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(courtesy amazon.com)

“By our silence, by our willingness to compromise principle, by our constant attempt to cure the cancer of racial injustice with the Vaseline of gradualism, by our readiness to allow arms to be purchased at will and fired at whim, by allowing our movie and television screens to teach our children that the hero is one who masters the art of shooting and the technique of killing, by allowing all these developments, we have created an atmosphere in which violence and hatred have become popular pastimes.” – Martin Luther King Jr. quoted in The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr [via swap.stanford.edu]

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56 COMMENTS

  1. *sigh* A great man certainly, but it’s hard not to let my respect slip just a little.

    I’d always been suspicious of the left’s attempt to claim him as a super far left progressive, but this seems to bolster that view. Still I can’t deny him credit for his accomplishments.

    • It’s alright to respect a man who doesn’t fall in lock-step with your every thought, belief and opinions. Truly a great man who deserves better than this today.

      FLAME DELETED

    • Not going to make me popular, but both of the men picture owed a lot to armed contemporaries. When you have two “rebellions” taking the same stand, its always preferable to work with the one that seems less violent.

      Without Bhagat Singh, Gandhi doesn’t get the time of day from the British. Without Malcom X (pre-hajj), MLK is just a kooky minister that LBJ and other whites can ignore.

      This doesn’t devalue what Gandhi and King accomplished, but it suggests that we narrow to spotlight a little too much.

      • I have said that a billion times and I get laughed at every single time. There was no desire to work with Martin Luther King Jr. until Malcolm X. One will take the slap. The other will provide it. Who would you want to deal with?

    • Link is to Stefan Molyneux’s “Truth about MLK” Video. The guy was a great orator and definitely worked towards an admirable end, but he had no idea how economics works, was ridiculously unfaithful in his marriage, plagiarized his doctoral thesis, and fraternized with communists. Stefan provides sources for all his claims in the description of the video.

  2. There was mostly cowboys on TV when MLK was around. Boy if he thought that was violent, he should get some of today’s shows . I thought MLK was peaceful and non-violent, but owned firearms for self defense.

    • I agree. However, I have a lot of very good friends who are black, and many of them are anti-gun. We just agree to disagree and get along very well otherwise.

      Then again, most of my extended family is white and anti-gun. One is from NYC and I got an earful when I made thr mistake of mentioning guns. Despite all that, they are still my family.

      The point is that we can still respect MLK even if we don’t agree with him on guns.

      • I have a respect for the man, he did amazing things for race equality in a time where black people were being treated in an absolutely shameful manner. I just don’t believe anybody is worthy of being labeled a saint, we need to know and acknowledge their shortcomings as well.

      • I have finally found common ground about guns if the left will meet us half way,if you don’t want a gun,don’t have a gun,if you want a gun,have one.The left needs to back off before they start something they wished they hadn’t.

  3. King owned guns and was turned down for a ccw in Alabama after his home was firebombed. Supposedly he gave up all of his guns later on and went pure pacifist. I would not be surprised if he didn’t keep at least one in his bedside table.


  4. MLK and His Guns
    Adam Winkler, Professor of Law, UCLA

    Posted: 01/17/2011 11:25 pm EST Updated: 05/25/2011 6:25 pm EDT

    “One issue on everyone’s mind this Martin Luther King Jr. day was gun control…. its appropriate to remember King’s complicated history with guns.

    Most people think King would be the last person to own a gun. Yet in the mid-1950s, as the civil rights movement heated up, King kept firearms for self-protection. In fact, he even applied for a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

    A recipient of constant death threats, King had armed supporters take turns guarding his home and family. He had good reason to fear that the Klan in Alabama was targeting him for assassination.

    William Worthy, a journalist who covered the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, reported that once, during a visit to King’s parsonage, he went to sit down on an armchair in the living room and, to his surprise, almost sat on a loaded gun. Glenn Smiley, an adviser to King, described King’s home as “an arsenal.”

    As I found researching my new book, Gunfight, in 1956, after King’s house was bombed, King applied for a concealed carry permit in Alabama. The local police had discretion to determine who was a suitable person to carry firearms. King, a clergyman whose life was threatened daily, surely met the requirements of the law, but he was rejected nevertheless. At the time, the police used any wiggle room in the law to discriminate against African Americans.

    Ironically, the concealed carry permit law in Alabama was promoted by the National Rifle Association thirty years earlier. Today, the gun rights hardliners fight to eliminate permits for concealed carry, as Arizona has done.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-winkler/mlk-and-his-guns_b_810132.html

  5. Browsing through King’s Wikipedia page it’s amazing how wrong he was on some of his positions. For instance there’s this;

    ‘King stated that black Americans, as well as other disadvantaged Americans, should be compensated for historical wrongs. In an interview conducted for Playboy in 1965, he said that granting black Americans only equality could not realistically close the economic gap between them and whites. King said that he did not seek a full restitution of wages lost to slavery, which he believed impossible, but proposed a government compensatory program of $50 billion over ten years to all disadvantaged groups.[67]

    He posited that “the money spent would be more than amply justified by the benefits that would accrue to the nation through a spectacular decline in school dropouts, family breakups, crime rates, illegitimacy, swollen relief rolls, rioting and other social evils”.[68] He presented this idea as an application of the common law regarding settlement of unpaid labor, but clarified that he felt that the money should not be spent exclusively on blacks. He stated, “It should benefit the disadvantaged of all races”.’

    Perhaps if we had only spent $50 billion. I believe to date LBJ’s ‘War on Poverty’ has run the tab up to $15 trillion, yet from 1965 to the early 1990s the violent crime rates skyrocketed, school dropouts increased, family breakups increased. Just about everything he thought would be cured by a taxpayer handout turned out to make things much worse.

    The man did had a few good ideas but if he hadn’t become a martyr he’d have been forgotten long ago.

    • Just an fyi, I think you’re the first person to ever read Playboy for the articles. I couldn’t take your comment seriously after I saw the source.

      • Playboys back in ’65 tended to be a little hairy for my tastes. And I just lifted that quote from Wikipedia. It’s not like I went rifling through my collection searching for that interview.

        • Not saying you’re wrong, but I’m really skeptical about this quote. Two issues I have with this are:

          1. Quoting Wikipedia – anyone can write, right or wrong, on any subject, without verified sources. They might be right, but who’s checking?

          2. Not saying it didn’t happen, but would MLK really have sat down for an interview with Playboy as a Baptist minister? I’m sure he knew who they were and what they did.

        • I could not reply to Archangel187 but the interview was done by Mr. Alex Haley (Autobiography of Malcolm X) and published by Playboy in 1965.

        • ‘…would MLK really have sat down for an interview with Playboy as a Baptist minister?’

          Would that same Baptist minster have numerous well documented affairs?

    • I wonder how much of that trillions meant for the programs against poverty actually made it to the programs? How much was “diverted” to other .gov ops and into the pockets of officials and people like Jesse Jackson?

      As for compensating people for the atrocities committed by the slave states, I’m all for it. After all, my civil rights are being violated every day in CA. I need to get paid.

  6. I never understood the idea that we have to ignore/suppress some media (movies, TV, games) because its influences the youth of today but we have to use some media (the bible) to influence the youth of today.

    • It’s simple, really. Movies and video games often present a different world view from the parents and so they fear it will negatively affect their children. People are inherently lazy and eliminating the challenge to their world view would be easier than doing actual parenting and explaining to their children that not everyone is like them.

  7. I wonder if the civil rights movement 50 years ago and its impact on people who now serve in government, laid the foundation of tolerance for Islamist and Jihadist today.

    • Umm, I see it as more of the progressives, which is based in communism, as using the civil rights movement, (which was needed) to implement their agenda which is to teach a hatred of our traditional American culture and push multiculturalism. So the only culture that is acceptable to denigrate and demean is our own american culture and christian beliefs and to embrace every foreign culture and religion without judgement or discernment.

  8. It has been an open secret for many years now. Rev King was surrounded by guns but he personally did not carry one.
    This sounds very familiar. Rosie O’Donnell has admitted to the samething. This white lesbian believes only her white male body guards should have guns.

    There are stories about the deacons for defense and justice in 1965 Life magazine, the new York times, LA times and other papers as well. I found these stories on my own back in 2000.
    You can find pro gun quotes from Gandhi as well. The pro gun civil rights groups in India use these quotes in their battle for gun rights.

    The progressive left will always edit out the righteous use of violence by people of color because at heart the left is as racist as the klu klux klan.
    The difference is the left has a college degree.

    The left wing historians say Rev King gave up his guns. Those guns never left the king home. Mrs King kept them to protect their small children from home invaders, if they got past the neighborhood armed guards walking the street all night.

  9. Especially, as a Christian, he ignores The Christ’s command that if you have no sword, sell your cloak to buy one. Luke, 22:36..

    Christ was a peaceful man, not a pacifist.

    But like all human beings MLK was not perfect. He meant well, but like many people, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

  10. Off topic and not PC – being a redneck. It’s Robert E. Lee’s birthday, well it used to be. Funny how it just happened to be changed in Alabama. Hmmmmmm.

    • Politically Correct. The ability to have people enslave their own minds, and be happy for the chains.

      It is simply another example of the re-writing the Icons of history to make the current tyranny more acceptable.. If people reject all roots to their past, then people without an anchor can be more easily controlled.

      This is why the attacks on our Founding Fathers as being a bunch of Old Slave Owning White Guys. It gives an excuse to attack the foundations of our culture. instead of accepting that our culture of freedom and individual liberty has been a work in progress, it encourages people to throw the baby out with the bath water, and embrace the evils of the current progressive “solution” to problems that they create. Hence, “white privilege” as only one example.

    • We used to celebrate General Lee’s birthday in the great state of Georgia but some of us aren’t allowed to celebrate our cultural heritage anymore.We do however celebrate cinco de mayo. I seriously doubt they’ll blast his monument off of Stone Mountain though. My Confederate battle flag is flying high today.I’m sure someone will comment that they won so get over it but I haven’t heard of any guys pushing 200 lately.I served in the USAF in the 20 century.

  11. “….we have created an atmosphere in which violence and hatred have become popular pastimes.”

    Oh, piffle. Or better yet, TH fans, “Same as it ever was…..same as it ever was….”

    People have been fascinated and entertained by violence for all of recorded history. Read your mythology and you’ll find stories of rape, murder, and various and sundry violent acts. Most polytheistic religions have a whole god devoted to War, somtimes multiple gods for various aspects of war (strategy, battlefield chaos, care for the wounded, etc.) There were lesser gods for other conflicts and violence-oriented portfolios; like family feuds, weapons, strife and victory. Even monotheistic religions have their angry gods.

    Down to Earth, the ancient Romans had the Colosseum. The ancient Athenians had their court system. They loved conflict so much that not only was court considered and attended as entertainment, but juries were 200+ members strong, sometimes as many as 6,000 people!

    A murder trial was the best. They’d try the guy once, for his offense against the victim’s family. Then they’d try him again, for his offense against the gods. If they couldn’t reach a guilty verdict on him, then they’d prosecute and exile the murder weapon itself. Sound familiar? (Does a suppressor have the right to remain silent? Discuss!)

    We can march through history and stop at every intersection of actual events and society’s choice of entertainment. Some are barbaric by modern standards, while others are silly. Monster movie posters from the 1930s used to brag of their movie being “a holocaust of horror.” Please. You can see the strings suspending the ghost.

    To be fair, there is such a thing as age appropriate entertainment. You want to avoid nightmares, after all. Nevertheless, your kid is not going to become a serial killer because he watched a movie or played a video game, and certainly not because he watched “The Rifleman” every day after school.

    • I’m sure someone will take advantage of today and exact some justice on the White man because his ancestors were better at winning wars and building civilizations than any other race.

    • …and you may find yourself…in an internet forum.

      …and you may find yourself…in a political argument

      …and you may ask yourself…well, how did I get here?

  12. By most accounts, MLK kept arms despite the law, and indeed went pacifist later on. Now, does that mean he was unarmed? Probably not. I’m sure he kept something that goes bang close at hand while at home.

  13. Welp, since I obviously can’t disagree with anything someone says and still respect them I guess I am done with the good Doctor. /sarc

    I truly admire and respect the non-violent. I just don’t walk that path. And I don’t try to force my path on anyone else, either.

    It’s worth noting that really what he’s pointing out is the hypocrisy of those who claim to want to end violence while practically bathing in the worship of it.

    • How do you figure PeterK? Which group are you saying worships violence? You have the Progressives, many that supposedly are against violence and carrying a gun and yet they fight for the right to murder the unborn, with over 50 million murdered, and counting.

      Then you have the gangster culture worshiping violence, lawlessness and being a “gangsta”, with a consumate high rate of murder and being incarcerated.

      Then you have the conservatives, many that worship the Christ, that fight for the right to KABA, as well being law abiding and only using a weapon in defense from an unprovoked attack.

      The conservatives, in particular the ones licensed to carry a weapon, are demonstraby the most law abiding and non-violent of any demographic here in the states, yet they are the ones that promote the carrying of a lethal weapon.

      So it seems like the ones that end up worshiping and promoting violence are the progressives that support the monopoly of force by government. The government, particularly in it’s proven history of mass genocide of hundreds of millions, both the born and unborn alike, in the last hundred years and gangsters.

      • as an addendum, I would add that conservatives, independents and even some liberals, at least, of the old school liberals; that support freedom and personal liberty. that legally carry weapons for self-defense, are some of least violent and most law abiding of any demographic.

  14. Meh-claim King or not. Whatever he did then has been undone by his ”successors” the poverty pimps et all…anyone with a modicum of IQ knows King tended anti-war,socialist and wanted gubmint to redress all so-called injustice. Who cares if he had guns?-he had guys guarding him. All we have now is gimme gimme gimme.

  15. I’ve noticed over the years that liberals want to invoke king”s name all the time but just can’t bring themselves to agree with his definition of what racism is.I don’t recall king ever saying that disagreeing with a black person or a white liberal was racist.I also wonder why the feds won’t release those tapes the FBI made of him when he was partying with prostitutes,they say they are going to release the tapes around 2027,so the tapes do exist and there must be something to hide or they would have released them 40 years ago.I also wonder why they don’t honor the soldiers of the armies of the US,who were killed by democrats freeing american blacks,not that this was the original intent of the north.King also was one of the founders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference,I’m a Southern Christian and they don’t speak for me.I also wonder why there isn’t a northern poverty law center.

  16. I like it! MLK doesn’t blame the gun for all things evil. Lov-in ittttt.

    ” … the right to defend one’s home and one’s person when attacked has been guaranteed through the ages by common law.”
    – Martin Luther King

    I know MLK did eventually give up his guns and went completely non-violent (and wanted to prove as much by disarming). But it certainly appears that he believed that people had the right to defend themselves. His choice to disarm and take a pacifist route of nonviolence was his choice and I respect him for it (Gandhi did similar). However, I don’t want to be a martyr as MLK was – so I’m going to keep my guns!

  17. by our readiness to allow arms to be purchased at will and fired at whim

    I agree. We shouldn’t just buy guns and start blasting at each other. Doesn’t sound good to me. But I don’t construe this to mean that he thought a person shouldn’t be able to buy guns or defend themselves. As MLK has stated otherwise.

    by allowing our movie and television screens to teach our children that the hero is one who masters the art of shooting and the technique of killing,

    I agree. Teach your kids morals and values. Murdering people is not cool.

  18. Personally, if progressives are ramming home their agenda of social justice, I’m gonna be all about the Vaseline of gradualism. Or Vaseline of anything. Even Vaseline of Vaseline.

  19. by our readiness to allow arms to be purchased at will and fired at whim, Yeah, right, we all buy guns and just blast away at each other on a whim.
    by allowing our movie and television screens to teach our children that the hero is one who masters the art of shooting and the technique of killing, Well, that would be the Libtards of Hollyweird.
    by allowing all these developments, we have created an atmosphere in which violence and hatred have become popular pastimes.” Maybe in your hood, but not in mine.

  20. So how come most non-WASP European descended folk are very functional and why are so many in the Black Environment dysfunctional?
    I would think the Irish should be totally dysfunctional being under occupation for 700 years, being in a country with a population of 8 million going to 4 million, potato famines, covert genocide programs, being the basis of the Soldier of the State economy in Colonial times, and having a lower socio-economic status than Afro-Americans.
    Germans really did not fare very well either. I have ancestors that were lynched out of the Rhineland and they had some bad potato famines.

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