If Glenn Beck Hijacked Martin Luther King, Then Martin Luther King Hijacked Abraham Lincoln

A pretty good (certainly not completely objective, but by today’s horrendous standards of objectivity pretty good) article by Mary C. Curtis sets up the dilemma of Glenn Beck’s “8/28” rally at the Lincoln Memorial:

Glenn Beck Rally in D.C. Saturday: Honoring MLK’s Legacy — or Hijacking It?

Forty-seven years ago today, hundreds of thousands of Americans joined the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and witnessed the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his “I Have a Dream” speech, which summed up the hopes of generations.

Today, crowds are repeating that trek – by bus, train, car and plane — to the nation’s capital, with their own hopes and dreams about what America should stand for.

Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin — two conservative stars known more for their divisive political views than for their King-like stands for social justice — will lead Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally to pay tribute “to America’s service personnel and other upstanding citizens who embody our nation’s founding principles of integrity, truth and honor.”

At the same time, the National Action Network plans a “Reclaim the Dream” rally in Washington to honor King and the civil rights movement in its own way. Its leader, the Rev. Al Sharpton, acknowledges Beck’s right to rally, but not his claim to a part of King’s legacy.

One thing all sides and Glenn Beck himself can agree on: Beck is not Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Nevertheless, when Beck and Palin speak to a crowd gathered at the Lincoln Memorial, just like that day in 1963, the symbolism will be unmistakable.

Cindy Spyker, who is driving a group of 10 from Charlotte, N.C, has been to Washington before, for the 9/12 taxpayer rally last year and the protest of the health care reform bill. A member of CAUTION (Common Americans United to Inspire Our Nation), she said Beck is “one of the very few people willing to say what needs to be said, whether people like it or not. America was created on Christian-Judeo values.” The country has “turned away from faith,” she said, and “has to get back to principles like honor.” Spyker, 51, said of today’s rally: “Of course, it’s not so much the civil rights thing. What he’s trying to get across — content of character — is not about what we look like. It’s about who we are and how do we conduct ourselves, especially when people aren’t watching.”

Marette Parker will be taking a bus from Charlotte to a different Washington destination. Parker, 42, who is organizing a North Carolina chapter of National Action Network, is attending the group’s rally, starting at Dunbar High School and followed by a march to the site of the proposed King Memorial, which she said is “long overdue.”

Parker said that if King were alive today, he would “be proud that times have changed,” but would be saddened by problems that still exist. “We all have to come together as a community,” she said, “to mentor and motivate our young people.” She thinks Beck’s rally is “trying to hijack this particular day and steal media coverage,” she said. “We can’t let this happen.”

On his radio show Wednesday, Beck said: “I know that people are going to hammer me because they’re going to say, ‘It’s no Martin Luther King speech.’ Of course it’s not Martin Luther King. You think I’m Martin Luther King?” He said he has prepared only a few talking points so he doesn’t get in the way of “the spirit.” Though he has said the date wasn’t chosen with the anniversary in mind, when he found out he called the coincidence “divine providence.”

Whites “do not own” the legacy of Abraham Lincoln, and “blacks don’t own Martin Luther King,” Beck said on his show in June. “Not only is the event non-political, we have continuously encouraged those attending to avoid bringing political signs, political flyers, ‘I heart the RNC’ T-shirts and other similar partisan paraphernalia. There are plenty of opportunities to talk about politics. This isn’t one of them.”

Like I said, Mary Curtis did fine.  Her only display of bias is her describing Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin as harboring “divisive political views” without characterizing Al Sharpton the same way.  Because I can guarantee you that conservatives find Sharpton’s views every iota as divisive as liberals find Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin’s.  But I can live with that.

What I can’t live with is the notion that Glenn Beck has “hijacked” Martin Luther King, whether he intended to make the great civil rights leader a major part of his event or not.

So-called black “civil rights leaders” are arguing that Glenn Beck has no right to hold his August 28 event in front of the Lincoln Memorial because that hearkens us to Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” speech.  And that hijacks the legacy of Martin Luther King – who was black.

But if that’s the case, then Martin Luther King himself was hijacking the legacy of Abraham Lincoln – who was white.  Glenn Beck hit that one out of the park.

For those lefties who argue that Glenn Beck should be banned from “hijacking” King not because of race, but because of ideas, then conservatives can argue that King STILL hijacked Lincoln.  Because Abraham Lincoln didn’t stand for the radical race-based crap that the left argues that Martin Luther King epitomized.

The greatness of both Lincoln and King was that they transcended their race and became moral heroes of every people of every color and even every creed.

And like it or not, Glenn Beck has as much right to appeal to Martin Luther King as any black person does.  And it’s frankly racist to argue otherwise.

And speaking of racism, how would blacks have reacted had whites staged a counter-event to compete with, say, Louis Farrakhan’s Million Man March?  You don’t think there would have been cries of outrage?  Yet that’s basically what Al Sharpton did today.

One of the interesting issues underlying this debate about “hijacking” comes from the most famous lines in King’s speech:

I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four 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.

For the most part, that last line almost seems to be an embarrassment of the pseudo civil rights movement of today.  Maybe Martin Luther King said it, but he didn’t really mean it.  And conservatives are determined to hold the civil rights movement accountable to that standard.

As the pro-liberal and pro-Democrat so-called “civil rights leaders” denounce Glenn Beck and conservatives, which side is guilty of refusing to make “the color of their skin” the primary issue?

Allow me to quote myself:

I am beyond sick of this crap.  Where’s the CONGRESSIONAL WHITE CAUCUS that dedicates itself to securing political benefits for white people, and blacks be damned???  Where’s the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF WHITE PEOPLE that is operating with prestige and acclaim???  Where are the HISTORICALLY WHITE COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES that exist to educate white students rather than black students???  Where’s the UNITED CAUCASIAN COLLEGE FUND that exists to give scholarships to white students for the sake of being white???  Where’s the NATIONAL WHITE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE to secure business opportunities for white people against black people???

Hey, let me ask a more compelling question, given the occupant of the White House: where’s the national major white Republican politician who spent 20-odd years in a “church” that espoused a commitment to the white value system, which entails a commitment to the white community, a commitment to white self-determination, a commitment to the white family, a commitment to white education, a commitment to the white workforce, a commitment to the white ethic, a commitment to white progress, a commitment to support white institutions, and a commitment to pledge allegiance to all white leadership?

It’s not simply that liberals aren’t advancing a color-blind society; it’s that all they see is color, and they rabidly fixate on color and use color as an ideological weapon in every single imaginable way they can.

And, yeah, for the record, I’m just as sick of this crap now as I was back then.

One of the things that made Martin Luther King a transcendent figure was the fact that he straddled more than just a far left ideology.  He reached out and touched ALL people of ALL races.  Frankly, if he didn’t do so, he really isn’t all that great of a figure.

Some of what King said touched white people.  That was why his movement was ultimately so successful.  And why shouldn’t the white Americans who changed their views because of that movement be banned from it now?

The so-called “civil rights leaders” of today don’t want America to know how profoundly racist the Democrat Party has been throughout its history.  And they certainly don’t want you to know how rabidly racist and even rabidly anti-Martin Luther King the “spiritual mentor” of Barack Obama was.

But here’s a quote from Jeremiah Wright:

The civil-rights movement, Wright said, was never about racial equality: “It was always about becoming white . . . to master what [they] do.” Martin Luther King, he said, was misguided for advocating nonviolence among his people, “born in the oven of America.”

And why does Jeremiah Wright – Barack Obama’s pastor and spiritual mentor for more than twenty years – so despise Martin Luther King?  Because Martin Luther King wanted racial equality, and an emphasis on individual character.  Whereas so-called “civil rights leaders” like Jeremiah Wright want the emphasis to be on race-based preferential treatment apart from personal character.

But at least Jeremiah Wright – bigot that he is – had the integrity to honestly represent Martin Luther King’s primary message.  In that, he is far more honest than men like Al Sharpton, who dance around it with racial rhetoric, but never land on the heart of King’s message.  Sharpton will give equality with one finger, and then immediately take it away with the other hand.

The fact of the matter is that Martin Luther King was a registered Republican, as was his father before him.  And the fact of the matter is that:

During the civil rights era of the 1960s, Dr. King was fighting the Democrats who stood in the school house doors, turned skin-burning fire hoses on blacks and let loose vicious dogs. It was Republican President Dwight Eisenhower who pushed to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and sent troops to Arkansas to desegregate schools. President Eisenhower also appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren to the U.S. Supreme Court, which resulted in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision ending school segregation. Much is made of Democrat President Harry Truman’s issuing an Executive Order in 1948 to desegregate the military. Not mentioned is the fact that it was Eisenhower who actually took action to effectively end segregation in the military.

Democrat President John F. Kennedy is lauded as a proponent of civil rights. However, Kennedy voted against the 1957 Civil Rights Act while he was a senator, as did Democrat Sen. Al Gore Sr. And after he became President, Kennedy was opposed to the 1963 March on Washington by Dr. King that was organized by A. Phillip Randolph, who was a black Republican. President Kennedy, through his brother Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy, had Dr. King wiretapped and investigated by the FBI on suspicion of being a Communist in order to undermine Dr. King.

In March of 1968, while referring to Dr. King’s leaving Memphis, Tenn., after riots broke out where a teenager was killed, Democrat Sen. Robert Byrd (W.Va.), a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, called Dr. King a “trouble-maker” who starts trouble, but runs like a coward after trouble is ignited. A few weeks later, Dr. King returned to Memphis and was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

Not many people today – black or white – know that we would have had a powerful Civil Rights Act in 1957, but that Lyndon Baines Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Al Gore, Sr., Robert Byrd, and other Democrats opposed it.  The mainstream media propagandists have really done their job well.

Nor do they know that the often-lauded 1964 Civil Rights Act was largely the result of Republicans’ efforts and support:

Mindful of how Democrat opposition had forced the Republicans to weaken their 1957 and 1960 Civil Rights Acts, President Johnson warned Democrats in Congress that this time it was all or nothing. To ensure support from Republicans, he had to promise them that he would not accept any weakening of the bill and also that he would publicly credit our Party for its role in securing congressional approval. Johnson played no direct role in the legislative fight, so that it would not be perceived as a partisan struggle. There was no doubt that the House of Representatives would pass the bill.

In the Senate, Minority Leader Everett Dirksen had little trouble rounding up the votes of most Republicans, and former presidential candidate Richard Nixon also lobbied hard for the bill. Senate Majority Leader Michael Mansfield and Senator Hubert Humphrey led the Democrat drive for passage, while the chief opponents were Democrat Senators Sam Ervin, of later Watergate fame, Albert Gore Sr., and Robert Byrd. Senator Byrd, a former Klansman whom Democrats still call “the conscience of the Senate”, filibustered against the civil rights bill for fourteen straight hours before the final vote. The House of Representatives passed the bill by 289 to 126, a vote in which 79% of Republicans and 63% of Democrats voted yes. The Senate vote was 73 to 27, with 21 Democrats and only 6 Republicans voting no. President Johnson signed the new Civil Rights Act into law on July 2, 1964.

Liberals have fought long and hard for racial quotas and preferential treatment for blacks.  But the greatest civil rights leader of all was fundamentally opposed to them.

Let’s listen to Frederick Douglass, escaped slave and greatest of all champions of civil rights, has to say:

Frederick Douglass ridiculed the idea of racial quotas, as suggested by Martin Delany, as “absurd as a matter of practice,” noting that it implied blacks “should constitute one-eighth of the poets, statesmen, scholars, authors and philosophers.” Douglass emphasized that “natural equality is a very different thing from practical equality; and…though men may be potentially equal, circumstances may for a time cause the most striking inequalities.”  On another occasion, in opposing “special efforts” for the black freedmen, Douglass argued that they “might ‘serve to keep up very prejudices, which it is so desirable to banish’ by promoting an image of blacks as privileged wards of the state.”

So, as a Republican, exactly why is it that I should be banned for life from honoring the legacy of Martin Luther King, and why can’t I explain what aspect of his message won my support?

Al Sharpton and those who decry Glenn Beck as “hijacking” Martin Luther King are profoundly wrong for insinuating that nothing Martin Luther King preached supported the Republicans’ message.  Especially when King himself was a Republican when he was teaching those things; and especially when it was Republicans who were hearing his message and responding to the changes he urged on America.

And for the record, given the fact that Glenn Beck specifically focused on honoring our heroic troops and the tremendous Special Operations Warrior Foundation (go here to donate), it’s all the more despicable that demagogic ideologues such as Al Sharpton would demonize it.

I’ll guarantee you whose side our SEALs Delta Force, and other Special Operations warriors are on, whose children will be provided for if they fall fighting for this nation because of Glenn Beck’s event today.  Beck raised more than $5 million today.

Update, August 30: Al Sharpton said this about Glenn Beck:

“They want to disgrace this day and we’re not giving them this day. This is our day and we ain’t giving it away,” said Revered Al Sharpton. He and other civil rights leaders staged a separate rally nearby to mark the dream speech anniversary.

A day for “us.”  Black people.  And specifically, only black people who think like Al Sharpton.

The only racist bigot who “disgraced this day” was Al Sharpton and those who think like him.

Jeff Sessions’ Remarks In Sotomayor Confirmation Hearing

Transcript: Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.)
Opening Statement

Monday July 13, 2009

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your leadership.

And I believe you set up some rules for the conducting of this hearing that are consistent with past hearings, and I believe will allow us to do our work together. And I’ve enjoyed working with you on this process.

I hope this will be viewed as the best hearing this committee has ever had. Why not? We should seek that.

So, I join Chairman Leahy, Judge Sotomayor, in welcoming you here today. And it marks an important milestone in your life. I know your family is proud, and rightly so, and it’s a pleasure to have them with us today.

I expect this hearing and resulting debate will be characterized by a respectful tone, a discussion of serious issues, a thoughtful dialogue and maybe some disagreements. But we worked hard to do that, to set that tone from the beginning.

I’ve been an active litigator in federal courts. I’ve tried cases as a federal prosecutor and as attorney general of Alabama. The Constitution and our great heritage of law I care deeply about. They are the foundation of our liberty and our prosperity.

And this nomination is critical for two important reasons. First, justices on the Supreme Court have great responsibility, hold enormous power and have a lifetime appointment. Just five members can declare the meaning of our Constitution, bending or changing its meaning from what the people intended.

Second, this hearing is important, because I believe our legal system is at a dangerous crossroads. Down one path is the traditional American system, so admired around the world, where judges impartially apply the law to the facts without regard to personal views. This is the compassionate system, because it’s the fair system.

In the American legal system, courts do not make law or set policy, because allowing unelected officials to make law would strike at the heart of our democracy.

Here, judges take an oath to administer justice impartially. That oath reads, “I do solemnly swear that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and to equal right to the rich and the poor, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me under the Constitution and laws of the United States, so help me God.”

These principles give the traditional system its moral authority, which is why Americans respect and accept the ruling of courts, even when they disagree. Indeed, our legal system is based on a firm belief in an ordered universe and objective truth. The trial is a process by which the impartial and wise judge guides us to truth.

Down the other path lies a brave new world, where words have no true meaning, and judges are free to decide what facts they choose to see. In this world, a judge is free to push his or her own political or social agenda.

I reject that view, and Americans reject that view.

We have seen federal judges force their political and social agenda on the nation, dictating that the words “under God” be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance and barring students from even private, even silent prayer in schools.

Judges have dismissed the people’s right to their property, saying the government can take a person’s home for the purpose of developing a private shopping center.

Judges have, contrary to longstanding rules of war, created a right for terrorists captured on a foreign battlefield to sue the United States government in our own country.

Judges have cited foreign laws, world opinion and a United Nations resolution to determine that a state death penalty law was unconstitutional.

I’m afraid our system will only be further corrupted, I have to say, as a result of President Obama’s view that in tough cases the critical ingredient for a judge is, quote, “the depth and breadth of one’s empathy,” close quote, as well as his words, quote, “their broader vision of what America should be.”

Like the American people, I have watched this process for a number of years, and I fear that this thinking empathy standard is another step down the road to a liberal, activist, results-oriented, relativistic world, where laws lose their fixed meaning, unelected judges set policy, Americans are seen as members of separate groups rather than as simply Americans, where the constitutional limits on government power are ignored when politicians want to buy out private companies.

I feel we’ve reached a fork in the road, I think, and there are stark differences. I want to be clear. I will not vote for, and no senator should vote for, an individual nominated by any president who is not fully committed to fairness and impartiality toward every person who appears before them.

And I will not vote for, and no senator should vote for, an individual nominated by any president who believes it is acceptable for a judge to allow their personal background, gender, prejudices or sympathies to sway their decision in favor of or against parties before the court.

In my view such a philosophy is disqualified. Such an approach to judging means that the umpire calling the game is not neutral, but instead feels empowered to favor one team over another. Call it empathy, call it prejudice, or call it sympathy, but whatever it is, it’s not law. In truth it’s more akin to politics, and politics has no place in the courtroom.

Some will respond Judge Sotomayor would never say it’s never acceptable for a judge to display prejudice in that case, but I regret to say, Judge, that some of your statements that I’ll outline seem to say that clearly. Let’s look at just a few examples. We’ve seen the video of a Duke University panel, where Judge Sotomayor says, “It’s the Court of Appeals where policy is made, and I know, I know that this is on tape, and I should never say that and should not think that.”

And during a speech 15 years ago, Judge Sotomayor said, quote, “I willingly accept the way the judge must not deny the difference resulting from experience and heritage, but attempt continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate,” close quote.

And in that same speech she said, quote, “My experiences will affect the facts I choose to seek.” Having tried a lot of cases, that particular phrase bothers me. I expect every judge to seek all the facts.

So I think it’s noteworthy that when asked about Judge Sotomayor’s now famous statement that a wise Latina would come to a better conclusion than others, President Obama, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg declined to defend the substance of those remarks.

They each assume the nominee misspoke. But I don’t think it — but the nominee did not misspeak. She is on record as making this statement at least five times over the course of a decade. I am providing a copy of the full text of those speeches for the record.

Others will say that despite these statements, we should look to a nominee’s record, which they characterize as moderate. People said the same of Justice Ginsburg, who is now considered to be one of the most activist members of the Supreme Court in history.

Some senators ignored Justice Ginsburg’s philosophy and focused on the nominee’s judicial opinions. But that is not a good test, because those cases where necessarily restrained by precedent and the threat of reversal from higher courts. On the Supreme Court, those checks on judicial power will be removed, and the judge’s philosophy will be allowed to reach full bloom.

But even as a lower court judge, our nominee has made some troubled rulings. I’m concerned by the Ricci, the New Haven firefighters case recently reversed by the Supreme Court, where she agreed with the city of New Haven’s decision to change the promotion rules in the middle of the game. Incredibly, her opinion consisted of just one substantive paragraph of analysis.

Justice Sotomayor has said she accepts that her opinions, sympathies and prejudices will affect her rulings. Could it be that her time as a leader in the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, a fine organization, provides a clue to her decision against the firefighters?

While the nominee was chair of that fund’s litigation committee, the organization aggressively pursued racial quotas in city hiring and in numerous cases fought to overturn the results of promotion exams. It seems to me that in Ricci, Judge Sotomayor’s empathy for one group of firefighters turned out to be prejudice against another.

That is, of course, the logical flaw in the empathy standard. Empathy for one party is always prejudice against another.

Judge Sotomayor, we will inquire into how your philosophy, which allows subjectivity in the courtroom, affects your decision-making, like, for example, in abortion, where an organization of which you were an active leader argued that the Constitution requires taxpayer money to fund abortions; and gun control, where you recently noted it is settled law that the Second Amendment does not prevent a city or state from barring gun ownership; private property, where you ruled recently that the government could take property from one pharmacy developer and give it to another; capital punishment, where you personally signed a statement opposing the reinstatement of the death penalty in New York because of the inhuman psychological burden it places on the offender and the family.

So I hope the American people will follow these hearings closely. They should learn about the issues and listen to both sides of the argument and — and at the end of the hearing ask, if I must one day go to court, what kind of judge what I wish to hear my case? Do I want a judge that allows his or her social, political or religious views to change the outcome? Or do I want a judge that impartially applies the law to the facts and fairly rules on the merits without bias or prejudice?

It’s our job to determine which side of that fundamental divide the nominee stands.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

END

Newsweek Claims That Whites Who Don’t Vote For Obama Are Racists

Newsweek isn’t a completely in-the-tank-for liberals biased bullpoop rag.  They represent “legitimate journalism.”  Well, that’s the claim, anyway.

Of course, what passes for “legitimate journalism” often looks like the piece that recently emerged from the tiny little ideologue brain of Jacob Weisberg.

Here’s a representative sample:

But let’s be honest: the reason Obama isn’t ahead right now is that he trails badly among one group, older white voters. He lags with them for a simple reason: the color of his skin.

Just realize something: if you are white and you don’t vote for Barack Obama, it is for one and only one reason: you are a racist.

I would love to vote for a black President.  I would be quite happy to vote for a woman.  The only thing I ask is that they share my basic values, beliefs, and vision for this country.

I know, I know.  How racist and sexist of me.

Here’s the Newsweek article, in its entirety, with a little more of my outrage to follow: