Mimsy Were the Borogoves

Editorials: Where I rant to the wall about politics. And sometimes the wall rants back.

I do not mourn the loss of evil

Jerry Stratton, May 3, 2011

Some on the left seem to be annoyed that Conservatives and even Republicans are unequivocally cheering something President Obama did. The left considers them enemies, and they’re worried that their enemy is happy when, politically, they shouldn’t be. It’s all politics, and they don’t understand anything that transcends politics. It’s unnerving them so much they’ve started to hallucinate. For example, this quote has been popping up all over Facebook and the net:

I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

Martin Luther King, Jr., did not say that. Now, I would disagree with this even if King had said it. But he didn’t. It’s a cheap sentiment that someone hoped would not look as cheap if they attached it to a hero’s name.

The parts of the quote that are correct come from King’s Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? As you might guess from the title, King was speaking to the civil rights movement, which, with new blood from the sixties counterculture, was seriously considering civil war. This was the time that spawned Bill Ayers’ Weathermen, and there were splinter groups coming off of the already violence-friendly Nation of Islam who were seriously ready for war. Talk of revolution was everywhere in the counterculture. In that context, King was correct: a bloody uprising in the United States, however justified, would have “multiplied evil”.

Here’s the real quote:

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes… Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

Clearly, King was antiviolence, and he was also antiwar, at least in the Vietnam era. He may well have expressed sentiments similar to this spurious quote were he alive today. But I don’t think he would, if the facts were analogized to his situation: imagine that a southern state had targeted 2,000 random, mostly affluent blacks, brutally murdered them in a single day, brutally murdered the people who tried to save them, and then threatened that that was just the beginning, all while the north cheered. Would he have counseled working within the system if that happened? I doubt it.

Conservative blogs often like to point out that King was a Republican. It’s worth remembering why he was a Republican. He was a Republican, ultimately, because Republicans were willing to wage war to end slavery.

In response to Hangover on Miracle Monday: “There is a right and a wrong in the Universe.” So, yeah. Good morning to you, too!