Posted 12:56 PM by Jason
Obligatory MLK Day post

Seems like every year the left and right both try to lay claim to the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.  Now, as a righty, I find the claim by the right to be interesting, but probably not entirely accurate.  That is to say, if MLK were alive today, I am not sure that he wouldn’t be a lot like Jesse Jackson.  I also don’t really like that students are given MLK day off, but rarely Presidents’ Day or Columbus Day, and never Armistice Day.  Not that we really need all of these days off, to be sure, but I think that the varying emphasis on the days distorts the importance of the actor or event.  MLK wasn’t unimportant, but was he more important than Washington? Lincoln? Columbus?  But, this is his day, so I will deliver.  Here is a Heritage Foundation WebMemo on King and his legacy.

“It is time for conservatives to lay claim to the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. King was no stalwart conservative, yet his core beliefs, such as the power and necessity of faith-based association and self-government based on absolute truth and moral law, are profoundly conservative. Modern liberalism rejects these ideas, while conservatives place them at the center of their philosophy. Despite decades of its appropriation by liberals, King’s message was fundamentally conservative.”

That’s just the beginning, but it isn’t long, so read the whole thing.  


     

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