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Today is the day we honor Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Maybe some of us have started honoring him more recently than others, but who cares about the past? What’s important is that now, today, we can all take a moment to remember what Dr. King stood for. Well… most of it, anyway. Not the pinko stuff. Racial equality, that’s what we’re interested in. Racial equality is a wonderful thing! Wonderful, popular, non-controversial, telegenic, and enthusiastically endorsed by all major political parties. Forget the stuff about the poor and the military. Racial equality is where it’s at. The only political stance that everyone agrees on: Republican, Democrat, Christian, Muslim, atheist, we all love it. What kind of jerk doesn’t like racial equality? So, enjoy your day off, hug a minority, and move on with your life. Imagine a checklist in your head – “Buy groceries, return videos, honor MLK” – done, done and done. We passed the Civil Rights Act, the races are equal (more or less), so we’ve done our part, right? As long as we ignore everything else that King stood for, yes, we’ve done our part. Because it’s very important that we use this national holiday as a time to come together, join hands with our fellow man, and congratulate ourselves on all of our progress and accomplishments. Progress towards racial equality, I mean. Not the other stuff. I can’t stress this enough, folks, the guy was practically a commie. I mean, when was the last time you say the evening news run a clip of Dr. King talking about uplifting the poor? This holiday is supposed to bring us together. It’s supposed to make us feel good. It’s supposed to renew our faith in America. It’s not supposed to remind us of our failures and our failings. For instance, take a look at Dr. King’s Beyond Vietnam speech, from 1967. Here’s an excerpt:

Five years ago he [JFK] said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” [applause] Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin [applause], we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. [applause]

See what I mean? Compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar? Property rights considered more important than people? Those who refuse to give up the immense profits of overseas investments? That doesn’t sound like a Benetton ad to me. That sounds controversial. That sounds like it might upset people. That sounds like Dr. King is saying that some of our leaders and opinions are wrong. Can’t put that on the news. C’mon, “radical revolution of values?” Most people I know seem to like their current values just fine. And y’know, who says this Dr. King guy knows everything about everything, huh? Compassionate Conservatives don’t just fling “a” coin to beggars, they fling lots of coins. A helluva lot of coins! And if all those poor people in Africa could get their AIDS medication for free, then our pharmaceutical giants would have no reason to innovate. And that’s straight from Bill Gates, so don’t tell me property rights aren’t important. And okay, fine, our overseas investments do make immense profits, so what? That’s not why we invade other countries, we do that to spread freedom and prosperity! The immense profits are just a kind of side effect or something. So anyway, don’t worry about all that stuff. It won’t get on the news anyway. The important thing is, Dr. King wanted racial equality, and he got it. End of story.