Here’s the latest from the crossroads of faith, media & culture: 01/18/21

If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand some of these illegal injunctions. Maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges, because they hadn’t committed themselves to that over there.

But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right.
Rev. Martin Luther King speaking  passionately in support of the First Amendment on April 3, 1968, the day before his assassination, in what turned out to be his final speech.

America at the crossroads. As we celebrate Martin Luther King Day in 2021, I think we’d be wise to acknowledge his acknowledgment that the path to maintaining and, indeed, expanding civil rights is built on a foundation of free speech.

Fifty years hence, Rev. King’s niece Alveda King continues his legacy by speaking out in favor of human rights from the womb to the tomb. She’s also hosting Alveda King’s House, a new Fox Nation show. An offshoot of her book GG’s Home for the Holidays, the program invites viewers in as she hosts friends and family at her home and prepares her favorite recipes. The show promises sides of provocative and soul-stirring conversation, as well as heaping helpings of inspiration, to go along with the sumptuous cuisine.

Given what the country is going through right now, I had to take the opportunity to ask her about the current climate in America.

JWK: Your cooking show is about taking diverse ingredients and creatively bringing them together. What’s your recipe for bringing together a divided nation?

Alveda King: The main ingredient for any successful recipe is Love tempered with forgiveness. Whether it be good food, harmonious relationships or solutions for world peace, we must come together and unify in love.

Alveda also spoke with EWTN about her iconic uncle’s philosophy (which she shares) and how it speaks to our troubled generation.

Meanwhile, he’s not exactly Martin Luther King, but Bill Maher had some nuggets of wisdom on his HBO show Friday night. I certainly don’t agree with everything he says (which is fine) but he’s spot on regarding his main point which is that we’d all be wise to quit judging large swaths of people because a relatively few who purport to share their beliefs act insanely.

BTW, I actually worry a bit about Bill. He’s run afoul of the Thought Police on a number of occasions. I suspect it’s only been his vehement opposition to President Trump that has provided him a woke beard. With Trump gone, his HBO perch may be a lot more precarious.

Anyway, the most prescient words of the week come from Alexei Navalny, the Russian dissident who recently survived poisoning and, upon his brave return to Moscow, was arrested by Russian authorities. Shortly before that, he tweeted these points about the troubling moves toward power consolidation and censorship by America’s information oligarchs: “Of course, Twitter is a private company, but we have seen many examples in Russian and China of such private companies becoming the state’s best friends and the enablers when it comes to censorship...If you replace “Trump” with “Navalny” in today’s discussion, you will get an 80% accurate Kremlin’s answer as to why my name can’t be mentioned on Russian TV and I shouldn’t be allowed to participate in any elections...This precedent will be exploited by the enemies of freedom of speech around the world. In Russia as well. Every time when they need to silence someone, they will say: ‘this is just common practice, even Trump got blocked on Twitter’.”

Museum visitors in front of the Martin Niemöller quotation in the Permanent Exhibition of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Niemöller was a Lutheran minister and early Nazi supporter who was later imprisoned for opposing Hitler’s regime.

Niemöller’s cautionary poem seems especially relevant at a time when the rising social media app Parler was blown out of the water by what is increasingly appearing to be an anti-free speech information cabal that includes Apple, Google and Amazon  If you think these people will stop with Parler, I suggest you check out this so-called “analysis” from CNN.

It is, of course, appropriate to remove actual calls for violence from the internet (whether they come from the political left or right or are found on Parler or Twitter). But the rules for doing so should be consistent and narrow. There is a grave danger in using legitimate concerns over stoking violence as an excuse to crackdown on dissenting thought. As has been said, “The First Amendment is first for a reason.”

In the meantime, here’s one more quote from Rev. Martin Luther King: “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

Encourage one another and build each other up – 1 Thessalonians 5:11