I have always heard this line trotted out, and I decided to dive into the internet to find something that articulates this view:
From http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2006/01/martin-luther-kings-conservative-legacy:
I disagree already but let’s read some more.
No, his primary aim was to change the law that made it a crime for a black person to sit in the front of the bus. And this is in fact what happened. And if it had been his aim to make “neighbors of enemies”, he failed miserably. The actions of the Montgomery Bus Boycott–along with the decision of Brown vs. the Board of Education which preceded it–was only the beginning of the civil unrest and divisiveness that would mark the 1950s and 60s.
Which makes Dr. King different from any other social activist of the 20th century how? Malcolm X also thought that the Founding Father’s had great principals. But he, like Dr. King, recognized that the principals were never implemented and that it was time for people to stop pretending that they had been. Is there a companion piece to this one esteeming Malcolm X’s conservativeness?
Liberals aren’t in opposition to religious faith. Some of the most devout people I know are liberals–and use their faith to inform their politics. Unless the author can produce a cite showing that King advocated a government infused with a specific religious belief system, then all we can really say is that King, as a man of the cloth, was appealing to the religiousity of his audience, who needed to hear that God was on their side. If he had been Buddhist and had said a just law was a “code that squares with the universal righteousness of the Noble Eightfold Path”, I doubt he’d been seen in the same light. So it’s not his spirituality that the writer has latched onto. But his open belief in a Christian God.
This is just crazy. Liberals don’t have morality? They don’t judge people based on the content of their character? The writer seems to be conveniently forgetting that many conservatives do NOT judge based on the content of character. They judge based on appearance, even apart from race, and they always have. “Long-haired hippie” is not a term that liberals coined. If I walk into the uber progressive Quaker church up the street with tats on my arms and spiked hair, either no one will bat an eye or I’ll get complimented. Will this happen if I walk into the Church of Christ church? I grew up in a pentacostal church. I know the answer to this question.
Liberals are not perfect, mind you. But from my experience, they tend to stay away essentialist arguments. If a certain racial demographic is disproportionately represented in crime statistics, they tend to seek external variables such as socioeconomics and discrimination in the justice system to explain this pattern. Conservatives seek internal variables, such as moral failings of the family structure brought about through inferior genetics and/or culture. Because these factors are intrinsic, they are used to justify prejudice (“Blacks can’t help being dumb and sociopathic, but I don’t see why I have to hire 'em.”)
The same with gender. Liberals are more open to the idea that our notions of differentness are social constructs. Men and women are different biologically, but gender roles are primarily the result of culture. Conservatives see differentness as being fundamentally real, not products of our imagination. That is why they have always opposed social movements that change power imbalances between groups. They see these imbalances not as the result of cultural whims–but the outcome of nature. It is natural for blacks to be subservient to whites. It is natural for women to be in the home, barefoot and pregnant. It is natural for the rich to get richer. Etc. etc.
For us to believe the author that judging people as individuals is a conservative philosophy, we’d have to throw out the overwhelming pile of evidence that goes against this. And I’m not buying that simply judging people is a conservative thing. Everyone judges people based on their own set of values. Everyone has their own code of ethics and morality. It’s just that some people are more vocal about their judgment.
And this is why Barack Obama was admired by conservatives for working as a community activist before turning to politics. Oh, wait! This didn’t happen. Just like the conservatives of his day didn’t admire MLK for working with his community. They saw him as “rabble-rousing”. He would have been rabble-rousing whether he had been a politician or a humble preacher.
It’s actually funny because conservatives have NEVER been shy about mandating social change through legislation. We are seeing this right now. But unlike the author, I don’t see a problem with trying to get your voice heard using political machinary. A movement has many fronts, and grass-roots activism doesn’t effect much change if it only stays in the grass.
This implies that King would have been anti-Affirmative Action. That’s a mighty big assumption. And it again ignores someone like Malcolm X, who was much more self-deterministic than King. As a defender of 2nd amendment rights, I would think Malcolm X would be very much admired by conservatives.
King was not considered the poster boy for conservatism when he was alive. I don’t understand why we should consider him one today.
Can anyone provide a better argument for King being a conservative? And not just a conservative of his day, but one based on contemporary standards? Because the things I know about King–his views on racial and socioeconomic equality, his anti-war stance–do not align with conservatism. Sure, the things that would allow us to accurately nail him down on the political continuum–his views about social welfare programs, Affirmative Action, gay rights, economic regulation, tax laws, environmental protection–are not known. But it sure seems safer to put him in the liberal/progressive corner than the conservative one.
I’m betting she would have had her insurance pay for “free birth control” too 