I just realized something.
Martin Luther King was only 39 when he was assassinated. Thirty-nine. That's two years younger than I am. And look what he accomplished for his country. The courage of that man beggars belief, and what he gave to this country -- not least his life -- is immeasurable.
Watch this excerpt from his final speech:
I was thinking today what a horrible year that was, 1968, and what a horrible time. There were more bad years to come, with the 1970s, but '68 seems like such a high-water mark of hatred and anarchy. However frustrated all of us, left, right and center, get with the time we now live in, let's at least be grateful that we're not living through that again -- and pray that it never returns. I was only one year old when King was murdered, but just trying to imagine the trauma of that event for the country is enough to shake me up.
And now, 40 years after King was killed, a black man stands a great chance of being elected president. Because King lived. That's something for all Americans, no matter what your politics, to be proud of, and grateful for. God bless his memory.
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Charles Cosimano, in all due respect,....and I mean that.......your rather stunning post about being in college broadcast news when MLK was shot helps explain why so many of your 2008 posts make reference to your neighborhood bar.
"Note to readers: if you want to yell at me for what a hateful, unprincipled tool of the Jews and Dick Cheney I am, have at it."
Dunno what relationship, if any, you have with Dick Cheney, and I hesitate to call you hateful or unprincipled. But I KNOW you're not a tool of the Jews. After all, if Jews really did run the media and the economy, I wouldn't be broke, and I'd have an easier time getting published!
Of course, no conservative worth his salt back in 1968 gave a fig about Martin Luther King. The very fact that he was assassinated that year makes him palatable to conservatives. So I don't want to hear about how Rod Dreher would have been some sort of Freedom Rider in the 1960s.
What a rich inner life you must have. And what a gift for advancing a conversation into fruitful and interesting areas.
"Of course, no conservative worth his salt back in 1968 gave a fig about Martin Luther King."
Some people who are conservative now were not conservative in 1968. In 1968 a person who rejected same-sex marriage and abortion would be moderate or average. A person who believed in overthrowing non-Communist regimes that oppressed women and enforced belief in God could plausibly have been on the Left.
Rod Dreher was one-year-old when King died. I was not even born. It's not very logical to assume because he's a conservative among those born in 1967 he'd therefore have been conservative if he'd been born in 1947. It's a different world and set of circumstances. He would've been a child from 1972-1985. In that period the whole liberalist experiment of the 1960s seemed like a failure even to many who believed it. Radical Leftist and Anti-American groups committed terrorist acts. If he'd been born in 1947 he would've been a kid of 1952-1965. That was a period where the Civil Rights movement was largely Christian, moderate Republicans were the main powerholders, malaise with liberalism had not set in, and the most fringe forces were Right-wingers.
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