OK, so I\u2019ve been a bit snarky about how we worship Dr. King as a god in our country.\u00a0 I\u2019ve pointed out that the entire Holy Day of St. King is the only national day of sacred observation left.\u00a0 I\u2019ve pointed out that this is rather strange for someone my age, who can remember the old time liberals tearing down our heroes of old by lampooning as uncouth and hayseed any nation that spends its time venerating as gods old, dead guys.\u00a0 I\u2019ve basically said why I admire Dr. King, but don\u2019t buy into the god worship and conformity to group think that celebrating his legacy has become.\u00a0 All of this is the stuff of opinion, and others are free to share in their own. <\/p>\n
But I think this does show one thing that demonstrates why our nation seems so nasty, so tension filled, so over the top when it comes to stress and strain.\u00a0 Why we know that, in years past, passions have always run high and people have often gotten their blood to a boil when debating this or that issue, yet we feel somehow that it\u2019s different now.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The reason is how the holiday came to be.\u00a0 Anyone my age remembers that this was not a holiday that Americans across the land rose up and said, \u201cBy golly, we want a national holiday commemorating the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.!\u201d\u00a0 Nor was there a simple congressional \u201cLet\u2019s have a day for Martin Luther King, Jr.\u201d, with the subsequent vote of yeas and nays.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Rather, this holiday came like a storm, drawing resistance and support across the country.\u00a0 The NAACP and other civil rights groups, naturally, were completely behind the holiday becoming not just a recognition of the man, but a full blown national holiday.\u00a0 Some who admired him thought that was going a bit far.\u00a0 Others who didn\u2019t share in the admiration didn\u2019t like it at all.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t matter, the holiday was eventually ratified.\u00a0 Any attempts to refuse were met with threats of walk outs or boycotts.\u00a0 Schools that didn\u2019t have room for\u00a0a new holiday were told to drop presidents day (after all, by then we were focusing almost exclusively on the seedier legacy of slavery, racism, and imperialism of those old cronies, with the accompanying \u2018only uncouth nations venerate old, dead guys\u2019).\u00a0\u00a0 Any state that balked faced the wrath of popular culture, accusations of racism, and threats again of boycotts and anything else to damage their infrastructures.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
And so the holiday became law.\u00a0 And each year the worship and glorification of Dr. King has grown.\u00a0 From a day kids got off of school, to a day in which we were called to remember his legacy, to a day in which a growing number of special events and programs accompanied it, to a day in which a month of activities in schools revolved, to a day in which we are called to invoked the spirit of Dr. King to improve our lives and our world, \u00a0to a day in which, well, anyone who doesn\u2019t join the chorus is immediately shunned at best, punished at worse.<\/p>\n
And this is the problem.\u00a0 Dr. King took a direct approach to the problems of his day.\u00a0 A history of rank racism had left African Americans, particularly in the south, treated as nothing short of second rate.\u00a0 A generation of Americans, those who stormed the beaches at Normandy and Okinawa, came back to see this glaring blight upon our culture.\u00a0 They compared it to the horrors they had witnessed abroad. Already, a decade before Martin Luther King was known, forces for equality were brewing.\u00a0 Dr. King simply took the decisive step and emerged as the figurehead of this movement.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Even then, some questioned his motives, his tactics.\u00a0 Radicals like Malcolm X would have been happy with a more \u2018direct\u2019 approach to revolution.\u00a0 Many whites felt King was a trouble maker and upstart. But he did what he did the way he did it because of his Christian roots, mixed with a realization that things could not continue as they were, and changes must happen immediately.\u00a0 This was not something that you could sit back and wait for the inevitable tide of history to sweep aside old injustices and right old wrongs.\u00a0 For the sake of everyone, changes had to happen immediately.<\/p>\n
Problem is, that became the framework for everything anyone has wanted to change since.\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t matter what.\u00a0 Gay rights.\u00a0 Women\u2019s rights.\u00a0 What words we are allowed to say.\u00a0 How we should be able to dress.\u00a0 What we can smoke.\u00a0 What we can drive.\u00a0 How much gasoline we can use.\u00a0 What religious beliefs should and shouldn\u2019t be able to be expressed publicly.\u00a0 What political ideologies are acceptable and what ideologies aren\u2019t.\u00a0 All of these, an millions more, are treated with these same demands.\u00a0 A demand that our country change \u2013 now \u2013 and not only must everyone conform, but a pox upon those who fail to do so.\u00a0 And if we have to get laws changed to accommodate the conformity and punish resistance, so be it.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
All of this makes for an increasingly volatile and stress filled nation where it seems on a daily basis that someone, somewhere is saying this or that is wrong, and our entire nation had better change now. And it had better demand everyone else change, now.\u00a0 And not only must laws reflect that change, but anyone who even dares to resist the basis for that change \u2013 say they continue to feel that homosexuality is wrong even if all laws eventually acknowledge it \u2013 must be put into their right minds.\u00a0 Sure, people have always done it.\u00a0 But with a sympathetic ear in the media, or the Internet\u00a0 culture, the chances of such forced changes become more likely with each passing day. <\/p>\n
Just an observation on this MLK day.\u00a0 Despite what some young\u2019uns might think, it was not a holiday graciously and unanimously lifted up by American culture.\u00a0 For various reasons, some did and some didn\u2019t want it.\u00a0 And all manner of hostility, threats, yelling, and accusations accompanied the legalizing of the holiday.\u00a0 Why not?\u00a0 It took the same to see civil rights achieved, correct?\u00a0 Why not see the holiday commemorating the icon of that era undergo the same treatment to get what was wanted to celebrate him?\u00a0 Baascially tell America that you are going to commemerate this man of peace\u2019s birthday\u2026or else! The problem is, that is now how anyone and everyone who wants anything conducts himself today.\u00a0 There\u2019s when a country changes, and when it is forced to change.\u00a0 Any change can be troubling for those resisting it.\u00a0 But when it is forced, when people are told change will happen and they will stand out of the way or else, expect it to get nasty. And that is why\u00a0I have a feeling the tension and vitriol we see today.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
OK, so I\u2019ve been a bit snarky about how we worship Dr. King as a god in our country.\u00a0 I\u2019ve pointed out that the entire Holy Day of St. King is the only national day of sacred observation left.\u00a0 I\u2019ve pointed out that this is rather strange for someone my age, who can remember the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2805,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n