Wednesday, January 23, 2013

MLK on communism, freedom and individual rights

From Stride Toward Freedom:
Second, I strongly disagreed with communism’s ethical relativism. Since for the Communist there is no divine government, no absolute moral order, there are no fixed, immutable principles; consequently almost anything-force, violence, murder, lying-is a justifiable means to the “millennial” end. This type of relativism was abhorrent to me. Constructive ends can never give absolute moral justification to destructive means, because in the final analysis the end is preexistent in the mean.  
Third, I opposed communism’s political totalitarianism. In communism the individual ends up in subjection to the state. True, the Marxist would argue that the state is an “interim” reality which is to be eliminated when the classless society emerges; but the state i s the end while it lasts, and man only a means to that end.  
And if any man’s so-called rights or liberties stand in the way of that end, they are simply swept aside. His liberties of expression, his freedom to vote, his freedom to listen to what news he likes or to choose his books are all restricted. Man becomes hardly more, in communism, than a depersonalized cog in the turning wheel of the state. This deprecation of individual freedom was objectionable to me. I am convinced now, as I was then, that man is an end because he is a child of God. 
Man is not made for the state; the state is made for man. To deprive man of freedom is to relegate him to the status of a thing, rather than elevate him to the status of a person. Man must never be treated as a means to the end of the state, but always as an end within himself. 
---Man must never be treated as a means to the end of the state, but always as an end within himself.
UPDATE: He's not a Liberal. He's a Communist.
OK? 
And UPDATE II: 

It is time to officially put an end to the mincing, hesitant criticisms of the American Liberals and the Democrat Party. Actually, it’s long past time. The Democrat Party’s goal is communism. 
I have a confession to make: I used to be a Liberal. In the 1988 Presidential election, I campaigned door-to-door for Michael Dukakis. In 1992, I was a full-throated supporter of Carol Moseley Braun, the ultra-social liberal Senator from Illinois who, among other things, supported partial-birth abortion, gay marriage and gun control. I voted for Clinton both times, and, despite thinking he was a knob, voted for Gore in 2000. Please believe me when I say that the Democrat Party’s end goal is communism.

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