in honor of martin luther king day

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may want to ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all".

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I-it" relationship for an "I-thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and awful. Paul Tillich said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression 'of man's tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.

Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.

Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up that state's segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered. Can any law enacted under such circumstances be considered democratically structured?

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., "Letter from Birmingham Jail"

I think Rev. King would be very disappointed in US Christianity today (see the letter itself for King's own words as to why), and in today's Republican Party. Especially in those Christians and Republicans who insist King would have supported them, even as they argue against all King stood for.

(no subject)

Dear little sister:

STOP FAT-SHAMING YOUR BABY SISTER.

Point one: she is, even by the bullshit BMI measure, well within normal weight range for her height.

Point two, which could and maybe should be point only because point one is much less relevant: we are trying to inspire self-confidence in her, and making baby sister feel bad about her body is not a route to baby sister having self-confidence.

(no subject)

I have a whole week to do my currently-available classwork, and ages and ages to plot and write genteensybang, so the only thing has to be done today is clean the top of my desk. Why am I not clea—hello, sister, why must you do your gaming NOW?

(no subject)

I complained to my sister about not having lotioned my hands soon enough to avoid the owie from getting lotion in the cracks (the skin on back of my hands always cracks when it's cold, more the right than the left), and she told me off for using lotion instead of Vaseline (but I hate Vaseline) and for not having seen a doctor about what, if it's the same as what she's got which she says it sounds like it is, is a treatable medical condition, a flavor of eczema. Which I'd thought wasn't a thing that came in different varieties and its key symptom is a rash which I have not got and therefore this couldn't be eczema. But Wiki tells me otherwise, so now I'm wondering if I should bug my primary care provider (but I just saw her two weeks ago) or skip straight to one of the dermatologists on my insurance's list of providers or just buy some hydrocortisone at Walmart since apparently that's likely to be the treatment anyway.