Today is that silliest of all holidays, Martin Luther King Day. Okay, the man had his good points. But does anybody on the planet really believe he’s the one American who merits a holiday in his honor (ever since Washington and Lincoln got combined into the drearily homogenized “Presidents Day”)? Ridiculous!
What makes him so special he should be elevated above Jefferson, Franklin, Thoreau, Washington (Booker T.), Lysander Spooner, Victoria Woodhull, George Washington Carver, Clara Barton, Frank Lloyd Wright, Aaron Copland, Alexander Graham Bell, Anne Hutchinson, Mark Twain, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Frederick Douglass, Nellie Bly, Malcolm X, Andrew Carnegie, Maria Tallchief, Ayn Rand, and ten thousand potentially honorable others??? Preposterous!
Still, he did have those good points. And one of them was a fearless conviction that bad laws deserve breaking. So in honor of MLK Day, Garry Reed sez break an unjust law today.
Okay, true. We all break unjust laws every day, purely by accident. But today, let’s all break one with style and flair and panache.
And if you’re one of those strange people who actually gets today off from work and you’re looking for something to do, here’s a site that’ll keep you disrespectfully occupied for hours: Why Every President Sucks. Complete with … um … a song for every one of ’em. Don’t have the patience for it myself and it’s not like the songs are undying classics or anything. But if the law you break today involves interesting chemicals, that site might entertain you all day. (I do plan to revisit just to find out what kind of song anybody could write about Millard Fillmore.)
This is one I didn’t know: Calvin Coolidge, 30th president — “While the federal government had already subsidized airmail in the hope of speeding up the formation of the passenger travel industry, Coolidge’s Air Commerce Act of 1926 put civil aviation as a whole under the direct authority of the commerce department. The inefficient regulations determined by unresponsive bureaucracies have caused lasting damage to the industry.”
(And how does subsidizing airmail speed up “the formation of the passenger travel industry”? More importantly, why should the federal government care? Sounds like a planned effort to take control of the aviation industry even then.)
James K. Polk already has a great song by They Might Be Giants. 🙂 No way to improve on that one.
Claire, thanks for the diversion. Along with Butler Shaffer’s celebration of Memorial Day by hosting an anti-war film festival, this strikes me as a great way to honor the idea without rubberstamping the circus.
Never did have much use for MLK, but it’s been years since I read anything about him. First link I went to today was all about how he thought the government really could and should “create” jobs for everyone.
He was a statist worshiping socialist. Plain and simple.
I quit reading.
Claire,
Thanks for the shout-out to the site! For the record, I pick on Fillmore’s Compromise of 1850, specifically the Fugitive Slave Act which it contained. But he was indeed a hard one to peg, whereas many of our ex-Kings had a laundry list of anti-liberty deeds to choose from.
Eric
“Never did have much use for MLK, but it’s been years since I read anything about him. First link I went to today was all about how he thought the government really could and should “create” jobs for everyone.
He was a statist worshiping socialist. Plain and simple.”
He also beat women and participated in radical communist circles.
I guess his captivating speeches and academic preformance would be a big enough accompishment…if not for the fact that he plagarized nearly everything he ever wrote or publicly said.
I guess none of that matters since 99% of the country couldn’t tell you anything about him other than he was the guy who said “I have a dream”
For those of you who don’t want to celebrate MLK day, how about someone else you can celebrate today?
http://gizmodo.com/5735820/benjamin-franklins-most-enduring-inventions
Don’t forget to read the comment about signing and hookers. ; )
And yes, knowing what I learned about bawdy Franklin, I believe it.
I don’t know, Jim. Franklin thought the USPS was a dandy idea. He’d probably have loved the motor vehicle department too.
Next…
My heros are today…
Aaron Zelman is right at the top just now.
The past is a great place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.
Yeah, but the guy came up with the quote that goes “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”
Besides he was not happy about the Constitution they came up with. And he foresaw us not keeping our Republic.
On MLK day, I broke an unjust law. It was a gun control law that has been on the books of my home state since Reconstruction. It was the victimless crime of carrying a handgun without a license. Gasp!
At any rate, I enjoyed the feeling of freedom. It is either that experience or my own laziness that is keeping me from getting a license to carry; probably not wanting to pay a few hundreds dollars that could go towards a spare pistol, and ammo.
The best part of the ordeal is that I didn’t succumb to any feeling of paranoia like, “does anyone see the gun printing?”, or “what if a cop shows up looking to see if anyone has a gun?” The feeling of freedom spread quickly.
I bet if I wore a kilt while committing this victimless crime, I might not ever have to worry about cops asking if I have a gun on me. They would be too busy asking, “forgot about guns, why would you wear a kilt?”