AMUSING, INTERESTING, OUTRAGEOUS, or PROFOUND

The quote comes from King's famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail (he later paraphrased this quote in a 1965 interview with Playboy magazine lmao):

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was seen sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, because a higher moral law was involved. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country's antireligious laws.

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.

This is how I feel whenever I hear about the Constitution being broken. I don't care all that much about it, it's a piece of paper. It should obviously be folIowed when possible. I believe in the personal rights outlined in the Bill of Rights (and many more that weren't), but sometimes it's okay to bend or break some of the rules. Lincoln blockading the South was unconstitutional, remember that. I care about immoral things being done. I care about people being kidnapped.

This is somewhat false. Not everything was legal, such as the beer hall psuch. And the bad things that were legal were only legal in the German legal system. International law still made them illegal.

yep. This is also why as much as liberals love to helm his anarchist praxis as the ones 🇺🇲 should only uphold, MLKJr wasn't your comrade. He was ours.