If Martin Luther King, Jr. Were Alive Today?

Oft times I wonder how today’s social, political, and spiritual picture would look if Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had not been murdered. While King was not a saint, he was a man of elegant conviction who stood for peace and justice. For that he was hated and killed.

One of the conversations in our divisive society is that the liberals lost their way and that allowed the far-right to run amok. It was America’s way of finding a balance. And consider this: If you based your politics on the hope and inspiration of King, Sen. Robert Kennedy, and President John F. Kennedy then witnessed their assassinations, with your torchbearers publicly slayed because of their plea for peace (and their invoking of The Beatitudes), would you not possibly loose you way in a desperate attempt to recreate “the dream?”

It is a simplistic view of the progressive left’s social challenges, but I believe a strong element of how progressives became the party of those who ran amok. There is no one answer and there is no one political point of view. But tolerance and compassion must be the common foundation.

Fortunately, America harbors fairness--regardless of the helm’s storm. This is our strength.

"Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force."