Thread by @LPNH

Was Martin Luther King a hero, or a villain?

Listening to Martin Luther King speak about freedom, it's hard for anyone not to feel a swell of pride.

But to judge politicians (and King was a politician, even if he wasn't elected), we have to go beyond words. We have to judge the content of their character, not just the color of their language.

King is credited as ushering in the civil rights era under Lyndon Johnson. Specifically, these three laws:

1 - Civil Rights Act of 1964
2 - Voting Rights Act of 1965
3 - Fair Housing Act of 1968

Let's look at each in turn, and then you can decide if Martin Luther King is a hero, or a villain.

Is the Civil Rights Act of 1964 anti-liberty?

In attempting to ban private discrimination, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is the law underlying almost all of wokeness today.

Here are some reasons to hate the Civil Rights Act:

- It makes objective standardized testing illegal or very hard (image 1)
- It made word-of-mouth hiring illegal (image 2)
- It is regularly used to usurp the rights of states and to argue for every terrible progressive policy, like forced masking (image 3)
- It is root cause of the bureaucratization of your work environment, your school, and nearly everything else in society

In an attempt to make private discrimination illegal, the Civil Rights Act robs people of their fundamental rights to form voluntary relationships and to use their property as they desire.

Is the Voting Rights Act of 1965 anti-liberty?

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 essentially mandates racial discrimination. Rather than suggest the possibility that Americans could live peacefully in various mixes, it requires that districts be racially representative.

You know how people like to hate on gerrymandering? The Voting Rights Act essentially mandates it.

Here's one recent example, out of Alabama:

Whites in Alabama vote primarily for Republicans. Drawing reasonably compact districts would result in Republicans winning all districts.

The Supreme Court used the Voting Rights Act to mandate that Alabama gerrymander its districts to make a black one.

The Voting Rights Act usurps states rights and elevates race as a special class more important than any other demographic factor.

Is the Fair Housing Act of 1968 anti-liberty?

The Fair Housing Act allows the federal government to interfere in the free exchange and sale of property nationwide.

Among other things, the Fair Housing Act has been used to:

- Make it illegal to discuss the crime rates of neighborhoods (image 1)
- Require state governments to take over failing town sanitation systems (image 2)
- Require state governments and cities advance "equity" programs or lose funding (cities and states that "regress" in multiculturalism metrics lose money)
- Require home owners to rent to literal criminals

Additionally, much of the overly rigid credit and rental system can be directly attributed to the Fair Housing Act, as renters are terrified of being found guilty of legal violations.

The Fair Housing Act is a violation of speech rights, property rights, and the right to voluntary association.

Nearly every single political change that can be attributed to Martin Luther King:

- Reduced property rights
- Reduced speech rights
- Reduced voluntary association
- Reduced freedom

This analysis doesn't even get into King's personal life (serial adulterer, possible rapist), or his personal political beliefs (open socialist, hated liberty).

Praise and adulation for King is inculcated in Americans since birth. The progressive school system teaches us that he is an irreproachable hero. As a result, 94% of Americans now approve of King, despite him being widely hated in the 1960s.

But Americans that still believe in liberty should look at the facts, and not be afraid to revise their judgment after learning them. Perhaps the woke capture of schools isn't as new as some think.

If you enjoyed these posts, please share them so that others can spend some time learning about Martin Luther King today.