Shooting Holes in Human Shields

I've never been known to hold a political discussion (Politics bores the hell out of me), but sometimes things get crazy and bullshit starts flying like a bundle of baby carrots fired from a slingshot.

In the Democratic Party's weekly radio address on the weekend honoring Martin Luther King Jr., Senate Minority Whip Richard Durbin said if the slain civil rights leader were alive today, he would be troubled by today's Republican policies.
[...]
But, he also said, "There are a lot of other changes in America that would trouble Dr. King."

Quoting King, who once said that "in America, power is so unequally divided," Durbin blamed the Republican Party, which has controlled the federal government for five years, for spawning what he called "a culture of corruption."

(CNN: "Democrats: U.S. Suffering from GOP Corruption")

Isn't this a bit slanderous? To take the name of a martyr and associate it with a particular party, and then to claim that he'd disapprove of all the opposition's policies demonstrates nothing less than a baseless attack against those with differing opinions. Because the esteemed Dr. King said it, to disagree on this issue must mean you disagree with him on every issue, including civil rights and racial equality, which means that you are a racist, which makes you a bad person. You've turned him into a shield, saying "If you disagree with us you disagree with him." But preacher though he was, not everything King said should be treated as Gospel.

When Dr. King said that power was unequally divided, it had nothing to do with political parties. It didn't even deal with the division of power in government. What King's statement did relate to was the division of power between blacks and whites:

The problem is that in America power is unequally distributed. This has led Negro Americans in the past to seek their goals through love and moral suasion devoid of power and white Americans to seek their goals through power devoid of love and conscience.

("Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos Or Community?", Martin Luther King, Jr., emphasis added)

It was strictly a racial/social issue. Nice to see a Senator misquote and take out-of-context one of Martin Luther King's statements and then try to say "We agree with him and you don't, so you suck." It's almost ironic.

But assuming his reasoning is correct and anyone who disagrees with Dr. King is racist, we can take another of King's ideas:

Over the past two years... as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path.

("Beyond Vietnam", Martin Luther King, Jr.)

and we can say that President John F. Kennedy was a racist and a bad man because he supported the war:

In 1951, Congressman John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts set out for an extensive fact-finding mission to the Middle and Far East. Upon his return, Kennedy reiterated his support of western efforts to defend freedom in both regions.
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In a public speech in New Orleans, he told citizens that the United States must "bear the burden... of helping freedom defend itself" in Vietnam.(28) Likewise, the President addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations and urged its members to "join free men in standing up to their responsibilities."(29) Given this moral imperative, he insisted that the United States assist South Vietnam "in every way we properly can" in order to preserve that nation's independence and thus to defend freedom as a whole.

("Idealism and Pragmatism in American Foreign Policy Rhetoric: The Case of John F. Kennedy and Vietnam", Denise Bostdorff and Stephen Goldzwig)

(Note how Kennedy's rhetoric can be applied to the War in Iraq today)

I won't argue over the politics of the article, but I will point out that it's just disgusting to bring up the memory of someone like Martin Luther King and abuse it by incorporating him into an unrelated discussion to further one's own agenda. You can't cower behind the shield of another man's prestige and call yourself invincible. It only draws attention to your own weakness.