Tomorrow is the official celebration of the life of Martin Luther King. Like all of us, he had his faults, on which his critics seized at every opportunity, and I’m sure that he and I would have disagreed on many things, but what a courageous man in the cause of justice he was. To remind ourselves of his greatness, it’s worth re-reading (or reading for the first time) his famous August 28, 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech. Nothing could better remind us of what he strove for and of what he died for. (A short clip from the speech can be found here.)
In an age when we see threats to liberty from so many sides and when the sheer size of the state continues to grow (most especially as an often irrational and ineffective response to the threat of terrorism), it’s easy to think that there is must be less freedom today than….well, some time in the past. Although an understandable reaction to very real threats to freedom and justice, such attitudes are fundamentally erroneous. Not only is there more entrepreneurial freedom all round for many forms of enterprise (transportation, finance, international trade, etc., etc.) than was the case ten, twenty, or thirty years ago, and more freedom to express one’s opinions without fear of the police, but black men and women no longer have to step off the sidewalk when a white policeman approaches. And for that, at least, we have people such as Martin Luther King to thank.
While I certainly agree that Martin Luther King had many faults, but who exactly are his critics. Can you name one prominent person who actually will criticize The great “Doctor.” This includes even people like Pat Buchanan who praises him Death of the West.
While I admit that Rev. King was courageous, I fail to see how he did anything to promote liberty. In fact, is there anything besides a few universalist platitudes in his plagarized “I Have a Dream Speech” ( http://chem-gharbison.unl.edu/mlk/whose_dream.html ) that actually discusses expanding liberty? Other than destroy federalism and freedom of association, what exactly did Martin Luther King do that we should be so enamored with. Oh yes, well blacks don’t have to step off the sidewalk.
“I fail to see how he did anything to promote liberty.”
“Oh yes, well blacks don’t have to step off the sidewalk.”
Mr. Epstein suggests that not being humiliated, beaten, assaulted, spit upon, denied justice in courts of law, and not fearing for one’s life is an “Oh yes” matter, with “Oh yes” seeming to be the equivalent of “Yeah, right” or “Whatever.” I think that if Mr. Epstein were to suffer from such assaults on his person on a daily basis, and it were to stop, he would count that as a major increase in his liberty — the liberty to work where he wanted without being beaten by racist union organizers, the liberty to walk where he wanted without being arrested by racist police for “vagrancy,” the liberty to express his opinions without being beaten by those same racist police for being “uppity.” “Oh yes”…only that.
Did King destroy federalism? No, he didn’t. He insisted that the federal government do the job set out in the U.S. Constitution (Article IV, Sections 2 and 4, Amendment XIV, Section 1, and Amendment XV). That federalism has been eroded in many other ways is not attributable solely to the demand that the federal government do its job by protecting the rights of citizens from being invaded by their own state governments. As to freedom of association, the right to discriminate on the basis of race was diminished, but so it was beforehand, as well, when blacks suffered the discriminatory force of state power to prevent them from cooperating in the marketplace with each other or with people of other races. (Consider that before forced busing was undertaken to attempt to achieve “racial balance” [an effort that was substantially a failure], it had been used in order to achieve racial imbalance, by busing black kids miles away to black schools. Many of the “conservative” opponents of forced busing only objected to one kind of forced busing, but not to the other.)
In some ways we are less free than we were thirty years ago. A variety of absurd bureaucratic regulations have crept into our every day lives. (Of course, on net, we have more economic liberty than we did when entry and prices were regidly controlled for many industries by federal regulatory commissions.) But in many ways we are much freer today than we were thirty years ago. For gay people (for everyone else, too) there has been an increase in liberty because they are no alonger afraid of police raids, or of beatings and extorted sexual favors imposed by sadistic “vice” cops. For entrepreneurs barriers to entry into previously cartellized markets are gone. And black people don’t have to step off the sidewalk when a white policeman approaches. Yes, that, too.
Those represent increases in freedom. They are not easy to measure, but they are important, nonetheless. Those increases in freedom were won because of a number of factors, from the ameliorating effects of free exchange (which tends to break down sentiments of hatred and to widen the spheres of free association) to the sheer courage and determination of people no longer to submit to injustice. Dr. King may not have understood the role of markets as well as one might have wished, but he did understand the role of courage and determination.
I anticipated that someone would post a note pointing out that Dr. King borrowed great lines for his speech. Duh. How many great orations have been modeled on earlier ones? Should we knock Cicero for his use of great orations given centuries earlier by Democritus? That was precisely the sort of thing that bitter old right-wingers used to say about King: he was a plagiarizer, a womanizer, and so on. And? Even if true, would those charges diminish the courage he showed when the police dogs were set on him? When he galvanized a nation to put an end to Jim Crow laws? When he insisted on the right of every human being to equality under the law? It’s the kind of complaint made by people who refuse to acknowledge human courage and goodness when they see it and can only search for flaws and imperfections.
Cicero probably borrowed much more from Demosthenes than from Democritus 😉
Joel,
Ack! Thanks for correcting that. Yes, of course you’re right. Sorry for the brain glitch. 😕
(A number of Cicero’s speeches are known as his Philippics because they were modeled on Demosthenes’ attacks on Philip of Macedon.)
Epstein demonstrates that the difference between vision and platitude is often one of perspective. King set out a powerful vision in his ‘Dream’ speech, with lines such as:
“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.”
I find it ironic that Epstein should ask “who are his critics,” given that there are quite a few of them among his buddies at LewRockwell.com. (http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/epstein9.html ). See for instance Alan Turin writing: “Robert E. Lee is a better man to honor than Martin Luther King.” (http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/turin4.html )