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MLK day thoughts before/after The deaths of MLK, JFK, and RFK robbed two generations of leadership and unalterably changed the course of American society for the next forty years. Instead of discussing relevant issues about how to make America stronger, these killings hollowed our discourse out and made it smaller, more petty. Imagine a world where the Vietnam war escalation never happened. Imagine a world without Richard Nixon, Ronald Regan, and no Jimmy Carter. Imagine a world where people cared about real issues, instead of rampant apathy because, 'the powers that be will do what they see fit...nothing ever changes and what we do doesn't matter.' Assassination is a horrible, horrible crime, and we all pay the price for it. The silencing of voices that could speak for us all is a tragedy, especially when you're left with voices that only speak for the powerful few. It gave rise to an argument about minutiae, gave rise to a generation or more of navel gazing, which has given way to the rampant narcissism of the 21st century. Great men and women who might have otherwise embraced public life have most assuredly stepped aside to careers in other fields. And who can blame them? Getting murdered in front of millions for your ideas isn't something that appeals to anyone aside the tragic or the fatalistic. Instead small men with small ideas run rampant across the landscape, spouting petty nonsense and are mistakenly taken seriously. We have very few true leaders, and those we do have, their voices are marginalized by a sea of mediocrity and dull thinking. The right gained from these deaths, regardless of their lack of involvement, and in a sense, this has hurt them, too. Pathetically dull creatures run their roost because they haven't had serious competition in over a generation. They have not had to put their ideas on display for review of their peers, because their peers have gone into hiding, or are dead. Their is no crucible of modern debate because the intellectual flames have grown dim and weak. The smith has left the forge and gone drinking. Imagine a world where instead of race-baiters like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton we had Martin Luther King speaking out on events of concern. Instead of moths to a flame of attention, we would have conversation. Real ideas. We have had a two party system for a long, long time, and one of those parties has been without real leadership, to the detriment of us all. If the American system is predicated on competition, that competition has been bland and one-sided. The only votes the left have gotten in over a generation are a protest about the doltishness and mediocrity of the right, whose ideas over the past forty years have become alarmingly dumb and backwards. Before it became branded and trivialized to speaking points and slogans, conservatism served a role in this country and it wasn't to be the Neanderthal of modern politics. They were the sounding board, a rational voice, a counterpoint to what could be a sometimes hysterical left. Now we're left with the mumbling voices of patheticism and the false security of jingoism. Repeating a lie may make people believe it, but it doesn't make it true. We can only hope to have a rise in leadership from both sides, great men and women, with fresh, real ideas. People with passion and character. Intellectuals who understand what is at stake for us all, and how to guide us to higher levels of discourse, of rationality, and stability. And we need to demand more out of ourselves.
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