True Patriots: Al, Martin, and John

Today is the celebration of Martin Luther King's birthday nationally. MLK was a true patriot of finding ways to work together in peace and with hope. I'm posting the text of MLK's speech via a graphic:






























Two other patriots visible in the spotlight today that I believe are worth mention, for standing up for what many ideals Dr. King believed in. One of them, John Edwards, wrote a thoughtful piece concerning MLK's birthday celebration (and indeed was in Baton Rouge and NOLA today giving speeches):


Advocate staff photo by ARTHUR D. LAUCK
Sen. John Edwards speaks Monday at the Mount Zion First Baptist Church in Baton Rouge during the Martin Luther King Jr. celebration




Part of what made Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. a great leader is that he challenged us to become leaders ourselves. He asked us what we are doing to serve others in our lives. Are we working to lift up the poor and the sick? Are we reaching out to a child who’s struggling to stay on the right path? Are we working hard to make sure our kids have the best education? Are we working to bring economic opportunity to every corner of the country? These are the questions that test the content of one’s character. And they are the questions that we as Americans must continue to ask and answer, particularly on this day, the day we remember one of the greatest leaders and patriots our nation has ever known.

Dr. King had an unshakable faith in the good of mankind, a faith that enabled him to dream of a better society in the midst so much evil and fear. He also possessed a keen awareness of how difficult it would be to make his dream a reality, and that awareness allowed him to hold onto his dream despite the dangers and strife he encountered. For he knew that his dream would not be fully realized in his own lifetime, or even in the span of his generation. His was a dream that was to endure and expand in the generations to come. He had faith in us, the future leaders of America. He had faith that we would inherit his dream and make it our own.

Here we are, almost thirty-eight years after Dr. King’s tragic death. We’ve accomplished a great deal since then, and for that we as a nation should be proud. But we are not yet the America that Dr. King described as he stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. His dream is not yet reality. And as long as injustice and inequality persist in our society, Dr. King’s legacy will endure not just as a dream but as a challenge – a challenge to live by the principles we as a nation were founded upon, a challenge to lift up those who struggle, a challenge to become a source of motivation, guidance, and hope in the lives of others, just as Dr. King has been for us. We as a nation are up to this challenge, for despite our many differences, we share faith in the ultimate power of human goodness. “With this faith,” said Dr. King, “we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.” May that stone of hope serve as a building block for the one America that we dream of, and know is possible.

The last patriot I will solute today, Al Gore. Al Gore gave an enthralling speech about the history of the constitution and how the foundations have been shaken by our current administration. He express some of his thoughts this way:

A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government. Our Founding Fathers were adamant that they had established a government of laws and not men. Indeed, they recognized that the structure of government they had enshrined in our Constitution - our system of checks and balances - was designed with a central purpose of ensuring that it would govern through the rule of law. As John Adams said: "The executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them, to the end that it may be a government of laws and not of men."

An executive who arrogates to himself the power to ignore the legitimate legislative directives of the Congress or to act free of the check of the judiciary becomes the central threat that the Founders sought to nullify in the Constitution - an all-powerful executive too reminiscent of the King from whom they had broken free. In the words of James Madison, "the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."

Thomas Paine, whose pamphlet, "On Common Sense" ignited the American Revolution, succinctly described America's alternative. Here, he said, we intended to make certain that "the law is king."

Vigilant adherence to the rule of law strengthens our democracy and strengthens America. It ensures that those who govern us operate within our constitutional structure, which means that our democratic institutions play their indispensable role in shaping policy and determining the direction of our nation. It means that the people of this nation ultimately determine its course and not executive officials operating in secret without constraint.

The rule of law makes us stronger by ensuring that decisions will be tested, studied, reviewed and examined through the processes of government that are designed to improve policy. And the knowledge that they will be reviewed prevents over-reaching and checks the accretion of power.

and Gore's view of when government has reached its tipping point about its extension of power:

There have of course been other periods of American history when the Executive Branch claimed new powers that were later seen as excessive and mistaken. Our second president, John Adams, passed the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts and sought to silence and imprison critics and political opponents.

When his successor, Thomas Jefferson, eliminated the abuses he said: "[The essential principles of our Government] form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation... [S]hould we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty and safety."

Al Gore's solutions bear merit:

I call upon Democratic and Republican members of Congress today to uphold your oath of office and defend the Constitution. Stop going along to get along. Start acting like the independent and co-equal branch of government you're supposed to be.

But there is yet another Constitutional player whose pulse must be taken and whose role must be examined in order to understand the dangerous imbalance that has emerged with the efforts by the Executive Branch to dominate our constitutional system.

We the people are-collectively-still the key to the survival of America's democracy. We-as Lincoln put it, "[e]ven we here"-must examine our own role as citizens in allowing and not preventing the shocking decay and degradation of our democracy.

Thomas Jefferson said: "An informed citizenry is the only true repository of the public will."

The revolutionary departure on which the idea of America was based was the audacious belief that people can govern themselves and responsibly exercise the ultimate authority in self-government. This insight proceeded inevitably from the bedrock principle articulated by the Enlightenment philosopher John Locke: "All just power is derived from the consent of the governed."

Gore concluded on a note of optimism:

I mentioned that along with cause for concern, there is reason for hope. As I stand here today, I am filled with optimism that America is on the eve of a golden age in which the vitality of our democracy will be re-established and will flourish more vibrantly than ever. Indeed I can feel it in this hall.

As Dr. King once said, "Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movements and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us."

Tied nicely with our civil rights themes for today.

As you can tell, the title of my post sort of borrowing from a song from the late 60's by Dion entitled "Abraham, Martin, and John". The best part of the song that pertains to all:

Didn't you love the things they stood for?
Didn't they try to find some good for you and me?
And we'll be free,
Someday soon it's gonna be one day.


Thank you all, good patriots.