Re:Julian Assange can be extradited to the US, court rules
by ben_w on Friday December 10, 2021 @07:31PM
(#29517220)
I think you’ve misunderstood me: I’m agreeing with MLK — It’s not my call to make to say when someone moves from one to the next, and I will only go so far as to place those four boxes in that sequence.
But let me turn this around to demonstrate why such an ordering is desirable: lynchings in the USA disproportionately targeted African Americans. Those mobs were full of people who often claimed to be enforcing justice, but they were reaching straight for the 4th box.
And again, this is only even a consideration for people who care about rule of law. I can easily believe that many rights activists — women’s equality, race equality, Stonewall, independence movements in then-European colonies — had no possible reason to care about rule of law, because the law was never on their side. Anyone in that situation, I’d expect to reach for #4 first because it’s the only tool even available.
Yeah, that's what I was referring to. MLK had a specific, rather famous riposte to this attitude because of how common it was:
"I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."
Emphasis mine.