"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter," twittered Brandon Keser this morning, quoting Martin Luther King on the occasion of this 25th observation of MLK Day. The hare-brained idea floating about in the "post-vitriolic" Tucson-massacre ether that would urge Democrats and Republicans to cross the aisle and sit down together for the forthcoming SOTU comes to mind. They would have us become silent about our deeply-held philosophical differences, forgetting that those two sides of the aisle symbolize the great deliberative tradition of our democratic republic. "GOP T-Shirt Logo for bi-partisan seating at SOTU," above, h/t danthebarbarian on twitter.
"Everyone quotes pretty much the same MLK passages; I had to go in a different direction," writes twitter buddy dustbury, aka Charles G. Hill. Looking beyond the audacious "I Have a Dream" speech others are citing in observance of this 25th celebration of Martin Luther King Day, Hill pulls out King's Montgomery, Alabama speech at the start of the bus boycott of December 1955 in his post "Locating the turning point." As we twittered him back, it resonates in today's "vitriolic" echo chamber where so many of our trigger-happy friends on the left side of the aisle are all too quick to project their own violent impulses onto us tea partiers here on the right. Listen to Reverend King:
And I want to say that we are not here advocating violence. We have never done that. I want it to be known throughout Montgomery and throughout this nation that we are Christian people. We believe in the Christian religion. We believe in the teachings of Jesus. The only weapon that we have in our hands this evening is the weapon of protest. That’s all.
And certainly, certainly, this is the glory of America, with all of its faults. This is the glory of our democracy. If we were incarcerated behind the iron curtains of a Communistic nation, we couldn’t do this. If we were dropped in the dungeon of a totalitarian regime, we couldn’t do this. But the great glory of American democracy is the right to protest for right.
Update: Sarah Palin in brief, eloquent Facebook tribute.
Crossposted at Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.
If the left can force us to refrain from protest, their path to have us serve as their slaves will be short and sour for us.
Posted by: goomp | January 17, 2011 at 01:16 PM
"The only weapon in our hands is the weapon of protest"
that, and The Deacons for Defense
Posted by: sofa | January 19, 2011 at 08:42 AM