Martin Luther King – thoughts against the use of violence still resonates

On this holiday, we should remember the words of its namesake. Martin Luther King once said, “The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very things it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, it merely increases the hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

These aspirational words ring true even today. A historian made a comment on the news the other day, saying the only thing man has been very good at since the beginning is killing people. To many people have died when leaders say I want what you have or you are different from us or you worship the wrong way. On this latter point, one of the keys to our founding father’s separation of church and state in the US constitution and bill of rights was a comment made by Thomas Jefferson who noted that Europe had been awash in blood due to religious zeal and he did not want religious zeal doing the same in our country. This runs counter to self-proclaimed constitutionalists who want a national or state religion and don’t realize they are advocating against the constitution.

My blogging friend George Dowdell has written a thought-provoking post about “No More Us and Them.” A link to his post is below.* When religious leaders exclude, they create this kind of divide. Yet, when religious leaders are inclusive, religion is at its finest. Just witness the actions of the people’s Pope Francis to see what one leader can do. We should follow his lead. We must do our best to be bridge builders. We must do our best to condemn intolerant thinking and action. We must do our best to not condone violence. We must do our best to control the proliferation of violent tools to people who should not have them and govern all owners of them well, as these tools are designed to kill. We must do our best to work toward civil discourse when disagreements occur. And, we must not tolerate treating women as second class citizens or even assets, which is even further demeaning.

I recognize we all cannot be like Atticus Finch (see Emily J’s post on “The Perfect Book: To Kill a Mockingbird” with the link below **) and wipe the spit away borne from someone looking for a fight, but he shows us what real courage looks like. It takes more courage not to fight back when it would have been so easy to do so. I recognize we cannot all be like Gandhi whose example was studied, admired and copied by Martin Luther King showing that civil disobedience is far more powerful than violence. I recognize we call cannot be like Mother Teresa who just went around helping people and praying with them not caring how they worshiped. And, I realize we cannot all be like Jesus who uttered the words we should all live by and can be found in other religious texts – treat others like you want to be treated.

We must treat others like we want in return. We must elevate women in a world to equal footing with men. We must challenge our historical texts which were written by imperfect men to diminish women. We must be the ones who lift others up. If we don’t then we will continue to be our own worst enemy and do what we are good at – violence and killing.

*

http://georgedowdell.org/2014/06/10/no-more-us-and-them/

**

http://thebookshelfofemilyj.com/2014/06/09/the-perfect-book-to-kill-a-mockingbird/

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This is inappropriate

There are many times I feel we need to return to kindergarten for some key lessons in behavior. These poor teachers have to deal with five-year-olds in larger numbers than a regular day care class would contain. The rules of behavior are likely written on the walls in large colored print and repeated often as a mantra and when needed.

With too many folks following the lead of childish acting politicians (we all know who they are and even their fans know), we have lost the ability to have civil discourse and amicably disagree. So, class, let’s join together with Ms. Johnson or Ms. Jones or Mr. Thompson and repeat the following:

Treating others like you want to be treated is often called a Golden Rule

Threatening folks who disagree with you is not good behavior, nor is it wise

Promoting violence to resolve perceived or real problems is unlawful

Rationalizing lies is the same as lying – sometimes these folks are worse as we know the liar is lying

Denigrating classes of people because they seem different is mean and shortsighted

As I have said many times before, Alan Turing, a gay man shortened WWII by two years and saved 750,000 lives per Dwight D. Esienhower – what if he had been arrested and jailed for committing gay acts which was unlawful in Great Britain at the time?

Dr. Vivian Thomas, an African-American man helped develop a procedure in the middle of the Jim Crow era to save the lives of babies dying from poor blood flow, called “Blue Babies” – some doctors at Johns Hopkins did not want him in the operating room; what if he was denied the ability to practice?

The Tuskegee Airmen, consisting of African-American pilots, were at first not allowed to fly combat missions during WWII. So, they practiced and practiced honing their skills. They got so good, bomber pilots began asking for the Tuskegee Airmen to protect their planes. Something about putting your life on the line does that to people.

Katherine Johnson received a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015 for her contribution to America’s Space Race, as the first woman and African-American to work in a room full of white male mathematicians who guided the space effort.

Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn have penned the difficult to read “Half the Sky” about the maltreatment of women and girls around the world. Treating women like chattel is not only wrong it is economically short-sighted as these communities are competing in a world with only half their assets. Women hold up “half the sky” per a Chinese proverb.

I mention these five examples out of many others as contributions to our planet and country have been made by all kinds of people. If we allowed bigoted perceptions to unduly restrict, criticize and denigrate these folks to the point that they were not allowed to function, the world would be a different place. It matters not how warply twisted and seemingly self-righteous one’s cause, treating people like you want to be treated is still a mainstay of the Christian and other religions. It is a sin to do otherwise at least how I read it.

We must allow civil discourse. We must give people opportunity. We must not denigrate them or their efforts. And, we must not tolerate those who do the opposite of those things to certain people, especially those who are elected officials. To be brutally frank, an elected official has no business conducting themselves in this way. If they do, they need to resign or forced to resign. Full stop. This is especially true when you have more extremists that follow their lead not knowing these folks are just spouting BS to get elected.