's founders were truly noble men who had the right ideas and went as far as they could at the time to put them into practice. He wasn't cynical about America's founders and didn't say their ideas were impractical; he wanted them more fully and perfectly realized. Of course the direction of America now is completely opposite of Dr. King's dream. Instead of freedom and dignity for everyone it's now back to feudalism, enormous wealth and privilege and power for the ruling elite and destitution and
subjection and slavery for everyone else whatever their race or color. Some call it the Global Plantation, welcome to the New World Order. Hearing that tape of the "I Have a Dream" speech definitely increased my regard for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and I hope you've enjoyed this Short Take.