Martin Luther King Day: The Importance of Radical Civil Disobedience in the Ongoing Quest for Liberty
January 14th, 2011
With the approaching three day weekend and subsequently heavenly four day work week due to Martin Luther King Day, politicos the nation over will be wont to claim Martin Luther King, Jr.’s efforts as closely related to their own goals in an effort to establish some sort of legitimacy-granting political heritage in the tradition of the claiming of Jesus and the Founding Fathers. Most people, political or otherwise, will also engage in the offering of vague platitudes to an inhuman rendering of this complex historical actor.
This blogger expects that the 2011 incarnation of the holiday will additionally yield many references made in connection to the recent assassination attempt of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and associates by Jared Loughner in Tucson, Arizona, and the idea that political violence is unacceptable. This message, which, , is a totally reasonable idea in terms of means, but the ends shouldn’t be a middle ground of compromise beyond the statist right and left but the exposing of the political system and its laws as they exist as the premier system of violence in existence.
Exposing “the violence inherent in the system” is precisely the aim of civil disobedience. Participants publicly break a law which is perceived as unjust and thus force one’s enemy into using force against one’s peaceful but non-compliant self. Once trapped by circumstance into caving to the rebel’s demands or actively using brutal coercion against them by upholding the law in question, the target recipient of the disobedience faces a potential public relations nightmare or the alteration of the policy it desires to maintain.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was deeply influenced by the activism of Mahatmas Gandhi in opposing British imperialism in India and the successful method of nonviolent civil disobedience which he employed. Our friend and fantastic libertarian activist, Tarrin Lupo, produced a lovely video, embedded below, on King’s successfully utilization of such a strategy under the provocative title, Throwing Children in Jail, MLK’s secret weapon on Racism! (Warning: Contains disturbing images)
The disturbing images I made a point of warning about above is, as noted, the main goal of civil disobedience. In creating these protests the aim is to have people observe the often devastating retribution activists faced for their noncompliance and react with sympathy and moral indignation. In this video the United States government is bent on enforcing a policy of racial apartheid. Protests ensue such as marching in the streets of cities like Montgomery. The state, in reaction, unleashed German Shepherds and fire hoses upon the activists. People seeing such images are supposed to say, “if this is the law, and this is ultimately how the law/all law is enforced, then I can no longer support such a policy!” And in many cases, this method has proven its utility!
In contrast, Jared Loughner’s activities are not only unjust but will probably have precisely the opposite effect of successful civil disobedience. He assumed the public identity of the oppressor, taking the lives of six people, including a nine year old girl, and wounded many others. This resulted in an outpouring of sympathy for Giffords and state actors who are now maneuvering for stricter gun laws and more statism as a result. In addition, people are now associating the political ideas he held such as sound money with violent lunatics which makes it that much harder for libertarians at large and those of us here at Silver Underground to inhabit any moral high ground or make substantial progress in our goals.
King was so successful because he was able to show African-Americans as the victims of unjust cruelty, not the instigators of it nor as the morally ambiguous and also violent reactants against it. The civil disobedience approach might not always be ideal but its effectiveness and the brave employers of this technique is one of the salient themes I choose to celebrate yearly with this American holiday. I hope you’ll do the same.
(As a fascinating historical footnote, the King family won a $100,000 wrongful death civil suit in 1999 against Loyd Jowers and “unknown co-conspirators.” The jury found that governmental agencies were “parties to the assassination plot.” Wow!)
