JLF and MLK

Submitted by gregflynn on Mon, 01/15/2007 - 1:06pm

Don't Forget this Holiday: the Birthday of Robert E. Lee

This is how the John Locke Foundation has acknowledged today's holiday in a post on their blog Friday. No other reference to today's Martin Luther King Jr holiday appears at the John Locke Foundation or Carolina Journal websites.

I think they owe an apology to Larry The Cable Guy with the Git-R-Done reference even if they won't apologize to the African-American community. Perhaps they think it's ok because the insult is bi-partisan.

...more below the fold...

The last time the John Locke Foundation acknowledged today's holiday was in the February 2005 issue of Carolina Journal:

UNC Schools Celebrate King With Music, Drama, Democrats

By JON SANDERS
Assistant Editor
Parades, music, drama, prayer breakfasts, and speakers helped University of North Carolina schools celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Apparently they couldn't find any Republicans celebrating Martin Luther King Jr Day and exercising their First Amendment rights on campus.

Maybe John Hood can't remember saying this in the November 2004 issue of Carolina Journal:

"Because in a public university obviously the First Amendment protections apply."

That comment and the following came in an interview by Hood with Alan Charles Kors of the "Foundation for Individual Rights in Education" who said:

If you could imagine what would happen on American campuses if someone immersed a portrait of Martin Luther King, Jr. in urine, the university would close for days of conscience, heads would roll and sensitivity training would become mandatory.

It's probably just as well they don't talk about Martin Luther King, Jr, too much even though he is a champion of individual rights. It seems they have trouble talking about him without making reference to bodily functions:

Appalachian State University hosted Chuck D as its keynote speaker. The former rapper last year performed at a notorious MoveOn.org fund-raiser, where he warned of “eight years run by a Colon, a Bush, and a Dick.” He also said that “Americanization is like McDonaldization” and, according to Matt Drudge, “appear[ed] to refer to American government under Bush administration as ‘cancer of civilization.’”

Chuck D did not make those statements at ASU but the Carolina Journal chose to dig them up. It's nice to know that Art Pope is paying these guys to do research based on Matt Drudge to sully the name of a true champion of individual rights.

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Comments

Several people celebrate Lee's birthday

Submitted by Betsy Muse on Mon, 01/15/2007 - 1:24pm.

in North Carolina and Virginia....so not that many, right?

They certainly have their fair share of imbeciles and morons at JLF, don't they?

Robin Hayes lied. Nobody died, but thousands of folks lost their jobs.

***************************
Vote Democratic, the ass you save may be your own.

MLK and REL

Submitted by gregflynn on Mon, 01/15/2007 - 1:37pm.

They are officially celebrated together in Mississippi. Maybe the John Locke Foundation would have more traction down there.

If only we could convince them to visit

Submitted by Betsy Muse on Mon, 01/15/2007 - 1:43pm.

and stay in Mississippi. Until then.........

Robin Hayes lied. Nobody died, but thousands of folks lost their jobs.

***************************
Vote Democratic, the ass you save may be your own.

One Mississippi

Submitted by gregflynn on Mon, 01/15/2007 - 1:46pm.

Why aren't they down there using the free market to help rebuild after Katrina? Oh yeah, that's right, the free market insurance industry has been screwing people out of their payments for re-building their homes and businesses even though people have been paying premiums for years.

Come on Greg.

Submitted by James on Mon, 01/15/2007 - 1:50pm.

What do you expect from White Boys for Bidness and Industry?

The truth is, the Puppetshow does have one black guy they like. In fact, they just loooooove to tell the story of Lunsford Lane, the first and only black entrepreneur ever, as least as far as JLF is concerned. It's all part of their North Carolina (Revisionist) History Project.

Lunsford Lane

Submitted by gregflynn on Mon, 01/15/2007 - 5:19pm.

Whose memory lives on Below the Beltline, at least in name.

Credit

Submitted by gregflynn on Mon, 01/15/2007 - 5:57pm.

John Hood has given Martin Luther King Jr credit for one thing.

In a review of the book America in Black and White: One Nation Indivisible, by Stephan Thernstrom and Abigail Thernstrom, in 1998, Hood explains how MLK Jr's arrest on a traffic violation supposedly led to JFK's Presidency.

Still, the political allegiances of many prominent leaders of the emerging civil rights movement remained complex. When Jack Kennedy ran for president, he met with Martin Luther King Jr. to solicit his support. King's father was a Republican, and the younger King said that he could not see "that there was much difference between Kennedy and Nixon." He declined to endorse either. But subsequent events proved Nixon's downfall. A couple of weeks before the election, a Georgia judge threw the younger King in jail for a traffic violation. Kennedy called Coretta Scott King to express his sympathy, while Bobby Kennedy persuaded the judge to spring him. Nixon, meanwhile, chose to remain silent, resisting the entreaty of baseball great Jackie Robinson, a Nixon supporter. "On election day Martin Luther King, Sr. voted for Kennedy, and so did hundreds of thousands of other African Americans," the Thernstroms write. This represented a modest jump in black support for the Democratic ticket--about nine percentage points--but enough to account for Kennedy's slim margin of victory.

Tin-foil hats will be available at the exit polls.

Give me Two

Submitted by Unique on Mon, 01/15/2007 - 6:04pm.

"Hood explains how MLK Jr's arrest on a traffic violation supposedly led to JFK's Presidency."

One tinfoil hat is not enough.

Hood

Submitted by James on Mon, 01/15/2007 - 6:25pm.

Bleh.

"I Have a Check"

Submitted by gregflynn on Mon, 01/15/2007 - 7:36pm.

Hood finally chimed in today at 3.53pm.

On this day set aside to honor King and the cause of equality under the law, I must admit to a quibble about one thing: I don't like the fact that his 1963 address at the Lincoln Memorial is called the "I Have a Dream” speech. I like the following turn of phrase better, though perhaps I'm just biased in favor of Founding Father and capitalist imagery, and wish it were more widely quoted and remembered:

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check.

Too perfect.

Submitted by James on Mon, 01/15/2007 - 8:58pm.

I guess that's why Stagemanager Hood is such a big fan of the payday lending industry. That check is really a debit card and it's way overdrawn. So, yes, Mr. King, we'll cash your little check. But there will be penalties. And the interest will just about kill you.

Beautiful analogy, A

Submitted by Leslie H on Tue, 01/16/2007 - 8:27pm.

Beautiful in the saddest most disturbing way. Memphis.

"They took all the trees and put them in a tree museum Then they charged the people a dollar 'n a half just to see 'em. Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone? They paved paradise and put up a parking lot."