Monday, January 21, 2008

MLK Day


"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

I have benefited from Dr. King's work. My life is better because all people - red, yellow, black & white - are treated equal in the eyes of the law. While we still need to work on the application of "all people are created equal," today is the day we can all rejoice in the life of this inspiring leader and look for the hate and injustice in our world that he nonviolently fought every day of his life.

5 comments:

JustaDog said...

Rosa Parks did more than MLK and I have greater respect for her.

Our constitution provides equal rights for all, but Democrats continue to take away those rights, continue to take away choices, and continue to manipulate the black population with lies and guilt trips.

Anonymous said...

Wah Wah Wah

King and his destroyed the Democrat party and I will never forgive him for that.

Anonymous said...

Unbelievable. "King and his destroyed the democrat party"? No, no, the century and a half of Democrats who continually oppressed human, not to mention civil, rights. I can only assume "and his" mean black people. So I'm pretty shocked that a) you're not a republican and b) someone one this website left that comment up.

Unbelievable that you Dems can talk about all types of choices except in public education. No, that would be too radical a thing, might shake up the system too much. Well, that's how people had talked about slavery itself, and desegregation would have destroyed the economic balance.

So it sickens me that after all these years both parties have spent simply learning right from wrong that we end up holding our party lines so close to our face we don't see anything else.

I'm ashamed to be a Democrat when the rest of the party demonizes anyone who wants a solution instead of rhetoric.

Phil Cardarella said...

Actually active Democrats were at the forefront of the Charter Public School movement in Missouri. It is private religious schools that pose the problem: Are you willing to see public money go to a Wahabi Muslim school that teaches that women are chattel -- or to an equally irrational Rapturist academy that teaches cavemen rode dinosaurs? You don't get to pick & choose people's religions.

Lyndon Johnson knew that the Civil Rights Act would cost the Democratic Party the Solid South -- and signed it anyway, because it was the right thing to do. The blame lies not with the Party willing to part company with Strom Thurmond, but with the Party willing to accept him into their leadership.

Anonymous said...

Re Phil's comment--I agree that there are some potential problems, but the way I see it, the more people voice their concerns and research the issue instead of a hasty dismissal, the better legislation we get. Typically (this is how it works in other states that have tuition tax credits which are substantially different than vouchers), a state board decides which private schools would be eligible to receive scholarships, which assuages concerns like that. Instead of being against school choice because of its potential problems, I'd rather see some Democrats working to have their concerns addressed.

Point well taken, and while both parties have sordid sections of history to claim, education is one of those universal "we know this is right" kind of issues that provides an impetus to reach across the aisle and brainstorm simply as leaders instead of as leaders of a particular party hauling along particular endorsements and supporters and policies. It seems recently these albatross have hurt the ideals of the Democrat party.